exorkismos | open / heaven created a miracle

They're stuck here, slumped on the floor, staring eye to eye like kids. She hangs her head. "No I'm not. I'm here, aren't I?"

She stares at him, and he's finally talking straight with her and not trying to attack, so she listens. They're not the same; she's worse.

Her answer is immediate. "Of course I believe in God." She holds out her hands to the room around them, as if the existence of a higher power is evident in the O'Neil's attic. In the dark recesses of her mind, she thinks she hears laughter. "I won't ask if you do. Never figured you were a fucking zealot."

Marcus snorts, shakes his head. "Well," he mutters, "ain't like I went into the priesthood for the pay." Not like he really had a choice in the matter. He swallows, and he says, "Did my first exorcism at the age of twelve. At the moment, my hands are all that God's got to work with."

Careful, not looking away from her, he takes one hand off her shoulder and opens up his Bible. Feeling his way through the pages. There's a folded corner he's trying to find. "I know I ain't exactly given you any reason to trust me. And I know at the moment there's something in your head making all that worse, right? Making you angry, making it so you can't focus."

"Oh, god, you were in a cult." She drags a hand down over her face, genuinely sorrowful for a moment. How did she not see it? How did she miss something like this. It makes her next comment more tired than angry. "You may not have noticed, but that's always how I am, Marcus. Default setting. Before the age of twelve."

That actually throws Marcus, makes him blink and start back a little: "Catholic Church, same as you," he says, almost offended.

Thrown enough to be a little snappy, he says, "This is what they do. Take the path of least resistance. Is burning up under that saint's medal you've got on default, too?"

She thinks they means the Church and she looks up, confused why he's going on about her metal again (it hurts, it hurts, she's not taking it off). "Stop making excuses for them. Church is fucking huge, if you haven't noticed. Making a kid do a fucking exorcism-- I don't care if it was 'real' or not, that's a cult. A sect, if you want, whatever, it's a cult sect. Taking fucking twelve-year-olds isn't the path of least resistance?"

As she talks, as she tries to logic her way through this, her hand reaches for her collarbone, hovering there. She notices it almost belatedly and moves it back to the floor, the fingers balling into ugly fists.

"What are you — " He's vaguely aware they're talking at cross-purposes, and that she's not making sense. The Church is a big, ancient machine for gnawing up people and spitting them out appropriately holy. The Church is different from God. It's still not a cult, it's still the Church, it's still something like family. He shakes his head. "Not the point. Church or no Church, I'm telling you I know what I'm doing."

He catches the movement of her hand, looks back to her. "What's your explanation for how your neck feels right now, huh?"

"You're telling me something really fucked up happened to you when you were little. You-" But his question is a good one, she has to credit that. She doesn't like the feeling on her neck, and she hates that she knows the source of it.

She reaches down from the metal, slipping it out of her shirt to let the pendant hang there. Saint Margaret, who killed a dragon like Saint George, so her confirmation name would match Luke's, because at the time all they cared about was fighting fantasy monsters in the back yard with sticks.

She watches the skin of her fingers begin to blister under the metal.

"I always knew I was going to Hell," she says, a little sad, maybe even dreamy. She doesn't share this shit with other people. "I just didn't think- Didn't know it would start like this."

"It doesn't," Marcus says. His hand at her shoulder digs in. She's bony and too lean and he can't look much longer at her blistering fingers. Angry — not at her, but angry all he same — he tells her, "You ain't going to Hell. Not on my goddamn watch, you understand me? Listen. Listen, I can stop this. Whatever you think of me, I can stop this."

He's found the page. His eyes flick down. "Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, 'He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.'" Looking up: "Say it. Come on. Call and response. 'He is my refuge and my fortress...'"

Adamantly, "You can't pray away being a murder-aah-" and then she crumples to the floor, as if struck. Which is weird, because she never lets herself fall in a fight if she can help it, and she especially doesn't let herself cry out. Matt and Dad used to make fun of her for it, every time she squealed or cried, said it was a girly thing, and she stopped as soon as she could, and now- "That fucking hurts, stop. What's wrong with me? This doesn't happen..."

She doesn't let herself look at him, suddenly fascinated by the dusty grains of wood in the floorboards. Her medal hangs from her neck, no longer pressed to her chest by her shirt, though the metal keeping it around her neck still blisters at her skin.

The only response Marcus gives to the admission of murder is a flicker of his eyebrows.

Later. He'll address that later. More important things right now. "I know, duck. I know. It ain't you I'm trying to hurt, it's what's sitting in the back of your skull. Say it after me, Joan, 'He is my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust.' You believe that, don't you?"

Does she believe in God? Of course. Does she believe God loves her? Certainly. Does she believe that means He'll help her in any way in her life? Maybe, sometimes. Does she trust Him? Certainly not.

