[for Lizbeth and Marcus]

[fifthbeatle]

They meet at night. It's only fitting. Marcus, Lizbeth and Sam all work in darkness.

Sam isn't invited, for obvious reasons.

Until now, the three of them have communicated about the issue mostly in glances. A few vague texts confirm they are on the same page, each reaching their conclusion independently.

Viktor offered Hargreeves House. He can make sure they're alone (even though he's already talked to his brothers and Five about it). It's mentioned that Marcus' place is safer. He has protections. The location is more remote. There isn't as much space to be concerned about interlopers.

As Viktor gets out of the rideshare, he sees remote is right.

It's a cute place, set right at the edge of the woods. One story, well-kept garden, a porch setup with an little table and ashtray. No one would suspect it's the home of an exorcist and his mysterious husband.

It's the perfect place to plot. If only the circumstances weren't so dire.

Marcus and Viktor exchange pleasantries. Viktor is on edge, preoccupied. When Lizbeth arrives (there was talk of going together, but they figured it was best to travel on their own in case Sam got suspicious), Marcus leads them further into the house. I see strange artifacts and sigils. Marcus opens a door and we enter a spare bedroom. The door closes. There's a beat of silence. Viktor tries for a welcoming smile, but it comes out tight and weak. Finally, he says it.

"There's something wrong with Sam." They all know, and maybe Lizbeth or Marcus has said as much out loud before, but Viktor hasn't. He looks between them. He is the least equipped to deal with this problem, but he knows he can learn -- and that these are the right people to work it out with.

Comments

[pushbackthedarkness]

There's something wrong with Sam.

Marcus has thought this very thing countless times in the past few months, over and over, unable to parse out exactly what is wrong with his friend, just knowing something is. To have someone else say it is like having someone lift a weight off his chest.

"Very wrong," he agrees, then exhales as he settles onto the edge of the bed. There's a desk in the room, an armchair, plenty of places to sit and Marcus scrubs his hands over his face as he sighs.

[a_regular_bitch]

Lisbeth wants to go stand in the road and smoke three more cigarettes before any of this goes down, or maybe take a few laps on her bike, or just beat the fucking shit out of something--

Maybe later.

Marcus and Viktor can be trusted. They'll do what they can to get Sam back, and what's more, they'll lend the kind of emotional support that makes her want to snarl like a feral cat.

She stands there, not willing to sit just yet, her tiny form drawn rigid, jaw working.

"He told me. He no longer has a soul."

[fifthbeatle]

Hargreeves Family emergencies require much more research. Very rarely do they have so much to go on.

"He what?" Viktor asks, uneasy. He begins to wonder if this investigation is actually a rescue mission.

[pushbackthedarkness]

"Shit," Marcus breathes on an exhale. Is that better or worse than possession? Worse, he has to think, because with a possession, Sam would still be in there, he would be able to fight back, and with Marcus performing the exorcism and Sam working from the inside, he has no doubt they'd be able to banish a demon in record time.

But no soul at all is something entirely different. Bigger.

"He was willing to tell you this," he says to Lisbeth. "Which means he still trusts you."

[a_regular_bitch]

"It's what it fucking sounds like," Lisbeth says sharply, and then gives Viktor a tight-jawed look of something like remorse. She huffs out a breath through her nose, trying again. "I don't know how, or exactly when. He's been pretending a long time, but it's not working. The things that make him Sam instead of anyone else, they're gone."

Maybe she can just sit down. She knows she looks like shit, eating and sleeping about as much as she had in Sweden, which is to say: not much at all.

She sits on the nearest piece of furniture, holding herself like it's all made of broken glass. Nods at Marcus. "I don't know why. But he does. We can use it."

[fifthbeatle]

However briefly annoyed, Viktor braves Lizbeth's storm with dignity and grace. He gives her a patient look, but it makes him wonder what the fuck he's doing there. All of this soul shit is out of Viktor's scope.

Jesus, is he supposed to be the muscle? He glances at Marcus. The man could probably subdue Sam without powers. But would a soulless Sam stop short of killing any of them if he were fighting for his life?

"Gone?" Viktor echoes, surprised. His chest tightens. He shifts his focus back to Marcus. "But we can get him back. Right?"

[pushbackthedarkness]

"I don't know," Marcus answers, although he's already running through options in his head, his elbows on his knees, hands folded between them. He isn't praying, though it might look like he is.

"Being without his soul is different from possession," he says. "At least, I have to assume it is. With possession, the soul is still there, the person is still fighting back, but Sam doesn't seem particularly inclined to fight anything in his current state. Then there's the matter of where his soul would have gone. Can it be destroyed? Outside of Darrow I'd have said no, but here... well, anything seems possible."

He rubs one hand over his head, against his short hair, then exhales slowly. He looks to Lisbeth. "Can I bring Sabrina into this? She might be able to find him."

[a_regular_bitch]

Knowing her Sam is not the Sam with her, knowing it for sure after so many weeks wondering, leaves Lisbeth feeling like she's lost a fucking organ. Something isn't working, in her attempts to process this conversation like a decent person. If someone were to decide she needed a guardian again, she's not sure she could dissuade them.

The words spit themselves out, all wrong as they leave her mouth. "It can't be gone from this place," she says, caught somewhere between refusal and denial. "You're his friends. You have to help me." Her voice wavers a little, and she manages to look at both Viktor and Marcus before she drops her eyes back to the floor.

