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"Have any of them asked you about your hobbies?" Jake asked with a little hint of drunkenness on his cheeks. Their red nuances were blushing his skin in the most entrancing shade Clara has ever stared at. A bit of alcohol slithered in her system as well, hence why Venom was tickling more laughter out of her than usual.

They rarely ever drank - alcohol lowered the randament of the symbiote to protect his host-, however, under Jake's bad influence and with Venom's insight into just how badly Clara needed this taste of normalcy, a small amount of spirits ingestion had to be allowed. Whiskey burned their throats, giving them yet another feeling to share.

"Like fighting...?" Clara murmured. "Or my motorcycle? I don't really have time for hobbies, other than that."

"I don't believe that," he puffed instead from the cigarette he bought with some spare change Clara was pretty sure he stole by pickpocketing on their way there.

There... A bar in Morocco which transported its clients right into the vintage air of old times trapped between mosaics, concrete and wood, a chi-chi version of the prestigious capital city spots. The conglomeration of details, to their luck, dimmed away to an obscure darkness. Purple lights danced into crimson and auburn, casting their shine from two installments still working, one hidden behind a column and faintly embracing the bar, and the other making sure the karaoke stage, a step taller, remained lit for a broom sweep.

While music murmured its tunes from solitary speakers hanging up above, that worker's broom sweep was the only other noise, apart from the secrecy of words passed between the night travelers.

"Everyone's got hobbies, Clara," Jake worded her name by taking his sweet time allocating sounds to each of its five letters. "In fact, most of them are usually based on a childhood dream."

"Don't you think you're digging in a bit of a too personal area for only our second drink together?" her eyes returned their focus on the glass before herself, letting her still dirty hands play a little around its edges.

"I'm pretty sure I wanted to be a singer," Jake decided to share first. A cloud of cigarette smoke accompanied his head and helped his smile seem mysterious. His hair, slicked back previously by his many ticks involving it, was a luminous canvas for the changing lights, blurred to perfection by that irritating scent of his bad habit of smoking.

It was the ultimate irony. The wannabe singer, ruining his lungs with a vice.

But it earned Clara's attention and she was once again entranced to looking at his jawline, at his expression and the beauty of the moment on its own. "A singer... I can see that, you've got a pretty voice." Though she was curious whether that was just part of Jake's dream or more of a collective wish of his alters as well, Clara decided to swallow that 'stupid' question with a fiery gulp from her own drink.

When the click of the glass' bottom met the table, she sighed out, looking down, "I wanted to be a dancer."

"Like a ballerina or...?" Absolutely stunned by the confession, Jake didn't bother containing his open mouthed shock.

"Beats me," she shrugged. "Just used to love dancing, didn't quite get the chance to pick what style I would be into though." Guessing he'd ask the most obvious question next, Clara decided to cut to the subject with a sharp inhale and a shrug, "Money was tight after mom left us. There were other priorities back then and now's just too late."

"I don't like that," Jake shook his head firmly and that was about all it took to turn in his seat, on one of the tall chairs at the very center of the bar. He turned towards Clara and accentuated his disapproval with another short shake, messing his curls out of place, and a pout. "There's no such thing as being too late."

"Then where's your singing career, Jake Lockley?"

He looked at her like he was on the verge of despair just by hearing his full name come out of her mouth, on the wave of a sarcastic crooked grin. Overthinking was amongst his skills and all Jake understood just then was that Clara remembered their first meeting just as well as he did, for that was the only time when he told her his full name. It made him shiver in a new and adventurous excitement before actually answering with a shaky, puffed laugh, in between smoking.

"Fine, perhaps time really is the problem. I never know how little I have left to enjoy life out here," Jake kept his smile throughout his sigh, but it didn't fool Clara. She knew all about deadlines and their double edged cut into someone's being.

Instead of prying further, she moved her hazy gaze towards the stage and raised her glass up to point it and her index finger towards the lonely microphone. "You could start small, pretty sure you still have at least five more minutes to sing a little song."

"Did you just ask me to dedicate a song to you?" Jake grinned, leaning forward. Clara didn't lean back.

"You don't have to sing it for me," she said, but remained aware that in a bar close to closing, she was pretty much his only audience.