But that's clearly too complex a conversation to have with someone who grew up in a cult. She thinks she can hear laughter in her head. A beautiful woman is sitting next to Marcus, laughing her ass off. Oh, fuck, this is really-

She tries to say the fucking words, struggling with every syllable. "He is my ref-refuge a-ahh-and my fortress, my G-fuckyougoddammit-God in who I t-" And then it breaks off into nothing as Joan's body crumples, curling into the fetal position, twitching and growling.

Her hands grab at the medal, snapping the chain before flinging it toward Marcus' head.

The words that come out of Joan's mouth are sing-song light, too feminine and sweet to be Joan's by half. The tenor of her voice has changed, light and airy. Almost too much so, a sugary quality one could choke on. Marcus may find it familiar. "Good luck with saving this lost little lamb. A murdering whore who hates God? You pick excellent company." The laughter that comes out of Joan's mouth is chittering and childlike.

The medal catches Marcus in the cheek though he ducks, makes him flinch and hiss, but he snatches it from the floor anyway. She'll want it back.

The thing talking in Joan's voice without Joan's inflection makes his stomach tip with guilt and anger. He's done this. He's done this to her.

But he's going to make it right. "Yeah," he says, voice rough. "Yeah, I do." Medal in his palm, he snatches her wrist, pressing the metal against her skin. "You're desperate. You jumped into her because you were barely holding onto Daniel. If you were clever, you wouldn't risk getting on the wrong side of both of us." He grips tight, feeling the metal heat up and the bones in her wrist grind, and starts up his psalm again in a hiss: "Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his feathers and under his wings you will find refuge — "

"It's true, it's true," the voice coming from Joan's mouth giggles with it, melodious and sickly-sweet. "Daniel was such a pretty boy, and I like those, but it never sticks. Saving himself for marriage, never had a violent thought in his life. This one, though, I could make a home out of--" And then she hisses and writhes, trying to pull away from Marcus' grasp.

A light breeze passes through the still-open window to their backs. With considerable strength, the creature wretches herself back, cursing in an ancient tongue. She begins skittering toward the window, more reptilian in movement than human.

She wrenches away so hard that pain shoots up Marcus' forearm, but the snarl that escapes his lips is more fury than agony: "Shit!" Idiot, he curses himself. He should have closed the window. Blocked it off somehow. He dives for her, trying to grab her around the waist and wrestle her down, hissing in her ear:

"His faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness — leave her!"

She rolls and kicks, and Joan's proclivity for heavy boots makes that a painful thing to connect with, aimed at his stomach as it is. Regardless of whether it connects, something shifts in Joan's body, and she slams her head down onto the floor. Her head comes up again, and again she slams it down. This time, blood blooms on her forehead, a little trickle from the force.

She slumps to the side, and her voice is tired, not sweet or amused or joking. "The- the God stuff won't work. Just kill me, alright? It's not going to change anything."

"Joan — " It's a wheeze, she caught him right in the diaphragm, he has to catch his breath. One hand scoops under her head to try and stop her from hitting it again. "Shhh. You ain't dying today. C'mon, you're giving up like that? I don't think so." He tries for a laugh, but it comes out stricken and he has to swallow hard.

Wiping the blood away from her forehead with his sleeve, he murmurs, "A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you."

He's being... gentle? She doesn't deserve that. If she had the energy, she'd squirm from his touch, but the effort of keeping that thing down is immensely draining.

She winces at his words, but only a little. "I'm gonna hurt you if this keeps going," she says, quietly. "I'm sick of hurting people I- who're important to me." Oh, fuck, Marcus is smart, he'll catch that and he'll misinterpret it and-

The creature bubbles up in her throat, laughing sweetly. "She thinks of you as her brother. Isn't that sweet?"

Like she's the only one sick of hurting people. Marcus grimaces, shakes his head, opens his mouth to explain: this is his fault, so he'll fix it. He'd fix it either way. He hasn't died yet, that's a pretty good track record.

Then the demon comes out again, all sugary giggles. Marcus stumbles over the next through words of his psalm, startled. Demons lie, but that's a strangely specific lie to tell. "Poor her, then," he manages, brusque, before he carries on: "You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked..."

If it's true, it's unexpected. No one should try to be any kind of family with him. Not after what he did to the family he grew up in.

She writhes and thrashes on the floor, still giggling, as she counts on her fingers. "One beat her, one let her be beaten, one hid so she could take his beatings. And then he died because she wasn't paying attention, and she went mad, and now she's mine."

She uses Joan's body to surge up, grabbing at Marcus' neck, trying to strangle.

Oh. That kind of family. Marcus' heart swoops downwards, panic lighting in his eyes a moment: is that what he thinks of her? Is he so bad?

He's thrown enough that it's easy for the thing wearing Joan to get her fingers tight about his neck. He tries to cry out by the noise is choked, and then he's scrabbling furiously at her wrists, the St Margaret's medal still in hand.

That sends the creature screaming, a wholly unhuman sound. Birds outside shriek and take flight, all the louder for the open window. It bolts, scrabbling on all fours, to crawl out and away.

