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Marc falls onto the bed without even vanishing the suit. He's exhausted and in pain, a long night of trying to protect people in Khonshu's name behind him. It had mostly come down to punching a lot of them in the face as always and all he wants now is to close his eyes and keep them closed.
"Marc." The last thing he wants is to talk to his god. But ignoring Khonshu has its consequences and he is not in the mood for any of them tonight.
He forces his head up, blinking into the darkness of the cheap hotel room he's staying in. They all start looking the same after a while, only thing changing is the view and which spot Khonshu has chosen to perch on.
He isn't sitting today. Rather he's standing in the middle of the room. This is not a good sign.
"My Moon Knight," Khonshu says. Marc does not miss the emphasis on the my.
He should stand up, Marc knows. Stumble towards him, face him in what he feels is the closest to worship he is able to perform. Sometimes his god wishes to see the blood he spilled for him afterwards.
Vibrant red on such bright white and his dreams nowadays are black and white and splattered with red. But he is tired tonight. He has been tired for so long now.
"Rise," Khonshu commands though. And he has leeway sometimes but not when it's a direct order. He forces his still aching body up, bloody and bruised and broken but at last made useful in his god's service for once in its worthless existence.
He stands in front Khonshu who stares down at him, expression as inscrutable as always and wonders vaguely what he sees. His Moon Knight, returning from a night of enacting justice in his god's name? Or the same man still who was bleeding out at the feet of his statue all these years ago?
And then he feels the suit suddenly shift, moving outside his command. For a moment he thinks it's disappearing but then he feels it going tight around his legs. Pulling them together mercilessly and sudden and he stumbles, unable to keep standing.
He tries to stop the fall with his hands but the bandages of the suit are still moving, wandering behind his back, tying his hands together. He can't break the fall and he lands face-first in front of his god.
Dazed he stares up at him from his place at his feet, feeling a trickle of blood run down his nose from where he hit the floor.
"Good," Khonshu says above him and Marc realizes he had done this. "Good."
He takes a step forward and now he's too close for Marc to look up at anymore. Marc gnashes his teeth, tries to force his body up.
He stops when he becomes aware it would put him into a kneeling position. He had managed to avoid this so far. And Khonshu wouldn't get it now either, at last not voluntarily. So he stays on the ground, eyes level with Khonshu's feet.
"The man," Khonshu begins and Marc wants to laugh. He should have known that one wouldn't go unpunished. "You let him go."Marc doesn't answer, focuses instead on struggling against the bandages tying his wrists together behind his back. They grow tighter, cutting into his skin. A warning but he's become too adapt at ignoring those over the years if the thing on the line was just his body.
"You failed.” I killed three others for you, Marc wants to interject. Look at my hands. Look at the blood on them. Isn't that enough?
"I ... apologize," he forces out instead, words tasting like poison on his tongue. Khonshu makes a dismissive sound. "I am not interested in your apologies, my Knight," he hisses. "I chose you to be my fist of vengeance. To bring justice to those who dare hurt all who travel under my light. I chose-,"
"Well, then maybe you have chosen wrong," it breaks out of Marc and he doesn't care, he needs to look at Khonshu. He forces his body upright and the bandages wrapped around his legs give way, only a bit, enough for him to kneel.
"I don't make wrong decisions," Khonshu says, staring down at him. "You are useful. Your failure tonight doesn't change that. It only means you have to work harder."
Marc wants to open his mouth, to argue maybe, to bitterly spit out whatever lurks inside in his head but he doesn't even know what it would be. Recount all the fucking wrongs Khonshu has done, is doing maybe.
Useful, it echoes though inside Marc's head and those ugly hungry parts of his stand at attention. "Redeem yourself," Khonshu goes on, voice booming, a derasha directed at one person only, a religion of two. "Fulfill the duties I have laid upon you."
"And what if I don't?" The words were barely spoken when his mask tightens, the bandages wrapping closer around his face. He opens his mouth to protest, yell, but the bandages just grow tighter, effectively gagging him. He wants to reach for the mask, rip it away but the wraps holding his wrists together are too tight to move, immobilizing him in place, frozen and speechless at his god's mercy.
"I did not ask for your opinion," Khonshu hisses. "I gave you an order to prove that I am not wrong in considering your worth. Your use."
And then he leans down to him, looks at Marc through hollow eyes, voice suddenly turning softer.
"And don't pretend you do not wish to be useful for me, Marc." Something hot flushes through Marc at hearing his name, shame and want mixing until he can't tell them apart once again.
Any attempt at protest, at denial is swallowed by the gag Khonshu has forced upon him. It feels like a muzzle, keeping him from both barking and biting. But then, some awful part of him whispers, doesn't that make it easier? Being unable to lie?
And he would lie, Marc realizes. Would lie if he said some part of him didn't desperately wish to be useful for something. To be useful for Khonshu. The anger boiling inside of him turns cold, into familiar disdain and contempt.
"You want what I tell you to do," Khonshu says above him and Marc wants to reach out to strangle him until he falls silent, until they both drown inside his own hate and self-loathing.
"You crave it," Khonshu continues. And Marc thinks of the night that has just passed. Faces and punches blurring together, the only thing really registering his body hurting whenever somebody else had gotten a hit in. And the red.
Blood and pain. That's all his life is. "You need it." That's all it is good for.