"Yes," she adds, answering that last question. "Bring her in."

[fifthbeatle]

Every bone in Viktor's body aches to help; doubly so as Lizbeth seems to near a breakdown Viktor didn't think possible. Lizbeth is the toughest person he knows, full of pride and stubbornness. Asking for help can't have been easy for her.

And so, Viktor's decision paralysis melts away. He nods. "Whatever you need."

He doesn't know Sabrina well, but he knows she's powerful -- and that he, himself, works best in tandem with other powered people.

"If Sabrina can find him -- Sam's soul -- could we...put it back in?" And is there a chance Sam might not survive?

[pushbackthedarkness]

"Sabrina is capable of... a lot," Marcus says. It shouldn't work, their relationship, a former Catholic priest and exorcist, father figure to a daughter of hell, but somehow it does. He knows what she can do, the power she has, and he doesn't fear it. Not for himself.

For her. She'll do this, though. If he asks her, he knows she will.

"I can't promise anything for certain," he adds, looking to Lisbeth. "But I know she'll do anything she can."

[a_regular_bitch]

"Yeah," Lisbeth agrees, and as soon as the word leaves her mouth, a dark shadow lurches out from behind the couch and tears further into the house loudly, cat sounds on full blast.

Somewhat familiar with Sabrina and the cat-thing from a couple different sets of dire fucking circumstances, Lisbeth waits. She brings the knuckle of her thumb to her mouth and worries it with her teeth.

It's only moments later that a white-blond head pops in, and Sabrina says, "Someone call for a witch?" Said witch makes her way into the room, scooping up Salem and finding a chair on which to perch. She glances over at the rigid, frozen Lisbeth, and then at Marcus and Viktor. "Catch me up? Salem says... well. Catch me up?"

[fifthbeatle]

Alarmed, Viktor finds himself powered up. No outward burst of energy, just the faint glowing orb at his center. They've met before, as their circles overlap substantially; though, they haven't had the time to get to know each other. Now is a good a time as any. Viktor nods as he dampens the glow, a greeting that will have to do for obvious reasons.

"It's Sam. His soul is missing."

[pushbackthedarkness]

"Hi, duck," Marcus says in greeting to Sabrina, crossing to her and pressing a kiss to her hair before he gives Salem's ears a scratch. Viktor's explanation is truly the most basic and most thorough he thinks anyone can possibly give.

Sam's soul is gone. Somehow they need to put it back.

"We're not sure where it might be, though I'm willing to bet there's some connection with the door we closed in the basement of the Home. Perhaps the ley line."

[a_regular_bitch]

Lisbeth exhales, feeling something like relief as they're able to say it so she doesn't have to force it out again. She makes herself focus on the conversation even as the drumming of her fucking anxiety pounds in her veins.

It's gratifying, too, to see Sabrina snap to attention with an expression that suggests maybe she's not entirely in the dark about it all. "So that's what it is," the witch says, accepting the affection that's her due and offering a sharp nod to both Lisbeth and Viktor before she begins to pace. "I can set up a locating spell to see where his soul is now, and if I know Sam, I don't think his soul's going to resist going back in his body. Getting it in there, I have some ideas, but I don't know how much juice that's going to take."

[fifthbeatle]

Crisis mode creates an environment in which Viktor thrives, so learned from the memories he holds that he didn't live.

"I think can I help with juice," Viktor ventures. For Sabrina, he explains, "I convert soundwaves into all kinds of energy." The hypothesis is for all of them -- and it's clear he's never tried this particular brand before. "Maybe metaphysical, too."

[pushbackthedarkness]

"Suppose that leaves me and you as the physical muscle," Marcus says to Lisbeth. He's well aware of her strength, not just from Sam, but from having read the history of Darrow. Lisbeth had made the news in one particularly memorable night and Marcus has an abundance of respect for her because of it.

It feels good to have something like the start of a plan. Bringing in Sabrina was the right call, she and Viktor together can create something Marcus knows he'll never be able to even imagine.

[a_regular_bitch]

"I'd prefer not to tase him," Lisbeth says, the but I will if I must hanging in the air. "I'll be able to position him. He chose to give me the truth, and has let me live with it. I don't know what it means, but it's useful."

By one of the end tables that just happens to be stacked in books, Sabrina flips through different tomes-- tomes the most appropriate word for the leatherbound, yellowing books. "Sacred geometry is the way to go in actually re-souling him, I think. I can put something together that lets me draw on Viktor, powering the ritual. I don't know how much we'll need. I'm going to need time to set up before this goes down."

"We'll use the bunker," Lisbeth says, chewing on her thumbnail. "We can give you time." She looks up, meeting Marcus and Viktor's eyes for perhaps the first time, her own eyes ringed in sleepless nights.

[fifthbeatle]

Viktor gives a small, sad smile of acknowledgement -- Lisbeth's instructions and the sunken-in expression. He doesn't feign confidence so much as refuse to acknowledge his reservations.

"Whatever you need."

Sacred geometry? This shit 8is way out of his element. He has to trust himself, trust his friends, who know he's never done this before.

Viktor glances to Marcus, who he'd foolishly thought would be leading this somehow. Seems like better work for an exorcist than an atomic bomb.

"We're gonna find his soul. Then we're gonna, what? Hold him down and shove it back in?"
He doesn't want to ask, but someone has to. "What if it doesn't work?"