"Will you promise to dance with me once if I sing now?" Jake tilted his head, ever so lightly, though he was already sliding off his chair. There was no hope for him to ever deny her; he's said that before and just hearing her hint that she'd like to hear him sing wiped his mind clean of any other desire than satisfying her wish.

His selfless love came as a selfish prayer that he could live it all in the shortest of time.

Clara nodded for him and that spark of joy which her promise awakened in his eyes was just about enough of a reward for her as well. He got completely off the chair and turned around to skip his steps to the stage, full of energy like he didn't just finish his glass of whiskey. One glass, on the other hand, has been enough to make Clara a notch too downsy, getting her to change position at the bar in a curious way now that she had a reason to watch the stage.

"Karaoke system is off," the worker informed the man who stepped on the stage, using a rough English accent. "You didn't pay me enough to turn it back on."

"I'll just use the guitar," Jake pointed towards the instrument hidden to the side of the stage, behind the curtain, so it would only be visible to those letting their courage lead their steps up there. He also had to pull a chair, all the while mumbling some hums about how he already knew the song by heart.

Every single fugitive glance he stole at Clara couldn't have prepared him for the heart's ache when he finally settled himself behind the microphone, with a guitar in his arms and looked right into her tired eyes. She leant against the counter of the bar, elbow propped and cheek resting in the palm of her hand.

"What are you singing?" she asked, making the fact that there was that worker around fade away from Jake's world.

"Nothing too intricate," he whispered into the microphone, testing it a bit with a small cough and a tap. It would have been a bother to ask for the real music playing on those speakers to be turned down completely, meaning already that this moment was bound to be anything but perfect. Yet to him? Perfection laid on the border of being much better than nothing at all.

Clearing his throat, Jake purposefully added depth to his voice for the comedy of voicing the title, "Tennessee Whiskey by Chris Stapleton, for the woman I am trying to convince to love me the way I loved her since the first 'hello'."

Venom awakened then from the slumber of alcohol, "Did he miss the part when you told Marc we like all three of them?"

"Gee, Venom," Clara mumbled, just for Venom to hear while Jake started off the song with a bit of chord play on the guitar. "Let the man do his thing. This is the first time someone dedicates a song to me."

"Didn't know you were a romantic on purpose."

"He does play guitar well..." Though having a low-toned conversation with her symbiote, not even for a second did Clara's eyes move away from the show Jake wanted to put on for her. First she watched his hands skillfully beginning to remember how to handle the guitar, but once the lyrics started, his voice was an electrifying sensation, strong enough to bring her gaze up, helping it focus on his face.

"Used to spend my nights out in a barroom."

Jake's eyes were half closed, expression pricelessly giving life to each tonality he chose to adapt onto the words until his very voice lured Clara in, staring in awe. Perhaps she just didn't expect him to be as good as he was. She didn't expect to feel a little chill down her back.

"Liquor was the only love I've known, but you rescued me from reachin' for the bottom."

He knew he had chosen the song which would express emotions he's been echoing for her since their meeting, without making a cliche mockery of it all. A slow song, with a rusty tint and when he did open his eyes properly, he was absolutely weakened with seeing the admiration in Clara's eyes, that god-like smile on her lips.

"And brought me back from being too far gone."

Seeing her like this brought him strength and it was the purity of this power she conferred on his voice which always made Jake silently question the religious loyalty Marc holds for Khonshu. What did a God have that a moment like this would not offer?

"You're as smooth as Tennessee whiskey," Jake sang with a grin on his lips.

Clara found it impossible not to mirror it. "Cheesy bastard," she mumbled under her breath while inside of her, Venom took note that lately, while the world was falling apart, this three-in-one human has been helping his host more than he would have ever expected. He immediately considered it a sign and a confirmation: humans needed other humans too.

"You're as sweet as strawberry wine."

Just the two of them in that bar, it felt personal to hear the raw version of the song from him.

"You're as warm as a glass of brandy."

Each compliment was a love letter on its own, even if the words had been written by someone else, and Jake was simply their conduct.

"And honey, I stay stoned on your love all the time..."

It was barely the beginning of the song, yet Jake had managed to completely distract Clara from all the worries of the day, all the pain she's been through since Casablanca went wrong... however, he couldn't exactly know that right in the middle of the song, when she truthfully started enjoying the show, she'd recall a certain bicycle ride on a lonely, dark road in Mexico. Another song played back then, from another boy who wanted to prove his love.

