exorkismos | open / heaven created a miracle

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."

"Nah, shh. Shut up." That nervy, upset attempt at joking again, tight and tense and on the border of sniffly despite a herculean effort to grin: "How were you meant to know? Trust me, most exorcists ain't much like me. And I'd have denied it if you asked. Nah, this one's on me."

He deposits her on the bed but she's still holding on. Guilt spikes through him. "So I'll sort it out. Promise. I'll make this right. I ain't going anywhere. And neither are you."

She's not going to hell, he means; he also means she's not leaving this room. He glances to the door and tries to extract himself from her hold so that he can shut and bolt it.

She lets him go, slumping sickly onto the bed. She eyes the guns on the far dresser, and finds herself comforted by the option out, if things go poorly. She searches through the bedside table instead, scratching out a list on the complimentary stationary tablet with the complimentary stationary ballpoint.

"That's not- you don't get it. Doesn't matter right now. I-" She winces and smacks her head harshly back against the headboard, murmuring shutthefuckup under her breath before continuing. "I tried some stuff, some of your G-" Fuck. "God stuff. In the park and- highway. Nothing worked like the metal. Can you do... saints stuff?"

She folds the first piece of paper up and puts it aside; if Marcus unfolds it, he'll find a sloppily written itemised list of her possessions. The top says WILL. Everything, he'll note, goes to him, except the medal, which she notes goes to ASHFORD CEMETARY DELAWARE LUKE FLORIAN DORITY.

The next paper, she begins writing the names of saints, though it's clearly taking a serious effort. Eventually she gives up writing Saint, and then it's just a list of names, and that's much easier. Margaret, Agnes, George, Florian, Dennis, Giles. "I think these will work. I can barely fucking- can you do something with these?"

She passes the paper away quickly, like it hurts to hold. Which is to say, it does. "They're all- oh, fuck, you can guess." She smacks her head into the headboard again, as hard as she can manage.

The door slams shut. Marcus comes back to her side, takes the paper from her and nods. "Yeah," he says, and he's actually cheered by it, "yeah, I can work with this." His gaze slides to her and there's something vaguely admiring in it. He doesn't meet a lot of people who can strategise while in the first stages of possession. But then he doesn't meet a lot of people like Joan.

When she smacks her head again he winces, pockets the list, and grabs what's on the bedside table: buckled cuffs. "Easy," he warns. "Keep it up we'll end up selling half of Judith for the medical bills. Shhh now. It's gonna be alright."

Joan is nothing if not bitterly stubborn and ruthlessly pragmatic. She's at her weakest with no enemy to fight. This is... not easy, not fun, it's shameful in the worst ways and makes her crave death in a torrent she's never before felt. But at least there's a rubric to work off. She knows what to do when she has an opponent.

Still wincing, she eyes the cuffs, and rolls onto her sides so he can hook them behind her. He saw how the other kid, Daniel, was strung up, and... She's tired enough to admit to herself that it's her own vanity, but she'd rather be hogtied than laid out like some sacrifice. The vulnerability of it is too much.

"No hospitals," she says. "We're doing this your way, but if your way goes to shit, you shoot me in the fucking head." That's a lot to put on somebody, though. "Or I'll do it. I know how."

That sounds more ominous than it ought. She's never even killed somebody with a gun.

"No hospitals either way," Marcus says, but it's in the tone of a compromise, and it's only after a moment's quiet as he buckles her wrists together that he says:

"Ain't gonna come to any of that," quiet and final. No. Not a chance in hell. Maybe he should lie to make Joan feel better, promise he'll do it, but he knows he won't. Not even if he should.

"Yeah, yeah," she says, huffing tiredly. Her endurance is reaching its end for the day, and she doesn't want to go. Being lost in her own mind is one of the most sickening, powerless feelings she's ever experienced; it makes the gun feel all the more tempting.

Wait.

"Would it... want me to kill myself?" She knows it's a she, and she has some inkling of its name, even, but Joan refuses to give it such clearance and respect.

He could lie. If he said yes, maybe Joan would stop talking about it. He brings the lie to his lips and then he can't take it further.

Instead, he grips her shoulder, rolls her onto her back, and sits down by her. "It wants you to give in," he says. "So it can take over permanently. But it can't do that unless you tell it to. It'll try and trick you, and push you, but unless you say yes it can't go that far. But you ain't gonna do that, so it's gonna get mad. Then, yeah. It'll probably try to kill you. Maybe it'd want you to kill yourself."

