A God's Bargain (EgyptianGod!Brothers and Reader)

Chapter 17

What the hell was going on?

"Need me to repeat the question?" Trent asked again, taking a sip from his mug which encouraged me to do the same. I merely nodded after swallowing.

With a laugh, he cleared his throat, "With the expedition over for Mexico, where do you think they'll send us next?"

Mexico? I thought we had finished that dig before last year. "I'm not sure. Maybe somewhere in the Middle East? There are still a lot of ruins that need documenting."

"I'm hoping we go back to Egypt."

"Why there?" I slightly furrowed my brow, watching Trent carefully.

"Whoa, hey. I thought you were excited about the last dig we did there?"

"I was, but out of all the places we could go, why did you mention one we've been to twice?"

His confused look fell into resignation with a sigh, "Because I'm interested in my birthplace, (y/n). You're native-born here, but I'm not. I want to learn as much as I can about Egypt and its rich history."

"Right...sorry, Trent," The harsh look I had crumbled as I apologized, reaching up and scratching the back of my neck, "I just...have had a lot on my mind."

"Yeah, I've noticed."

The city's ambient noises filled the gap in conversation, allowing both of us to collect ourselves without being awkward.

"Is there...something that you wanted to talk about?" Trent lowered his mug to the table, "I'm all ears."

"It's kinda hard to talk about," I pursed my lips in thought, "Not sure if it's something that I can share."

"It's okay, (y/n). You can trust me." Something screamed in me to not listen.

Lifting the coffee mug to my lips, I tried to organize my thoughts, "The topic of going back to Egypt isn't...really tickling my fancy right now. Not that I hated it, but it's..."

Trent kept his focus on me, watching my face as I set the mug down on the table.

"If I told you that I don't want to go back because of a nightmare, would you believe me?"

"You're the one that had the nightmare, so I wouldn't know. Maybe if you talk about it then you can process what it meant? Kinda like a rubber duck to a programmer," He smiled while rubbing his thumb along the rim of his mug, "I won't have any idea what you're talking about and you'd be able to sort your thoughts."

I turned his words over and over in my head, processing them for a little bit. He sat in silence.

"Well...I had dreamt that I was back in the desert of Egypt, somewhere on the outskirts of the Suez Desert," I began to regale what I had experienced, telling him about how I had found myself in the presence of a Pharaoh that wanted me dead, of how I had met Thoth and Set. As I spoke, an unnatural tightness coiled around my upper body that froze my arms into place.

When I spoke about the figurative scar from the poisoned dagger, the same location I described began to throb in pain.

"Sounds like you've had a lot of stress building up since that expedition, (y/n)," Trent reached out and gently lay his hand over mine. His skin was cool to the touch, "Maybe you should take the day off?"

"I can't do that," I shook my head, trying to pull my hand away from him but his fingers tightened around my wrist, "Dude, let go of me."

"No, I'm taking you home," With his declaration, he stood up and yanked me from my seat. The coffee mug in front of me tipped over and splashed its contents across the metallic grated table, crashing down onto my sneakers and calves.

The hot coffee I had tasted was ice cold to the touch.

"Leave me be!" I planted my feet as firmly as I could, scratching at his hand around my wrist. Trent turned towards me with a smile, but the emotion never reached his eyes.

"You want to go home. Why resist?"

"You can't take me home, Apophis!" Screaming out his name shattered the scene playing before me like a broken mirror, shards cracking and falling around us while Trent's figure bulged and morphed into a large serpent. The reptile had me completely in its coils, tightly constricting as it hissed in displeasure.

"You dare stand up to me?"

"I will not give you anything!"

"A blissful ending would've been better for you to experience," The deity of chaos laughed as he twisted around me, forcing my legs and back to bend against their range of motion. Pain flooded my nerves as the bones and joints protested the movement, my screams muffled by the loop of tail now smothering my head.

Pushing past the agony, I mentally reached out to the knowledge that Thoth had poured into me, several spells jumping to mind as my voice lost its power. Thoth entrusted me with the knowledge while his power waned with the moon phase, Set couldn't hold Apophis off on his own, and I had to get home as I left it.

Meditate. A spell for calm; the pain ebbed away to nothing despite a blood-curdling crunch from my left leg.

Emptiness. A spell for clarity; Apophis' taunts and jeers fell to silence while my heartbeat steadied.

Dark waters. A spell for banishment; a momentary feeling of floating before I came to rest against a soft surface.

Sound re-entered my world, a gentle lapping of water on a malleable surface along with a quiet rustle of wind through reeds. Touch joined soon after, my fingertips laying on a gritty and coarse surface that wasn't too harsh, my back against a cold and wet ground. Smell, the distinct scent of river water and blood smothered my nostrils. Taste, copper and iron flooded my mouth before my stomach retched, my body quickly moving into a better position to vacate its contents.

Sight.

I was still on the riverbank where I had intended to invite Thoth into my being, the mudbank intact while the surrounding reeds provided a thick privacy screen from onlookers, the night sky completely devoid of moonlight. My fingers pressed into the hardened mud as I pushed myself up into a sitting position, wiping my lips and spitting out the foul taste of bile in my mouth. A quick look over my body ensured that the pain and breakage I had felt with Apophis hadn't affected my physical form at all, vehemently wishing to never hear those sounds again.

What ensnared my attention was the single tan feather with green edging cast aside by my turning, gently picking it up by the quill and lifting the lengthy delicate object onto my lap. It was as long as my forearm, proudly carrying the same colors of Thoth's plumage.

Fearing for the deity, I looked up and glanced around the area only to freeze in place when I locked eyes with a pair of pale yellow hues.

"Set..." His name left my lips in a whimper, fatigue crashing against my very being before I could feel myself falling over.

A pair of warm hands gently held my form, the cold of night pushed back by a warmth that felt like a kind summer wind as I barely kept my eyes open. The set-headed deity gazed down at me with a neutral expression while he lifted a hand to brush the back of a finger against my cheek.

"It is the new moon, Nebthwt. The interloping bird is gone."