She hated herself for thinking back at that ugly time, that horrible night in which her fate got sealed on a rather unfortunate path, but, at least she had drunk enough whiskey to get off her high chair and make sure she won't be interrupted from this moment by anything violent. Rushing in was the only language she knew of anymore and for it, Jake watched as Clara walked closer, stepped on the stage with him.

Clara Carita had him at the will of her little finger and he was aware, as much as he was proud of it.

Jake's gaze was bound to follow her around, even as she came between him and the microphone, forcing his song to fade away. He was under her spell and she was not even a magician. Just a woman he saw through the emotions of two different people and he knew, like an avid fan, that he'd be the luckiest man alive to have her close.

Her stained hand was shy in reaching out and caressing his shoulder in an upward movement until Jake could feel her fingertips tickle the side of his neck, testing him with the wonder: should he keep on singing with a cracked voice, begging for her attention, or should he stop and see what Clara was thinking by being such a temptress? He went for the middle ground between the two choices at once, keeping on singing in a gradient of fading, while just his eyes looked up at her, momentarily, before the blinks got long and he fought the urge to lean into her touch, climbing to his cheek.

There, he couldn't hold it back anymore.

Jake paused the singing, turning it into a hum with which he vibrated a little peck on her wrist.

"Keep your eyes closed," Clara had her own frequency of hums turn into soft whimpers when she felt the kiss and saw that restrained and desperate expression on Jake's face. He listened to her request, all the while turning his face to her and oh, anticipation built in his chest.

She wasn't actively making it any easier for him not to shiver, especially as she guided his hand to let the guitar down, then the warmth he felt gave away that she replaced the instrument in his lap with herself.

"Love, it's getting hard not to look-!"

Before Jake could properly complain about not being able to fully enjoy the godly experience of having Clara sit on his lap, his senses flooded and drowned him under the clashing waves of the careful and delicate kiss she painted on his lips. A masterpiece was forming between their little movements, in that brief moment before he remembered he had hands which were not doing what they were supposed to do and all through their remembrance that their duty was to worship the gift he's been bestowed.

His palms suddenly could not grasp enough of her hips, while Clara's hands couldn't get enough of that raspy feeling of his always shaved beard.

Together and chest to chest, this connection of their lips required no air to be inhaled in breaks, unless they were the hungry accidents of bumping their noses, of tilting their heads the wrong way...

"You two should get a room," the worker's voice loudly interrupted. Or so they thought they were able to hold such a power over them, because Clara didn't move more than leaning her head back in an exasperated sigh, while Jake only looked over her shoulder.

"In fact, we may actually need a room. Any recommendations?"

Luckily for them, the nearest available room to rent out -because, facing the facts, none of them wanted to go back to the bunker yet- was right above the bar and the bar worker knew the owner of the motel. A shitty place up there. All creaky, filled with mold. Clara had seen worse. Jake had too. But unlike her, he didn't want to play out his dream come true in a place which wouldn't do her justice, no matter how much-needed the kisses in the elevator, the hair grabs while stumbling through the hallway and the naughty touches while his hand fumbled with the keys to unlock the door to a room with a broken light bulb and a curtain blocking the neon red light of a advertisement from across the street, which was still lit even if the sunrise was taking over the Moroccan sky. The crimson hues accompanied them into this room rented for a night and briefly presented to them its simplicity: a dirty carpet, an old bed, a mirror on the wall behind the table.

Jake threw the keys on the table and kicked the door closed with his heel, while his hands returned to guiding Clara's hips to follow the tempo set by their desire-riddled kisses. Lips on lips, tongue over tongue. Their noses still bumped and pressed into each other, for they were both quite the careless lovers, desperate and on a limited time.

It was when her right hand sneaked between them and Jake felt her present skill of quickly undoing a belt, that he stopped the kiss and leant back.

A thought of at least a dozen failed dates at once and immediately froze her movement.

"It really hurts me that we need to pause this dream here," Jake's groan following those words spoke for itself, "but I don't want your sweetest noises to be defiled between these unworthy walls."

Her features, flustered as they were from the hammering proof that Jake knew how to handle making out from any position, showed her disappointment and agreement at the same time. The sight did not help his cause of abstinence, nor his guilt that he may be waking up a month later, when Marc or Steven would have fucked up their relationship with Clara, and Jake would have long lost his chance.

