Moon Knight Shorts

In the Day They Give Me Such a Fright

It's a rare morning that Steven went to bed, and woke up still in his body. Marc has gotten better at communicating, but more often than not, he has business to take care of during the day. Now that Steven doesn't even work at the museum anymore, he doesn't have much of a choice but to let Marc front and do what he must to provide for the system. They've all found that it's easier, in the long run, to let each other come and go as they please anyway. But right now, he's in his body and no one seems to be waiting in his mind to make commentary on his life or try to take over. Now, he gets to enjoy laying next to you with no impending threats waiting like a piano on a rope above his head.

You're still asleep, so he grabs his phone to check the news and more than likely, fall down some historical rabbit hole on the internet. Every once in a while, he'll glance over the top of his phone to watch you for a moment before going back to his reading. He's immersed in a particularly exciting article about a new discovery archaeologists are working on in Egypt, when he hears you whimper. He locks his phone, expecting to coax you out of a nightmare, but when he sets it down, your eyes are wide open.

"Darling? Are you alright?" He props himself up on his elbow to get a better look at you, but you still aren't moving. It strikes panic into him, going from such a peaceful morning to this, for a moment, he thinks you're dead. The moment he thinks that, Marc and Jake are in his mindscape demanding to know what's going on. When they see the state of you through Steven's worried eyes, they start bickering about what to do. It isn't helping anything. 'I need you two to shut the fuck up if you don't have anything helpful to add.' Steven yells over them in his mind. It at least quiets them long enough for him to focus on you.

—0—

When you wake up, the morning light streaming through the window, warming the bed, and the weight of your boyfriend— whoever happens to be fronting today— do nothing to calm you. There's anxiety pricking at your palms the moment you open your eyes. It only gets worse the more you try to move, your bones feeling like they're made of led, your muscles useless. It's an effort to breathe, not made easier by the fact that the anxiety you woke with morphs into a deeper panic by the second. You can't turn to look at your boyfriend, but you can feel him shifting, so he should wake soon if he's not already. You try to tell yourself that this will pass, that you'll be able to move in no time, all you need to do is relax.

You hear it before you see it. It starts with a grating buzzing sound. If your nerves weren't already shot, this would be sending its own pangs of adrenaline through your chest and muscles. Then, at the foot of your bed, you see it. Despite the morning light, it's made of shadow, hard to make out through your bleary eyes. You can't see a face in the cloak-like shape, but you can feel the weight of eyes on you. A deep-set instinct tells you that this figure is the cause of your current state, an intentional hindrance so it can wreak its havoc. As of now, that means letting you lay there, immobile, knowing you're at the mercy of a merciless being. It's like it chose a day when your mercenary boyfriend is in bed with you on purpose. A statement you hear whispered in your ear in a voice like grinding stones, the ghost of a breath against your neck to prove it's real. He can't save you. A hand grasps your ankle, fingers spindly like a spider's legs, but cold and unrelenting. In the same way that you knew this thing was the cause of your paralysis, you know in your gut that the arachnid vice on your ankle is coming from the cloaked figure, though it still stands, unmoving in your line of sight. All you can do is whimper, unsure if the sound made it past your throat with that perpetual buzzing covering the room in disconcerting white noise.

You feel Marc or Steven— less likely Jake— shift beside you. "Darling?" Steven's accent, his soft voice cuts through the buzzing for a moment. You know he's still talking— you can hear his voice beside you— but the buzzing grows louder like it's trying to drown out any lifeline Steven is throwing you.