[tempter of the holy]

[pushbackthedarkness]

Marcus is exhausted.

He'd known, of course, he'd seen it dozens upon dozens of times in the people he's helped. He'd held them and wiped their tears and tended to their wounds and told them they just had to fight for a little while longer, so he had known, but he had never really appreciated the bone wrenching exhaustion that comes with fighting back from this side.

Every part of his body aches, but he can only feel it from a distance. Everything comes to him as if from a distance, as if he's not really part of his body at all, but something kept just slightly apart. Kept out of the way.

There are times when it feels physical, as if he's pushing back against some barrier, times when he's able to hook his fingers into something and claw to the surface, but those moments are getting more and more difficult to grasp. He feels if he could only wrap his hands around the demon's throat, he would be able to choke it out of him, but every time he tries, a horrible buzzing laugh rips from his mouth and he finds his actual hands yanking against his restraints, trying to reach his own throat.

Matthias comes to him in those moments, soothing him, pressing a cool hand to his burning forehead and Marcus wrenches away from the touch. He had been such a fool to fall for it in the first place, but he'd just felt so lost, so confused, all those memories pressing in on him, time folding over on itself in ways that should have been impossible. In the moment, it had made sense for Matthias to be there. If he was in Darrow and he had also killed Andy, then he could be here without Matthias and Matthias could still be there all at once, only he understands now none of that is true.

He didn't kill Andy. Not the man he is now. And when Matthias comes to him, eyes and voice and smile so familiar, he knows it's wrong. He's so damn ashamed of having fallen for it in the first place.

"You're not you," he hisses at Matthias in a rare moment when he can speak in his own voice. The others don't see Matthias, he knows they don't, but he can't let this stand. This thing wearing Matthias's skin. "You're not you, you don't belong here."

He knows the thing's name. If only he could get back to them properly, if only he could find a moment of awareness, he would be able to tell Sam, but he can't seem to get there. Every time he speaks the name it dissipates on the air and another lash is ripped across his back, leaving his skin bloody and raw.

Even the pain is distant, though. All Marcus knows is how tired he is. How much he just wants to close his eyes and sleep.

"Sleep, älskling," the thing wearing Matthias's face says gently. "Sleep now."

Marcus works up what little strength he has and spits in its face.

Comments

[shine_again]

Dan waits until it's relatively quiet to step inside the room, and then he finds a chair to pull near the bed. The pain and exhaustion settle over him immediately, and he lets out his breath in a horrified, shaky exhale. If it weren't for the other, dark thing in the room, Dan could have mistaken it for another place and time, might look for Azzie at the foot of the bed.

But he's not here to help anyone go gentle in that good night.

"Marcus," he says softly, and then with just the slightest pulse of the shine, he repeats himself. "Marcus. You're-- you're doing so well. You're fighting so hard. It's time to let us help."

[greatest_sin]

They were all exhausted, but no one more than Marcus, and that was why, above everything else, Sam wasn't ready to stop. Not for a break. Not to regroup. Not to give up.

The demon was tough. It liked to remind them at every turn. It was tough, and Sam could feel the dejection looming in closer. They were all tired and all looking to him, and while he knew this wouldn't end any other way than with the demon banished and Marcus alive and whole, he couldn't help but absorb a little of that doubt for himself.

The basic exorcism rites weren't working, but that much didn't surprise him. Darrow's rules, or even the rules from Marcus's world, were not his own, but luckily, Sam was adaptable. Gripped in his hand was, not a bible, but the journal he'd kept since Betty's exorcism. In it were rites he'd written himself, compiled from various books and research Lisbeth had dug up for him.

It was working. It would work. But he still needed something. He needed a name.

Unfortunately, demanding it was getting them nowhere.

"Fine," he muttered, snapping the book closed. "Take some time," he said conversationally, "Then we'll start again."

He slipped out of the safe room, leaving the heavy iron door open for the moment. Marcus was restrained and that, at least, he could trust to hold for a while.

[swerved]

It's strange, how familiar all of this is starting to feel, and strange, too, how she doesn't think it's really something to get used to. At least she doesn't have the uncertainty she did when it was her sister, and then when it was her mother. Though it's hardly better, she thinks it's gotten a little easier. About half the time, at least, that's the case, and she feels confident then that they'll be able to bring him out of this, that Marcus will be able to get through it. The other half, she's terrified. Marcus is the person she usually counts on for this sort of thing, and it isn't as if he can perform his own exorcism. She knows that, in his absence, she couldn't ask for any better people to be helping him, but it's still hard for him to be the one who's down for the count.

That fear is something she knows she can't let show when she goes into the room where Marcus is. So is the way her stomach turns at the sight of him. At least she's got all sorts of practice with this now, her composure even, arms folded over her chest. Her family has a history of kicking demons' asses, and being in a room with one, she's more impatient than afraid.

"Ready to give up yet?"

[pushbackthedarkness]

Dan had said an hour, but Marcus doesn't want to leave him there for that long. It's too much, too long, and once he's done what he needs to, he hurries back to where his body is still lying, restrained and supine. Back to where he's deeply afraid Dan may be fighting the awful thing inside of him.

Carefully, he repositions Dan's body in the chair he'd left earlier, settling him in so he won't be in danger of tumbling forward when he returns. Then Marcus pulls the chair close to the bed and reaches for his own hand.

It's a surreal experience, being outside of himself like this, looking at his body. His face is cut and bruised, his lower lip split in at least two places, beads of blood still welling in the wounds. And his eyes. His eyes are nothing like they're supposed to be, wide and orange and so angry.

"Dan," Marcus says gently in Dan's voice. "I'm here. I'm back. Let's get you out of there."

The demon in Marcus's body grins.