He shook his head to drive away that bad thought and to replace him with something infinitely better, he leaned his head down until his forehead touched hers. With eyes closed, he sighed and the desperate grip on her hips loosened in just an unfinished embrace.

"We're both under the influence anyhow," he added, more to convince himself.

"I can't tell if I should like him more for this or start hating him," Venom finally found the breath to sneak in a commentary amongst the bloodrush Clara underwent.

"You're right," she hummed, brushing her forehead on his, in a rather primal instinct to show affection. He smelled like home. That scent, though slightly tampered with by the cigarette he smoked, was the only true similarity between his personas which she couldn't distinguish. They all felt like the warmth she's always needed.

"But," leaning back, Clara looked at him trying to open his eyes to watch her speak, "that doesn't mean I understand why we rented a room still?"

"To sleep," Jake answered nonchalantly and on cue, the need to yawn overtook him. "I noticed you were a bit tired too. I think we could both use some sleep before the morning comes with too much trouble."

The yawn was contagious, so Clara raised her hand to cover her mouth while letting that tiredness properly settle into her body. Even though she was for the most part healed, Venom was the only one who had fed that night and without food, though she could make it a long time, she had double the chances to feel the sharp edges of fatigue. Clara's been simply too wrapped up in adrenaline to get sensations to creep in on so many different hues. But to be with someone she was already trusting too much for her own good...

Ever since the hug Steven gave her, she felt safer. Safe enough to be sleepy.

And to be intimate without any expectations whatsoever was a blessing. Jake hasn't been her first kiss, as he would have liked, and he was beyond certain the other selves would make a move more confidently and timely now. But have they been seen by Clara the way he has? Have they helped her undress to a comfortable underwear, while she did the same for him? Have they felt her hands be gentle while hours ago they killed the lights out of people's eyes?

Counting his blessing, Jake Lockley realized he was the luckiest man alive when Clara removed his shirt so slowly.

"I don't think I understand humans anymore," Venom pondered in between this infinitely safe moment and actually getting in the bed with zero care whatsoever for its state. "But I'm glad you're feeling a bit better."

Jake drew nearer to Clara, until it was natural to wrap an arm around her and nuzzle his nose against her cheek. It was Venom who quietly moved out a strand of his from Clara's back and moved the blanket first over his host and then also over Jake. The latter smiled at Venom while his hand disappeared back under her skin.

Clara let Jake rest his head on her arm, keeping him close and feeling his breath right on her skin. Inevitably, she was bound to fall asleep first, while Jake was doomed to waking up before her.

His eyes opened up four hours of sleep later, only he wasn't himself anymore, but rather the one who turned on his back and stared at the ceiling with slow blinks. Marc Spector hasn't been too aware since the disaster of Casablanca.

The bed creaked beside him and he flinched right back into full awareness looking to his side. Clara turned towards him in her sleep after he had moved his own warmth away from her.

Any panic of taking back control of his body in an odd place faded away when he watched her relaxed features, falling on both sides of a slow breathing pattern. He couldn't dare move back around towards her, as it would probably make enough noise to wake her up, but just keeping his head turned to the side was enough to reassure himself, at last, that she was real, alive and not hurt.

Clara had a dreamless, well-deserved sleep, until, in the midst of that infinite darkness which was supposed to last but a second, she gained consciousness. Behind herself, materialized in a lonesomely dark place, an imposing voice thundered a cold shiver through her buzzing body.

"Why does he care for you?"

It took her a moment to acknowledge and recognize the voice, without the capacity of going as far back as the last dream he'd infiltrated, one completely forgotten. Clara felt more exposed than ever, yet she still turned around, at which point, around Khonshu formed the simplicity of a setting: he sat on a small but imposing stone chair, covered in hieroglyphs, holding his moon staff and twisting it ever so lightly to bring to life two cracked columns and a swarm of sand which formed the ground underneath their feet, coming up to Clara's ankles.

"You are ruining a perfectly good avatar, you know."

"I'm not doing this," with a shred of consciousness, Clara did not hesitate taking the freedom of assuming this was a nightmare caused by that one time she actually saw Khonshu, mixing with her self-doubt that the relationship with Marc was a bit too good to last for as long as she needed it to. So she tried turning around. The sand solidified and kept her in place.

"This isn't exactly a dream, pest," Khonshu sighed, tiredly.