Marcus scrambles after her, but she gets out of the window quick and agile as a lizard scuttling off into a dark corner. He growls and scoops his Bible into his bag, hoists the bag on his shoulder and puts the medal in his pocket, all as he's clambering out of the window himself, trying to catch sight of her.

But she's fast, and the body she's wearing is so strong and quick, a lovely acquisition after Daniel's idiocy, she disappears down an alleyway, lost in the street.

It takes hours for Joan to claw control back. During that time, the creature in her head has her holed up in a park, hissing in the mud like an animal, but Joan manages it, spitting curses the whole time. Everyone always said she was stubborn as she was stupid. Looks like now that's finally going to bear some fucking fruit.

The journey back to the motel is slow and painful, fighting against her own body, her own thoughts. She thinks she sees a pattern, but it changes, switching. It's a long fucking process, during which she does some stupid fucking shit to see what works. Beating her head into a wall, dragging herself along the ground, clawing at her own face. She thinks she has a broken finger, but she can't tell which one. When she tries to look at her hands, all she sees is snakes.

She collapses at the motel door, finally, scratching at it plaintively, hoping stupidly that Marcus would have returned home. He probably won't have. This is probably all for nothing. She should have thrown herself off a bridge when she had the chance.

She's fast and strong and young and Marcus feels older than he has in a long time when he falls the last few feet onto the ground outside and realises he has no idea where she's gone.

"Fuck," he hisses, staggering up and casting around. He picks a direction at random because at least then he's moving, at least then he can ask, it's not like Joan's not distinctive: tall girl with red hair, have you seen her? But no one wants to talk to him and no wonder. He hasn't showered in a while, there's a smear of greenish bile on his shirt, and he's still sporting bruises. A bump at his temple is starting to swell where Joan smacked her head into his.

Another person backs away from him before he can even finish describing Joan and he hisses, "Alright, sodding run then, you piece of shit," and the stranger actually does, breaks into a flinchy little half-jog to get away from him. Marcus sags against the nearest wall, then smacks the heel of his hand into it. "Shit," he says, and turns to slide down it, back to the wall. Eyes closed. "Shit, shit, shit."

Joan shouldn't have been there. It's his fault she was. It's his fault: he drew her in, he ignored all the good reasons to leave her behind, all because he wanted a little bit of companionship. He sniffs, wipes his eyes with the back of his hand and tries to think. This isn't the first time a possessed person has escaped. He knows what to do in situations like this. There's a mental checklist he can run down: set up a method of listening into police scanners, watch for disturbances in wildlife, alert Bennett. He should focus on that.

It feels counter-intuitive to head back to the motel, so he puts it off as long as he can: picks up four five-hour energy drinks discount because they're nearly past their shelf life, picks up the radio he needs to tap into police chatter. Then there's nothing else he can do but go back, so he makes himself do it. He needs a base, and he also needs to eat. There's a box of protein bars squirrelled jealously away under his bed. And there are Joan's guns, too. It won't come to that, of course. But if he was Joan, and he was possessed, and he got control — even for a moment — he'd head towards the car and the guns and the safe place with a lockable door.

So he's been in the motel for a while, listening into police radio and waiting for Bennett to call him back with more information, feeling sick with guilt and caffeine, when he hears the thud outside the door. His head snaps up, and he pulls the cheap earbuds out of his ears, throws them aside.

Nails on wood.

There's a spyhole: he swallows his urge to throw open the door and looks through it, and hisses his breath out. Does a quick assessment of the room. The windows are bolted but could easily be broken. The door can be double-locked but again, could be smashed through with enough force. The beds have headboards that will work with restraints. Joan's guns are in the corner of the room, but unloaded, her ammo now hidden in Marcus' bag. On the list of people Marcus doesn't trust with loaded firearms right now, himself, Joan and the demon inside Joan are right at the top.

He opens the door and scoops her up pieta-style, wincing hard as his back protests. She looks like hell, but a strange bit of vindictive, vindicated pride in her stirs: of course she managed to get back here. The demon in her has no idea what it's taken on.

"Back for your engine?" he says, kicking the door shut behind them both. "Talk to me, Joan."

Joan is an idiot, and allows herself some comfort because of it, pressing her bloody, mottled face into Marcus' shirt. He smells like stale sweat and cheap coffee, but he's her friend and that's all that matters. The creature in her roils at the thought, cackling and mocking, but she can ignore that.

She can ignore that for now.

"I'm sorry," she murmurs. Because Marcus is wrong; this is her fault entirely. In a different situation, she'd be angry, vindictive, defensive. But it feels like her life is rapidly coming to its end, and she needs to make her peace with that, and tie up all the loose ends she can find. She keeps holding onto Marcus even if he tries to let her go, but her placement is strategic, face pressed into his shirt and carefully away from his jugular. "I'm sorry. Should've asked, I should've- f-figured it out myself. Should've noticed."

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