It doesn't need a gun to end her life. It could starve her out, or snap her neck.

"It won't come to that. I'm telling you it won't."

"Okay..." All of that makes sense, to a point. Joan understands vengefully wanting something so badly that no one else could have it, coveting possessions and feeling the sickly pull of greed and envy. She knows she's not a good person. Those grooves within her soul are probably easiest for the demon to slide through.

But there's something she doesn't quite credit.

"But why does it want me?" She's useless. Even if she wasn't a horrible bitch with a rotten soul, her place in life is minimal at best, an existence barely scraped out.

Because Joan's angry and chaotic, maybe. Because she has a rich mine of things she doesn't talk about (murderer, she'd said). Because the demon was desperate and she was there.

He exhales and says, "I don't know. Opportunism. Maybe it just wanted a challenge, huh? Maybe that."

"No, that's..." it's not right. It's not the reason she needs, something to focus on, something to hold onto. She's so tired, she can feel herself fading, falling, lost in a dark little room in her heart.

The creature, the demon, the fallen angel, she has endless sources of energy. She is an eternal being, waiting and watchful. She looks up with Joan's eyes, slow and careful, trying to imitate that tiredness. She is older than the desert sand, but not a terribly good actor.

Not a terribly bad one, either. "Maybe it's... because of you? Because you weren't doing your job."

Joan's voice slips like a knife under his ribs, and Marcus twitches back, hurt and guilty: yes, perhaps it's that. Perhaps he didn't protect her well enough. But —

But Joan doesn't want to be protected. Marcus exhales, as he realises, and actually relaxes. At least he knows what to do with demons; how to act with friends is far more mysterious. His upper lip hitches up in a sneer.

"Wondered when you'd come out to play," he murmurs, getting slowly to his feet so he's no longer perched on the bed beside her. "Sure this is a good idea?"

Her laugh is cruel and high pitched. "Concerned for my welfare, priest?"

She leans forward on the bed, pulling at Joan's wrists against the cuffs. They didn't actually tie her to the bed in any meaningful way. She could use that later. For now... "The truth is, I did it because I could. So obsessed with reasons and meaning, mankind wails about it endlessly like spoilt children. You have no idea the world you miss, the true meaning, stripped from you for the sake of will and choice. God has abandoned you, too, but you never see it that way."

Marcus manages to roll his eyes so hard that his whole body gets involved, stepping back another little bit and finishing Joan's holy medal out of his pocket. He tosses it idly and catches it and says, "Yeah, yeah, you're very clever. What is that, is that from The God Delusion?"

His grin splits wider as he keeps toying with the medal. "Sort of funny, innit, how you know all about true meaning and you're still scared of a little bit of metal. Guess you ain't keen on St Margaret."

"Daniel read that book, you know. Terribly droll." She rolls her eyes right back.

And then anger flares up, and her sweet honey voice catches a scratch and hiss. Joan's face is made for frowns and scowls, and the look of rage in the demon's eyes suits her well. There's no strange dissonance, just an angry creature wearing an angry glove. "I don't fear some dead apocryphal whore. I am cursed to bleed because my cruel Father wills it. He holds a grudge and sets us upon each other like wild beasts, and now you prey upon me."

Marcus snorts, soft and furious and unimpressed. "You had your chance," he says, catching the medal and squeezing it tight in his palm. "You got greedy. And now you wander about looking for someone you can scoop the insides out of, so that you can huddle inside. You're pathetic. St Margaret, pray for us; St Agnes, pray for us; St George..."

And that certainly has an effect. She uses Joan's face to grimace and hiss, curling up on the bed. Her legs aren't secure, though, and she uses them to kick, attempting to get a good one in anywhere she can on Marcus. It's not strategic or organized, certainly not any volley Joan would ever throw; it's the attack of a cornered animal, angry and desperate.

Marcus laughs. It's not a nice sound. But he can't linger long on taunting, as much as he wants to, as much as he wants to really hurt the thing torturing his friend — there are better ways, better avenues.

And he has a job to do.

"O God, who didst grant to Saint George strength and constancy in the various torments which he sustained for our holy faith; we beseech Thee to preserve, through his intercession, our faith from wavering and doubt — "

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