"Then where the fuck are we?" Clara struggled nonetheless to move, but her limbs were undeniably weaker all of a sudden.

"In your mind."

"And it's not a dream?"

"I interrupted your dreams."

"For?" The quickness of the exchange ended with her question, which alas, had Khonshu puffing.

"Marc refuses to kill you, even if your death would save the world," he admitted.

Clara's shock was undeniable. "You want to kill me?" A hint of betrayal sneaked in her tone, but not directioned towards Marc -who apparently already chose her over the world, something Clara could have felt rather emotional about in another setting-, yet towards Khonshu, the bastard.

"Frankly, I couldn't care less about you," the God's voice was ever louder. "I have been in your mind before, after I had Marc help me form a direct line to you..."

"The park," she mumbled, understanding why the heck Khonshu would have ever shown himself to her.

"You're not nearly as much of a danger as that worm you carry inside of you. It's him I want dead."

Clara straightened up, finally done with trying to move out of the solidified sand. Her expression drowned away its emotion and she looked with a locked jaw up at Khonshu. "Me and Venom are one. If you want him dead, you want me dead too."

"But he's not here now, is he?" Khonshu leant back in his seat, then to the side, resting his elbow on the armrest.

"What do you...?" From its midst, Clara's inquiry faded. Realization had widened her eyes, earning Khonshu's lost chuckle and satisfied nod.

"You can feel it, can't you? The silence without that worm constantly twisting your brain. This is how your everyday life could feel, Clara. Just imagine," he tiredly raised his scepter and tapped it back on the ground, to make a little more light in the dark place. "You could safely go back to dancing, follow your dream without the need for carnage at each step. You could make your sister proud."

Khonshu created illusions as easy as the moon itself, making Clara watch this life she used to dream of too, before the symbiosis got stronger.

"I can't live without Venom," she muttered, hoping to shake the images away.

"What if you could?" Now he thought he could sense a little hope. If Marc has been made weak by this love, then perhaps he could change his approach. "O.M.N.I.U.M. is bad and they will destroy the world if they're not stopped, Clara. We can stop them. Turn yourself in to them, I'll then guide Marc to their compound while they separate you and Venom. You will die, yes, but I can bring you back. Just you, just like I've always taken care of Marc, to resurrect him from his mistakes."

The visions faded and Clara's unfocused eyes finally started concentrating on Khonshu. The break in speech made him feel like this was a promising try, but as soon as she regained some composure after seeing her dream life pass before her eyes, Clara glared.

"There is no me without Venom, skull-head," Clara's voice was certain and decisive. From her very gaze, the lack of room for negotiation radiated. "He's the one who saved my life and he's the one who's been there for me through everything. So what if he eats a few bad guys? Doesn't change the fact that he's my family."

Khonshu got up and the illusion of a setting crumbled, returning all to the darkness of Clara's mind. "What is with you humans and this insufferable need for attachments? Can't you understand I am trying to save this world from calamities?"

"By breaking each mind you touch?" Clara did not lower her tone, not even as Khonshu approached her and she had to look properly upwards to keep a certain amount of eye contact with his empty orbits. However, her rhetorical question caught him off guard. She grinned, "Had time to do some reading in Casablanca, while Marc and I weren't on speaking terms... You're a God of many faces, aren't you?"

Khonshu was too shocked to speak and that caused him to retort to the simple, low growls.

"I didn't want to believe it, but this proves it. From that moment in the park, Venom and I have been arguing a bit more often. Whatever mind you touch, you start to break. Marc's included. Jake gaining consciousness when not on the surface? That was you, wasn't it? You made sure to break Marc's mind further in Casablanca, didn't you?" Question after question, Clara managed to step forward through the sand which reversed back into a soft ground. "So Steven would take over and I'd sacrifice myself for him, because you knew for a fact I love him too much for my own good. But it didn't quite go as planned, you didn't get your way, so you come here with the audacity of trying to convince me I'm better off without Venom. My Venom. You dare call him a prison, Khonshu, but at least he's my prison. And what? Am I supposed to just trust you, the God of Manipulation, to bring me back to life?"

Her laughter was a mockery Khonshu never thought he'd hear. Yet he still couldn't word a single thing.

