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#i dont mind if my shitposts gets seen by barely anyone
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so i wrote some NATM fanfiction starring my two favorite morbid egyptian shitpost brothers ft. a very tired larry daley and also the police. and the assumption that its the franklin museum bc tbh im in PA and honestly, its definitely the franklin museum. no one gives a fck there. its in philly. no ones gonna bat an eye if a neandertal homeless lookin dude bursts into dust in the street.
it goes along with these two arts if anyones wondering
this is probably just chapter 1 but i dont know if im really gonna write more, honestly a lot of this is just vent for my own trauma so take that with a grain of salt, and dont expect this to be. good. or coherent.
content warning for CSA references and self harm, foul language.
The young pharaoh wakes up to the familiar voice of Larry Daley, letting out a few deep coughs as he clears the dust from his lungs and brushes centuries old sand from his robes. “Ahk, I know we talked about this before, but I want to make sure you’re prepared, because I think one of the mummies in the new exhibit might be. Your brother.”
“…Oh! Where are they kept, then?! I haven’t seen him in many an age!” Akhmenra leaps out of his sarcophagus, only to have Larry put a hand out to stop him in his tracks.
“…You heard me, right? Your brother. The one that you told me held a pillow over your head while you were trying to sleep.”
Akh winces, suddenly regretting telling Larry about that. “…Too dark? It happened in Egypt all the time. I’m sure he had a reason. I would have done the same thing, probably. Maybe.”
Larry levels him a patented Look, but Akh waved it off, bouncing in place. Eventually, Larry caves and leads him down the hall, only to have someone round the corner and smack directly into Larry, knocking him to the ground. The figure brushes back complicated, gold-ringed braids that end in golden bird feet, coughing and trying to speak.
“Hhhhheh. Hkhkk- hehk- hh. Hello.”
Akhmenra’s eyes widen at the sight of his brother in the flesh, bound in linens just as he himself was, scars peeking out behind braids along the back of his neck, only slightly paler than he had been in life. Even so, he still proved to be tanner than Akh, kohl smudged into the deep crows feet around his eyes only accentuating this fact.
“Hey, yeah, I’m Larry. I’m not sure we’ve met…?”
Kahmunra. He was actually here.
“…Oh. Okay. Hyeah… I remember you.” His voice is rough, but smooths out slightly the more he speaks, lisp ever present as usual. “…You tfhwarted my plans! My uh, evil plans, heh! Army of the dead and all that…”
Akhmen can’t help but run up and hug the older Egyptian, despite their history. Even when Kahmun flinches, he drags his brother to a bench and sits him down, immediately occupying the spot next to him. “How did you get here?! Do you remember anything else? Tell me everything!”
Kahmunra looks…slightly paler at that, wincing, but gesturing as he begins to describe his adventures as a wax dummy. “Honestly, it washnt that interesting. Shpent a lot of time in shtorage watching videos, mosthly.” He pulls his arm back when he’s noticed the bandages aren’t covering his wrist, so Akh only gets a glimpse, but it almost seems like his arm has…stripes. Something.
He watches as Kahmun jumps to his feet. “Hey, I heard ththhhat- that there was a groshshs- grocers nearby! Wwh why dont we go there? I hhavent eaten in centuries!”
Larry rolls his eyes, even as Akh looks rather surprised at the sudden outburst. It seems Larry is far more used to catering to the whims of every single museum member, and at this point he’s just numb to it and going through the motions. The young pharaoh, at least, has the understanding to know that Kahmun typically hates public spaces and anything that requires too much effort, and he certainly hasn’t been awake here long enough to know about anything in the immediate area.
“I suppose we could head to the Trader Joe’s before it closes. I’m pretty loaded, so. Go nuts, I guess. We should probably get you something to wear on top of that, first, though.”
Kahmunra barely gives them time to blink, making a beeline for the locker room. He’s out in under a minute, wearing sweatpants and ill-fitting sneakers with a jacket that looks far too big, hanging haphazardly over one linen covered shoulder like a fashion statement. “A’right, less’go, time waitsh for no one!”
It’s actually a shorter walk than he expects, but he’s still nervous about someone recognizing them from the museum, especially since he wasn’t given any time to change out of his own royal robes. Kahmun’s assurances that everyone assumes they’re actors is not much comfort, and he really isn’t looking forward to any sort of questions about his job at the museum even if that is the case. He’s not even sure why Kahmunra insisted on leaving the museum in the first place, and he certainly doesn’t want to ask, but Larry doesn’t seem to mind escorting both of them, so he shrugs it off.
There’s less people here than he thought. A few stragglers give him some odd glances here and there, but for the most part, it’s almost empty, and no one bothers them. He starts to worry, though, because Kahmun is simply staring blankly at a box of cereal on the shelf, looking vaguely lost. When he places a hand on his brother’s shoulder, Kah finally speaks, voice low and soft.
