ZAGREUS NEVER RESENTED the fact that he's a ghost in Noor's life. That is to say that Noor makes him present and alive at all times, so he never felt the full blown realisation that he isn't really there.
But now he's hovering over Marc and Noor, sitting on their bench in front of Noor's workplace, screaming and trying to fistfight him anytime Noor winces. Which is a lot, because Marc is quite literally cleaning her wound.
"Zag for fuck's sake just sit down and stop yelling!" Noor ends up snapping at him.
Marc looks back and forth between her and the spot she's staring at, and figures that it's probably what he looks like when arguing with Khonshu.
"Sorry," Noor says to him. "We're not used to company, or people knowing about him." She figures that he might be one of the only people to understand it.
"No problem," he assures her. "Sorry that the dinner is just pizza."
Zagreus stares at the half-eaten pizza between them. "Yeah, not what I had in mind when he said 'Can I buy you dinner'."
Noor clears her throat. "It's fine, don't worry."
They remain silent for a moment, a little weirded out by everything. Even Zagreus stopped screaming like a soccer mum. Noor had hoped that the relationship with her soulmate would just click into place and they'd be acting like they'd known each other since... forever.
But no. It feels more like they're strangers shoved together by fate. She hopes it was for a good reason.
"So," Marc lets out, trying to start a conversation. "Greek god then?"
She looks up at him, awkward. "Yeah. You?"
He shrugs. "Egyptian god of the moon."
"Makes sense." He frowns. "The whole moon thing on your chest when you became... Whatever you became." She looks away, and back at her arm. Marc bandaged it halfway up, jaw set. "So, DID then?"
After Marc explained his and Steven's 'relationship', and what DID was, it just made sense. Noor's anxiety settled, and she scoured the internet for information while Marc was getting the pizza they're currently eating. She doesn't know who's the alter and who's the host, but she figures that it doesn't really matter. Just that her best friend and her soulmate share the same body. Not messy at all.
"And not named Maximilian Snortmonster," Marc says, and Noor goes red.
Zagreus cringes. "Second-hand embarrassment."
"Yeah, I was..." She lets out a breathy laugh. "I was having a meltdown."
He smiles a little, and her chest grows warm. "That's understandable."
She nods, Zagreus gesturing behind Marc. "Ask him about the guy who sent the jackal."
Noor sighs. She's going to get tired of that whole talking for Zagreus thing. She's never had to do it up until now. "Who was the guy that sent the jackal after us anyway?"
Marc's jaw tightens, "It doesn't matter."
"What do you mean it doesn't matt–ouch!" Marc immediately lets go of the gauze, and looks up at her in worry. "Sorry. I don't have a very high pain tolerance. D'you know, I really wish Zagreus could give me an armour too. It would save you the trouble of patching me up."
"I don't mind." Noor tries her best to hide her goofy smile. "It'll be the last time you get hurt anyway," he says, and Noor doesn't ask why, in fear of ruining the moment. He finishes the bandage, and leans back to inspect it. "Why the butterfly?"
She looks back at her arm, and the butterfly tattoo right under the bandage. "Don't hurt the butterfly," she says mechanically.
Marc doesn't get it, and she feels it's better that way, for now. "What?"
"Nothing. What did you mean, it's the last time I get hurt?" she ends up asking, more afraid of not knowing.
He shakes his head. "I'm not letting you get in the middle of this."
"I sort of agree with this," Zagreus chimes in.
He's a ghost. He can't help her if she's hurt, not without risking everything. And he won't experience the void of death again. He won't disappear again, never again.
"You," Noor says, pointing at him, "don't get a say. You can't even give me a kick ass armour or superpowers, that's on you." She turns to Marc. "And I can't believe you're one of those 'don't get close to me you'll get hurt' superheros. Well that won't work with me." She sighs, adjusts her arm before looking back at him. "'Cause you have my best mate's inside of you right now, so that's not happening." Both Zagreus and Marc stare at her. "Don't mention how wrong that sounded."
Marc seems frustrated with her, but at the same time, of course his soulmate would be headstrong and stubborn. He's not exactly patient and easy-going himself. "That guy who sent the jackal after you, he's not here to play, Noor."
"Didn't notice when the rabid dog slashed my arm. Gee here I was, thinking I could Uno reverse him."
Zagreus snorts. "Sorry."
"He wants to free the Goddess Ammit to kill billions and billions of people she deems bad, before they even do anything wrong," Marc finally lets out.
Noor processes the information at an alarmingly slow rate, but she's had three panic attacks today, so we won't judge her. "Well, I want to help even more."
Marc didn't expect that. That whole speech was meant to scare her away and keep her safe. "Why?"
She shrugs. "Well I'm stupid and petty enough to be one of those bad people and I don't want to die unless I do it myself."
Zagreus clears his throat. "Noor, that's alarming."
"Is it?" She looks back at Marc's dumbfounded face. "Oh, it is. I'm sorry, listen, what I meant was, this is concerning the whole world, so of course that would concern me."
"While the reasoning is good," Marc agrees, "I can't let you help. I made a deal with Khonshu, and I have to do this alone."
"A deal?" she echoes. "So that's how you got him as a pet?" The lights of her apartment flicker. Apparently, Khonshu didn't like that. "Zagreus literally died and then came back as... whatever he is now."
Marc frowns. "So you didn't choose to become his Avatar?"