"A piece of advice from an atheist with spite against Gods who let their followers down," Clara passed from mocking into threats. "You're lucky Marc ain't half as vengeful as you are. But I ain't Marc. And if you try to hurt me or any of him again, I'll find a way to fight you."

"You know you'd lose," Khonshu muttered, beginning to understand the extent to which love went between humans. Perhaps that is why love was thought to be a weapon for so long and why many Gods considered him lucky to be ruler over the moon, the symbol for countless lovers, throughout time. "But," Khonshu sighed out, "you're smart, I'll give you that."

"Get out of my head," Clara narrowed her eyes at him, mercilessly, though distinctly tiresome.

"Perhaps I do break minds, and I do take advantage of Marc's malleable side," Khonshu bowed his boney beak to those words. "However," he stood tall once more, "it doesn't change the selflessness of the reason behind it-" His voice had just started gradually rising when something only he could hear made him turn his head to the side.

Khonshu disappeared, let go of Clara's mind and traveled in the middle of the street where he thought he heard a voice he had long forgotten, singing under the sky she ruled. But, unseen to the masses, Khonshu woke up in the middle of a busy market, being passed by ignorant humans with brains so little they couldn't possibly understand his turmoil.

"Hath...," Khonshu almost let instinct take over to make him just call her out name, but tempering himself, he decided against wasting his breath on false hope. Egyptian Gods have long forsaken this world, they've long perished for their faded involvement and for a long time now, Khonshu had grown used to being alone on the quest for vengeful protection of these creatures they call "humans".

Then he caught the sound of a radio nearby, playing a song on two different voices, fading in and out of each other with a glitch. "Shine it on my heart," the masculine voice sang a lyric which caught Khonshu's attention, but the following verse had the tone of a woman. "So you could see the truth..."

It must have been a popular song, because the merchant the radio belonged to noticed the unstable signal and smacked the radio with the palm of his hand. Khonshu glared at the human but approached, to hear the lyrics better. "That this love I have inside is everything it seems," the womanly voice, angelic and divine, kept interrupting the song.

Another smack from the annoyed merchant made the song skin a bit to static noise.

"You would think my love was really something good," the female voice faded back into the male one, "Baby, if I could change the world..."

Khonshu has been so entranced with melancholy that not only did sadness embalm him, but it also numbened his senses, making it ever the more likely to be taken off guard when a fine, thin scarf flew right in his face. He caught it and wondered at the turquoise of it.

Down the market street, a woman was running after the scarf the wind swept away from her neck and without lingering any longer, Khonshu placed the scarf on the stand of the merchant with the radio, where it would wait for its true owner.

"Thank you," he whispered, to no one in particular, perhaps just to the scarf.

Clara's eyes opened wide and her body flinched to a sitting position, almost completely jumping out of the bed with her gasp. Her head suddenly hurt a notch too hard.

Marc was right beside her, wide awake, but Clara didn't notice him until his hand touched her bare shoulders and then she properly jumped from under the sheets, stumbling out of the bed, on her feet.

"What was that? What is happening?" Venom was dubiously just as confused as Marc. Or perhaps even more, because the human did recognize the signs of waking up from a nightmare. He got up as well, walking around the bed and watching with a bit of uncertainty how rapidly Clara's eyes moved around the room, how her hands shook, trying to anchor herself back to reality.

Finally, even before he could speak anything to her -he took his sweet time to try and find the best way to comfort someone after a nightmare, ending up deciding on how he wished he would have been comforted after his nightly terrors-, her eyes met his. “Your God better stay out of my head, Marc.” 

The roughness of her voice made the man freeze. After what peacefulness he tasted in watching her sleep in serenity, jumping right into anxiety was unexpected and frankly heartbreaking.

Clara had one look at his expression and lowered her guard. There was so much she wanted to yell in Marc's face, but every inch of pent up anger dissipated at the sight of him, turning her frustration into the crystal clear emotion that she had simply missed him. 

She didn't need anyone, of course.

Clara has decided upon that and how she'd try to get less help to avoid disappointment. But… perhaps she wanted someone in her life. A fine difference for which Marc, Steven and Jake simply had her hooked on a dangerous spell. 

"I'm sorry," she blurted out.

"No," Marc finally unfroze from his spot and stepped closer. His hands grasped her arms, his thumbs dug little circles in her skin, brushing them in a massage. "It's okay. You dreamt Khonshu?"