“I didn’t mean it, you know. I jusht. I-I didn’t mean it. Yhyou know that, right?” Akh opens his mouth to respond, but Kahmun wanders farther down the aisle like a frightened animal when Larry approaches. Akhmenra jolts slightly as Larry pulls him aside, giving him a confused look as he does so.
“Ahk, he MURDERED you. Do you really trust what he says? You don’t know he’s not lying.”
Larry’s grip on his arm is tight, almost painfully so, as he eyes Kahmun suspiciously from around the corner of the aisle. Akh can see from here that his brother is hiding behind a display case, trembling and avoiding his gaze, looking as if he wants to crawl into the shelves and die. Akh pries Larry’s fingers off of his arm, watching the pale handprint fade from his skin as blood flows back into it.
Without even blinking, Akhmenra slaps him immediately, almost as hard as he possibly can, right palm stinging painfully from the force of it. It’s the only thing that he’s really properly felt in a long time, and he hates it.
“…You don’t know what it was like. For him, or for me. You weren’t THERE. This isn’t something you could possibly contextualize! Don’t TALK to me. Don’t even LOOK at me ever again. I don’t want to see you any more.”
By the time he turns his head to check on his brother, he’s already gone. Distantly, he registers the sound of the automatic doors at the front of the store, and he bolts. This has happened before when they were alive, but never when he’s been close enough to do anything about it. He follows his brother’s footsteps almost instinctually, even when that leads him up a fire escape to the roof of a building, even when his brother is faster, even when he sees a sliver of still-lingering color in the sky, despite sunset having been an hour ago. It’s too early for this. It’s far too early for this.
He stops in his tracks. Kahmun isn’t anywhere near the edge of the roof, so… So what is he doing? Is he okay? Are things okay now? Maybe he just needed space? A million thoughts race through his head as he hesitantly approaches the roof access pillar that his brother is hiding behind. He can’t stop trembling, the residual adrenaline leaving him weak and nauseous.
The panic comes back full force as he rounds the corner. Where did Kahmun even get a knife? Who let him have a knife? Why would…Who would…The sight of blood is too much. It’s far too much. Akh finds himself wrenching the knife from Kahmun with more force than necessary, tossing it far over the edge of the building.
Kahmunrah slumps against the brick wall, eyes unfocused and lids heavy. He sobs openly.
Akhmenrah had never actually properly seen Kahmun’s arms without the linens. He desperately wraps linen around the fresh, deep gashes that bled too fast for his comfort, cutting off circulation. But below those are older scars, he sees now, thousands of them, more than he can count, raised skin like ridges along most of his arm. How long… How long had this been going on? Akh knew about the scars on his back, where the linen sat loose around his collarbone and raised, scarred flesh had always been prominent up the back of his neck. But those were not so obviously self-inflicted.
These scars, these were the kind he’d only seen before on a handful of teens that wore long sleeves in the middle of summer. The ones that strayed to the back of the group, the ones that avoided eye contact. He used to chat with them the most, because they always looked so empty and sad, but he had never…understood.
“…I know it was an accident. I know. I’m here now. It doesn’t matter any more. It never mattered. Please…Please don’t ever- You do not deserve this. Fuck, our parents deserve this, but not you. Not you. You did what you could. Please…Please don’t die. You deserve better.”
He watches his brother turn away slightly, no longer sobbing, instead letting hot tears roll down his face silently as he stares at the ground. He says nothing, and Akh almost wants to shake him to make him believe, hands still wrapped around the wound.
“…D-do you want to go to a hospital? We could- I could. I could just.”
“…I want to go back to the museum. To my sarcophhagus. I want to sleep,” Kah holds up his free hand in surrender as Akh opens his mouth, “-Just sleep. Jusht a nap. Just a quick nap. I’ll- I’ll be okay…” Kahmun laughs, and Akh swallows loudly, trembling still. “…This isn’t even the most blood I’ve ever losht. It’s barely anything. Don’t worry.”
Akhmen can’t even hold it in any more. He sets his forehead against Kahmun’s and wails. He sobs openly as he remembers all the moments in his childhood he tried to forget, tried to bury under dark humor and amusement and authority. He’d watched countless Jews beaten to death by his father’s hands when he was but a child, remembering vividly the face of one of them trying to reassure him, a five year old child, holding what was soon to be a corpse. He remembers being eight and barely being able to breathe from the inside of a pot, fingers burning from the scrapes he’s gotten trying to move the lid, falling still only when he hears pained screaming that he only dimly recognizes as his brother. He remembers the one time he finally managed to raise the lid of his prison, only to shut it again in horror as, for a brief moment, he glimpses nudity and blood through the crack of light. For all of his lifetime he’d assumed his brother was simply trying to torture him, that he’d been playing tricks on him all this time. But he knows what he saw. He knows, and he’d denied it, and he’d pretended all this time that it wasn’t real.