He has given up on struggling against the bindings, head falling down with him staring at the ground. Not looking at his god anymore as if it would stop Khonshu from seeing him. From seeing into him, behind the fake defiance, the lies, and how there's nothing underneath expect for more pain and more blood on his hands. It seems though tonight Khonshu wants him to look back at him. The bandages tighten around his throat, pulling backwards and forcing his head up. He struggles instinctively against it, realizes he is only choking himself.
Keeps doing it still. His lungs start burning as he struggles for air, black spots dancing in front of his vision and the heat inside of him boils over, a part of him even more disgusted at himself when he realizes it's arousal.
It doesn't stop him from fighting the choke hold and at least when he's hurting, he can ignore how much he hates himself for wanting it.
It's no use though, the force of the bandages is too strong and his head is roughly pulled up so he can stare up at Khonshu again. He thinks on any other night Khonshu would have let him choke himself out.
Not tonight though. He stares up at his god and wonders vaguely why he keeps fighting against this. What else is he good for but this. Muzzled like a rabid dog at his master's feet.
"Will you be of use for my mission?" Being useful in the only way he can."Do you wish to be of use for me, Marc?" For the only person who has any use for what he is.
The bandages around his mouth loosen and his voice is rough, hurting as he answers, a fitting way for what is the closest to a prayer he will get, the closest to a prayer his god demands of him.
"Yes, Khonshu," he says and his voice is quiet, broken, and yet seems to echo inside the room and his mind.
"Good," Khonshu says and there's something in his voice. Satisfaction maybe, but Marc's too exhausted to figure it out. He just wishes to rest. If doing so at his god's feet is his only option, he'll take it.
But then he suddenly feels the bandages of the suit move again. Around his throat, pulling tight once more but with nowhere to go this time. He opens his mouth and a broken low moan escapes him.
"A reward then, I think," Khonshu says above him, voice sounding vaguely amused but even worse, weirdly proud. "For what you have done in my name. What you will do in my name."
The bandages wrap tighter around his throat and he forgets how to breathe. Has the choking been incidental before, a side effect of Khonshu forcing him to look at him, now there is intent. The suit’s bandages seem to dig into his skin as they constrict his windpipe, even more pain to add to the strangling, and Marc lets out another broken moan.
The overwhelming white of Khonshu’s silhouette in front of him blurs as it becomes harder to breath and isn’t it fitting, Marc thinks, as his thoughts become hazy and unfocused. That even as black spots appear in his vision again, as his body is nothing but the vacuum inside of him, nothing but his empty lungs made of fire. That all he would see is the glaring white like moon light blocking out the peaceful rest of a dark night.
He’s hard and he’s beyond caring. His pride or whatever little of it had been left had splintered the moment he had admitted to Khonshu that he wants to be use. For him, like this, with blood on his hands and kneeling in front of his god.
“I suppose I can allow this,” Khonshu says above him and Marc hates how he almost sounds indulging. Hates more how his cock gets even harder at the words. The bandages around his wrists which have kept his hands tightly behind his back loosen and he can feel where they chafed his skin. He doesn’t give a damn about it though, all the pain does is heighten the heady arousal pulsing through him. His lungs burning with the lack of air, he reaches for his cock.
Hesitates then though. Waits.
There is a difference between what his god tells him to do and what Marc wants to do, he thinks. At least there had been. But over the years, the difference kept getting smaller and it is easier to just want what Khonshu tells him to, to just do and be as he is told to. Be useful. Be rewarded for being of use.
“Go on,” Khonshu says and only then Marc touches himself. The suit vanishes partly, leaving behind only his hard cock, the bandages wrapped around his thighs allowing him enough space to force his hand between his legs.
The contact almost does nothing at first, too overwhelming is the feeling of choking, suffocating as the bandages mercilessly keep cutting into his throat. He starts moving his hand then though and if there were any air left, he’d moan again as the contact combined with the lack of air seems to spark a fire, his burning lungs setting his entire body on fire as he keeps touching himself.
Above him Khonshu looks down and Marc stares back up at him as the bandages of the suit keep choking him. Useful, he thinks. “My knight,” Khonshu says. And at least, Marc thinks, at least this way his life might be worth something.
He spills over his hand at the thought, as the world around him turns dull, not enough air left, nothing left inside of him and he is empty, completely empty. What little he had left of himself he had given completely to Khonshu.
He falls forward, unable to keep himself upright any longer and the bandages around his throat loosen. He draws in a greedy and shaky breath, coughs loudly. It aches, and he knows there will be bruises around his neck, bright red and if Khonshu allows it, they will heal slowly enough to linger, for Marc to watch them turn purple and blue before they fade.
A collar almost, as much a reminder of his servitude, his use for his god, as the blood he spills in his name. He wishes he’d be strong enough to avoid the mirror until the bruises were gone. Just focuses on breathing instead though, tries to quell the flames still licking softly inside his lungs.
“The man,” Khonshu says above him and Marc moves into a sitting position, feeling the ache of his throat spread through his entire body. “I will find him,” Marc answers and his voice is rough, broken and low and it’s fitting he supposes. If this is his religion now, how can it be anything else but pain and ache.
“I know you will,” Khonshu says. Marc is exhausted, in more pain than at what he thought was the end of his night and he wants to sleep, just sleep forever. “That’s why I chose you.”
But his god is calling upon him. And for a moment he gives into the weakness of just wanting to be of use. Tomorrow he will hate himself for it. Tonight he closes his eyes and allows himself another deep breath at his god’s feet.
Above him Khonshu watches silently.