Worry was palpable. He was no stranger to his patron's antics… he knew that pigeon-headed bastard liked to cause nightmares and now that Clara was safe and sound, Marc shivered at the thought of Khonshu doing to her dreams what he had done to his in the past. For that single reason, his grip on her got tighter and if only that could have had a power of its own, then Marc would have made sure to keep her safe from harm for all eternity.

"Whatever he told you, don't listen to him." His very mutter was a desperate prayer. The eyes in which Clara found an annoyingly undeniable safety were begging for forgiveness wordlessly and she simply knew he still felt the guilt of the night he hadn't been there.

But, now Clara knew it wasn't his fault.

So she took his hands off her arms.

Marc's heart sank thinking that she would push him away, but instead, she held his hands close to her chest and to that… his ears turned a tint closer to red.

"He told me about what you did," Clara smiled faintly.

"So, being in love is having a palpable weakness?" Venom noticed how easily his host lowered her guard, but instead of using a judgemental tone, he almost laughed. "Humans are adorable…"

Her smile accentuated, but her gaze dropped, looking at his chin, down his neck and between his collar bones. 

A part of Marc would have felt bashful, but he knew how to cover that hint up with frank numbness and restraint. "About what exactly?" His voice was soft, though still filled with every inch of worry it held in its peak of noise.

Clara's eyes traveled back to his, "About how you chose me over saving the world? That's a very cheesy thing to do, Marc Spector, especially since we did meet less than two weeks ago."

She said that as if she hadn't decided on a whim to sacrfice herself for him that very night in Casablanca too.

A humorist line to tell him when just a second ago she's been hyperventilating about a nightmare. He hoped his presence helped her take his amusing little turn and for that though, he managed a smile too, even the beginning of a chuckle. "It feels like yesterday when you bit half my hand off."

Finally, his unmoving hands turned into her grip and held her too. He knew, for a fact, that time didn't matter much anymore… not for how he felt, which made it clear there were a thousand more drastic things he'd be willing to do for this woman without batting an eye. 

"Khonshu hasn't spoken to me since Casablanca, he was just gone," Marc admitted.

"Do you think-?!" 

Clara's faint question turned into an exclamation.

Her eyes widened.

Three gunshots filled the room with noise, early in the morning which hadn't even properly shone through the pulled drapes. 

Marc's hands slipped from her grip and his cough reflex brought out blood.

Three puncture holes shone light through the door behind him. One of the three bullets hit her too after going through his chest. But Venom healed her, while in Marc, the bullets drilled almost everything vital.

After the heart gets shredded with a bullet, something called instant death occurs. The blood pressure is unlike the standards the brain can regulate on its own to keep a steady flow and the deprivation quickly draws in an unconscious state. 

Lights go out in his eyes and Clara wakes up holding the whole weight of a corpse.

A corpse…

He was cold.

"Marc?" she asked absently. Voice echoing while her knees buckled and they met the floor with a hard impact. He fell with her and she turned his head up, tried to look at his still face.

"No…," her pathetic whimper came through and tears streamed out of Clara's eyes beyond any control she might have thought she could have. "Marc, no… please wake up. You're fine. You're…"

Looking down, she saw the blood. Loads of it.

Was this a joke? Was the universe having a laugh? Has the nightmare never stopped?

Venom felt every inch of excruciating torture going on in his host. Every thought, he heard as well, and what he gathered on the spot was that Clara thought this was Khonshu's payback, which only meant Venom hated whoever that was.

The door was broken down by O.M.N.I.U.M. soldiers, dressed all in black. They were catching up to them since Casablanca.

Marc… her wail echoed as the shadow of sorrow, that drop of gasoline, added to her fire. 

Clara looked up and Venom knew they were about to kill everyone.

author's note:    moon knight and his bad habit of dying... xD too soon?

look, maybe i sniffed some inspo from the tv show too, but in my defense, this is fine, this is going to be fineee

but the emotional wreck rn is that the moment clara let's her guard down something extremely bad happens.. ayyyy not good for her mental health, i can tell

should the next update be tomorrow or on sunday? I kinda let y'all on a cliffhanger so imma allow you to choose this time, cause i would hate me too for this cliffhanger tbh

love youuu all !!! so hyped to have you all read what i have planned for the grand finalee 💖💕

AND YES, this is kinda the last true emotional milestone, let's hang in there, lovess 😭