[for Marcus]

[fifthbeatle]

Sam no-showed to their hang yesterday. Today, texts to his phone won't go through. Lisbeth's, either.

Viktor knows. He has to see it for himself.

He walks, giving himself ample time to talk himself out of believing it's true. What are the odds they'd disappear together? Surely he'll walk into the bunker and look up into Lisbeth's camera, and he'll be let in.

But in his bones, he knows well before he can see the door open wide. When he looks up at the camera, he can feel that there's no one on the other side.

A wicked wind whips up. Viktor swaths himself in one last whisp of denial to soothe away the storm as he descends to the bunker below. Someone else is down there. He can feel it.

"Sam?" he calls, his voice small.

Comments

[pushbackthedarkness]

“No,” Marcus calls back, voice drenched in grief. He’s a man of strong emotions, rage and love especially potent, and he had loved Sam as one loves a brother, had found in him a partner when it came to fighting back the darkness, an equal in exorcisms and demons. Of all the people Marcus has loved in his life, and there have been more than one might expect for a former priest, Sam had been unique.

“It’s Marcus,” he adds a moment later, as Viktor descends.

Marcus is sitting at the table, fingers resting lightly on top of one of Sam’s notebooks. He hasn’t opened it, he doesn’t want to, already knows what a lot of the notes say. It’s Betty’s exorcism. The case that has drawn them together, that had seen them fight side by side, each with their own strength, buttressing the other.

[fifthbeatle]

Low luminescence surges below Viktor's skin. That is a no slipping toward darkness, thick as the veil of it he climbs down the stairs. He doesn't recognize the voice right away. He doesn't want to believe it.

For the first time, Viktor is not happy to see Marcus. He tells himself to avert his gaze, but he can't. The time for hiding from the truth has long since passed.

His eyes line with tears before he can ask what he already knows. All that comes out is a quiet, "did he...?"

[pushbackthedarkness]

"They're gone," he says. "Both of them."

When one lives in Darrow long enough, one tends to be able to tell the difference between friends heading off for a camping trip in the woods and friends being gone. The bunker feels different. The cameras feel lonely, as if no one is seeing the other side. If Lisbeth is gone, too, then no one is.

She would be here if she was left behind, he thinks. Or he'd see the evidence of her having been here already.

[fifthbeatle]

Viktor's ass hits the nearby chair with unexplainable force. The floor and walls shake, a faint, single ripple of metaphysical grief. He doesn't have the energy to hurt himself over the loss of control. Sam and Lisbeth are gone.

He cries and doesn't stop himself. If there's a corresponding weather pattern, they wouldn't know. The bunker is a fortress of protection from all elements.

Marcus, Sabrina and he turned themselves inside out cramming Sam's soul back into his body. Viktor is lucky to have the company he does. Someone who understands. When he cries softly, "I'm so sorry," that is what he means.

[pushbackthedarkness]

Viktor has chosen a chair close enough that Marcus can reach out to touch him, just lightly, fingertips against the back of his hand. There's something deeply powerful in Viktor, he's known that at least since they'd gone out to West Isle, perhaps before, and he doesn't know the details, but he doesn't need to either. What he knows, right now, is that a friend is gone, and another friend is hurting.

That grief can be shared. He isn't afraid of that shake of the walls.

"I know," he answers simply.

[fifthbeatle]

The comfort offered is taken eagerly. Viktor flips his hand to squeeze Marcus' fingers back. When he's still crying after a few minutes, a quick spark of panic flights up in his belly. A little embarrassed, he knows he has to keep an eye on his grief, to remind himself it's all bearable. No need to end the world about it. What's the antidote to the apocalypse?

Connection. Honesty. Community. Viktor finds Marcus' gaze. He opens his mouth before he knows what might come out. "I thought he'd always be here." Stupid, sure -- but Viktor knows better than to underestimate the sweeping power of the lies people tell themselves to survive.

[pushbackthedarkness]

Marcus, on the other hand, hadn't. He's been here longer than most, though not as long as Neil, and because of this, Marcus has seen so many come and go. He's loved so many people who are no longer here and he worries, often, that he'll be one of the few left.

"I tried to prepare for the inevitable and..." He laughs sadly and shrugs. "That never really works, does it?"

You can never be prepared for loss, no matter what you do.

[fifthbeatle]

No, Viktor figures it does not. The feeling inside him is restless and rude. Half of him wants to start smashing shit, bring Marcus to safety and crumble the walls to ash. The rest of him can't bear to part with the only things they have left of Sam's. The bunker. Everything in it.

Instead, he crosses to the liquor cabinet. He bypasses the cheap stuff and goes for the better shit. Less discerning with the receptacles, he returns with two mismatched cups and a fancy bottle and pours generous portions into both cups.