"He calls it a Knight and no, I didn't."
"That tone hurts my feelings," Zagreus lets out, to which Noor rolls her eyes.
She stops, takes a deep breath, and tries her best to collect her thoughts. They're usually all over the place on a daily basis, but right now, it feels ten times worse. That's when she gets the sinking feeling that when Marc said he had to do it alone, it meant completely alone.
"Where does Steven fit in your narrative?" Noor asks him.
The way he looks down makes her think that she won't like his answer. And while she shares everything with Zagreus – she has to – she doesn't feel comfortable having him around if she snaps. He's been handling her mood swings for long enough.
"Zag, can you go to my bedroom and watch Love Island or something?" she asks, not looking away from Marc's stern face.
Zagreus scoffs. "You know well enough that I can't touch the remote to get the TV on!"
"Just go, Zagreus!"
He glares at her, and leaves the room, stomping, lights flickering to show his discontentment. Once he's gone, Noor immediately turns back to Marc. He's looking away.
"The deal is contingent on Steven or a potential soulmate not interfering," he finally reveals, and Noor gapes. "I'm sorry, that's just how it is."
She scoffs. "Right, so I'm 'potential soulmate' and you're going to shove Steven deep down within you for how long?" He doesn't answer. "What's this mission you're supposed to do anyway?"
He stands up, and starts to pace. Noor realises that it's because she's frustrating him. Fair enough, he's getting on her nerves. "I have to stop Harrow from resurrecting Ammit."
She figures that Harrow is the guy who sent the jackals after her and Steven. "Okay, what does that mean? You're, what, going to put a bullet in his head?" He doesn't answer, and he gets that look again, the one when she asked about Steven. "You're going to kill him?" she cries out.
"I don't have a choice, Noor!" he shouts back. "It's a means to an end."
"You say it as if you were talking about skipping dinner!" She shudders despite herself. "How many people have you killed for you to be so insensitive about it?"
The words sting, especially coming from his soulmate's mouth, but they're true. "I never said I was a good person."
Noor closes her eyes, and sighs through her nose. "Yeah, you've made the contrary abundantly clear." She snaps her eyes open. "What happens to Steven then? You ride you guys' body into battle and hope for the best, you send him into what, your consciousness' oblivion and pray that he doesn't come back up to see the massacre?" She shakes her head, scoffing. "You are so not the soulmate I wanted to have."
Marc takes a deep breath, and decides to move past her hurtful remarks. "You can't tell Steven any of this, or he won't give me the body back."
She lets out a laugh devoid of any humour. "I'll do as I damn well please, thank you very much!" She stands up too, stopping him in his pacing. "You know what, I think the soulmate's bond is wrong anyway, you cannot be my soulmate, so don't worry about the 'potential soulmate' thing getting in your way."
They have nothing in common. Worse, he's a killer, maybe a mercenary from all she knows, and her father was right, even her soulmate bond is fucked, and there's nothing salvageable about her. She'd rather reject the idea of Marc being her soulmate than admit that her father was right. If the question is asked, she'll just make up a person, one who doesn't kill others, no matter the reasons.
Marc scoffs. "Yeah well, good, because I don't think I'm your soulmate either." He stops. "Out of curiosity, why do you think that?"
"Because, Marc, I didn't expect to have a killer as a soulmate."
Fair enough, he thinks. He's brought this on himself. He should've stayed away, at least while Khonshu was still around, but then Noor and Steven were in danger, and look where that brought them. Noor is hurt, and she probably hates him. Even if he doesn't – he really doesn't. He wanted to do things right, for once, without an Egyptian god or a debt of blood to be redeemed. But he fucked up again.
"I should go, then."
Noor is hurt, but she doesn't hate Marc. She's barely met him. She expected too much, and was given the opposite of what she expected. Worse, her father was right, and that's just an awful thought on its own. She doesn't know Marc, and she's too scared that, if she does, it would just comfort her father in his opinion. She doesn't want to risk that. Not at all. Even if that means fucking up her relationship with her soulmate. Noor is aware that the reaction is over the top, but proving her father wrong in everything is what has been driving her in life, lately.
"Maybe you should."
Marc leaves. Noor regrets her choices as silence falls, and thinks about a dozen ways she could have handled it better, starting by not letting her father poison her mind, but the poison's been in her system for too long now to get it out.
Zagreus walks out of the room. "I couldn't close the door, so, you know." She doesn't answer. "That went well."
She sighs. "Yeah, it did. Perfect." She crosses her arms on her chest, wincing as she tugs on the wound. "I just really didn't picture him as my soulmate. I thought we'd get along perfectly, like I don't know. As if we'd known each other for 20 years."
He nods thoughtfully. "If it makes you feel any better, you did bicker like a couple married for 20 years." It does, a bit. "So, what do we do now?"
"Well, I know for sure that I won't listen to what a man has to say to me." Zagreus doesn't mention her father, but it's on the tip of his tongue. "So we're going to wait for Steven to call me, and then we'll join in on whatever crusade Marc's got himself into." She looks over to see Zag's suggestive expression. "And it has nothing to do with the soulmate bond, and everything to do with the fact that Steven's my friend."
Well, at least, that's what she'd like to believe.
Author's Note: I feel like you should know that in the first draft they were having a one night stand and then I really... took a 360° didn't I?