It’s fucking killing him. He knows, now, or maybe he had always known. Kahmun was…hiding him. From this. From whatever this was… And he had hated his brother for this all his life. He’d told people, actual people, that his brother had killed him out of malice. That it was an act of spite and hatred.
“It… It wasn’t an accident. It was never an accident. I couldn’t… I couldn’t let you live like this. I knew what the tablet was, I couldn’t…I couldn’t let you figure out how they made it. I couldn’t let you live like that. I couldn’t live with that. I couldn’t. I couldn’t look at that. I knew. I knew and I let them do it because I was selfush, I. I thought I could take it and mhmaybe this time would be… Maybe it would be differnht. But- But it isnh’t differint at all.”
Akh’s hands drop to his sides loosely. He wants Kahmun to stop talking. He wants to beg Kahmun to stop talking. He can’t handle this, he has no means of processing this, and he cannot handle this knowledge, this torment. Most of all, he desperately wants to feel some sense of betrayal, some sort of pity, anything else other than the intense shard of empathy that feels like hot knives through his blood.
“…I. I wanted to live. Not jusht…Live. I wh- to- I wanted to be okay. I wanted to be okay, just this once. I thought it would be okay if I cccould jusht. I deserved better! I deserved better and I ththought if I lived again that maybe everything wouldn’t… I thought it wouldn’t hurt. I thought everyfhing would be…Okay. I thought… I didn’t know… I…”
Please. Stop. Talking.
For the love of Ra, please stop talking. Anything. Please. Don’t let me hear this.
“…I didn’t- think. I didn’t think the tablet would wake him up. I thought he’d be dead. I thought things would be okay thhis time.”
Akh wishes he’d stayed dead. He wishes he didn’t know. He wishes they were both dead. He doesn’t know what to wish for. His brain scrambles for some semblance of hope or happy outcome or any shred of decency in the immediate future, but nothing is there. Instead, he grasps the wound again, properly wrapping it this time so, hopefully, Kahmun won’t lose any more blood.
“I knknknow you dduhn. nn. nh. srv- dhshr- you’re more worth this thhan I am. Yhhhyou deserved a life. Bhut this is the best I could do. I. I wanted you to have shshomenthing where you would be safe. Not…”
Akhmenrah frowns gently, holding up a hand. “…Kahmun. You need to stop talking. You’ve lost blood.”
“…I kknow. M’sorry bout th…The mess.” Kahmun coughs slightly, more out of embarrassment than anything else, clamping the hand of his good arm on his brother’s shoulder so he can use the leverage to pick himself up. Akh reaches a hand up weakly, as if to stop him, then lets it fall as Kah manages to stand on his own, looking none the worse for wear despite the paleness and the blood.
They both walk back to the museum in silence.
Akh’s feet stop moving when he feels an arm against his chest. When he looks up, there’s at least two police cruisers in front of the museum, and quite a few officers. Kahmun gently hooks his good arm around Akhmenra’s, tugging him backwards through the dark alleyway as slowly as he can.
“…What did you do?”
“I shsshs. I woke up- h  hh. He was right there- hhe wwh. Lifting the lid. I panicked! I ddidn. tuh. uh. I. I panicked. I- I did shay i was sorry a-ah- about the mess.”
“Blessed Amun, what the fuck, Kahmun?! We aren’t even going to jail for this! How are we going to explain this?! What’s going to happen?! What if he comes back? Is he going to come back? Do you know what’s gonna happen when they take his body away?”
Kahmunra looks at him with a joy he’s never seen.
“…I did it. We’re free.”
“No, see, Kahmun, that body is going to decintegrate as soon as the sun rises. What are the police going to do once that happens, huh? They’re gonna see it was a mummy and they’re gonna come after ALL of us!”
Looking smug, Kahmunrah smiles, pressing his tongue through the gap in his crooked front teeth.
“When the sun rishes, someone’s going to see the body’s mishsing from the museum. They’re gonna have a case file, and a bunsh of police that are going to look like they got completely trashed and stole a mummy from a museum. No one is going to look for ush, Akhi.”
The young pharaoh eyes the police warily from the shadows, ducking both of them behind the corner so they’re safely out of view. “…Alright, but I sure hope you’re right. What…What do we do until then? You’ve got a busted arm we need to hide, and we do need to get back in the museum before sunrise…”
“…I saw a CVS around here. Let’s jusht hang out there like it’s the movie Mannequin and we’re Samantha trying to seduce Andrew McCarthy into giving us free sshit.”
Akh’s laughter is almost music, and he gladly follows Kahmun.
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