"I guess this is the closest thing to a goodbye we're gonna get."

[pushbackthedarkness]

Marcus doesn't drink as much these days, keeping alcohol out of the house for Dan's sake, and preferring not to drink when they're out together. Dan has never asked that of him and certainly won't fault him for this, given everything.

He takes one of the cup and lifts it slightly.

"I think so," he agrees.

[fifthbeatle]

Viktor lifts his glass. "To Sam and Lisbeth. Give 'em hell, wherever you are." He downs about half the drink quickly. His toast is so feeble it's embarrassing, but he felt like he had to say something.

No grimace for the burn, only another tear that slips past his defenses. He wipes it away quickly.

Viktor finds himself saying, "I -- hurt someone. A couple of guys were coming after me. I wasn't in control of my powers. Sam saved me. He hid me from the cops." A pause, then with a laugh of bitter amusement, "Lisbeth wiped the security tapes."

That was Sam and Lisbeth all over: kind in the face of cruelty. Cruel in the face of adversity. Viktor loves them to bits -- and now they're gone.

[pushbackthedarkness]

"That sounds just like them," he agrees, smiling down at his glass. "I met Sam... seven years ago. He was hunting a demon and I was in the right place at the right time to witness it."

Marcus pauses, his smile fading. "We were friends, but I think... we became brothers. Before Darrow, I had a partner. I couldn't trust him, he was too self-involved, too certain he knew best, even when he'd only been doing the job for a few months, the same job I've been doing since I was twelve years old. With Sam, I found a partner I could trust with my safety, my life."

He pauses again for a longer time. "I was able to trust him with my soul. Sam brought me back from something I thought might kill me."

[fifthbeatle]

Another couple of tears drop onto Viktor's cheeks. It's hard to imagine Marcus in need, especially since he'd been so instrumental in the rejoining of Sam and his soul. Sam helped Marcus first. Now that Sam's gone...

Viktor stuffs down the rest of the drink and sets it back down too carefully. He would love to be miles away from this place, to lay the memory of Sam to rest with the last of his good whiskey. Marcus doesn't need him. He has his own support. What would it matter if he let this be the last thing he buries? Better than having to watch this Sam-shaped hole burn away inside of him.

Viktor's voice is so small when he asks, "what do we do now?"

[pushbackthedarkness]

"I don't know," Marcus answers, then smiles very slightly. "I haven't the slightest idea. We sit here for a little while tonight, we drink together, keep each other company. At some point in the next few weeks, we should maybe take an inventory of what's down here."

But not now. He doesn't have it in him, he doubts Viktor does either. His energy simply isn't there.

[fifthbeatle]

A wet laugh, half-sob from Viktor. There is something about hearing someone else admit they're as lost as he is that eases his panic. He nods. Company. Alcohol. A final evening in the bunker with someone he respects, someone who understands.

"Inventory." He barely realizes he's said it. The word bounces around in his brain a bit, an echo with a pull. He's suddenly on his feet.

"There's gotta be something here. Like a will -- maybe a letter." Viktor thinks -- really fucking thinks. His eye lands on the first book Sam ever let him borrow. Nothing, but in that row, he does find an envelope. It's heavier than he anticipated. A key falls onto the floor -- a big fucker with a large Chevy logo. Nearly trembling fingers reach into the fold and grab a piece of paper. Viktor reads it, then he passes it to Marcus.

It doesn't say much but has a brief message of affection and a few parting wishes. The Impala is Viktor's. Viktor watches Marcus' face closely as he reads.

[pushbackthedarkness]

Marcus reads the letter, one he’s not at all surprised Viktor has found, because it’s just like Sam to have covered all his bases.

The car is Viktor’s. The bunker keys are left to him, the bunker itself in the care of himself and Sabrina. That makes sense, he thinks, to keep everyone safe. God only knows what Sam has down here.

“Of course he was prepared,” he says when he looks up at Viktor again.

[fifthbeatle]

A truly unwelcome tear slips down Viktor's cheek. He swipes it away quickly, well-practiced.

If Sam isn't here to be prepared, who is meant to do it in his absence? Is that what inheriting the bunker and his car means? That it's packaged with a larger responsibility? And if there are dangerous things in the bunker, what sort of maintenance would they require in Sam's absence?

From the look in his eyes, Marcus is thinking about it, too.

"Are there things that need to be... contained down here?"

[pushbackthedarkness]

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Marcus says. “There could be. Sam was careful about wanting to keep anything truly dangerous out of the hands of someone who might use it, intentionally or not.”

He pauses, considering, then says, “I’ll bring Sabrina down. She’ll be able to help us out with that, both with finding anything dangerous and containing it.”

That’s what Sam would want from them. To keep Darrow and themselves safe.