Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There was a moment, during that whole thing with the demon, just before Kat clubbed her own knee, where everything paused. She’d known what she was doing and she’d do it again, a hundred times, if she had to. She doesn’t regret doing it, even with all the pain and the fact that she can never dance again, for real this time, no question. The doctors have told her she’ll probably have a limp for the rest of her life, no matter how hard she works at physical therapy. It’s worth it, to keep her father and her sister safe. But still: there’d been a sick, frozen second where she’d braced herself and held her breath and thought, fuck, this is going to hurt.

That’s what life still feels like. That second, that instant of sheer terror and dread, waiting for the hammer to drop. Kat doesn’t know why she can’t move on when she wasn’t even the one who was possessed. Why she can’t forget. Why she still can’t talk to strangers for fear they’re possessed, too. She doesn’t tell anyone. She knows it’s stupid not to talk about it, stupid to keep secrets—they told them, those priests, that demons prey on vulnerability. They find little cracks and work their way in. And Kat feels like she is only cracks. She’d been cracked already before the demon came, thanks to the accident and Julia, and now she’s worse than cracks; she’s fractured, she’s nothing but tiny splinters.

She can’t tell Mom; can’t stand the way she’d swallow hard against the double memories. She can’t tell Casey, not when her little sister is finally sleeping again, smiling again. And she can’t tell Dad, when she was such a horrible bitch to him through it all when not a single thing was ever his fault, when he’s getting better every day and she’s terrified of sending him into a tailspin with one stupid comment.

She’s going to burst, though. She’s going to disappear soon. She’s going to fall apart from the lack of sleep and the fear and the oppressive weight on her chest. So she does the only thing she can think of, goes to talk to the only people she can think of who will be able and willing to help her. The ones who can keep her safe and keep her family safe, too. She packs a bag and leaves a note for her family, cowardly and nonconfrontational.

She goes back to Chicago.

“Hey,” Marcus says, bouncing a bit on the bed. Tomás closes his eyes tighter and Marcus laughs. “Faker. I know you’re awake.”

“Do I need to be awake?” Tomás whines. He’ll deny it’s a whine, of course; he always does. But it’s a whine. Tomás will get up at any time he has to, dutifully attending to his obligations or his fitness regime. But left to his own devices, he’ll sleep as late as he possibly can. Not that that’s very late, in all honesty; neither Marcus nor Tomás are very good at sleeping these days, and if he hadn’t already known Tomás was awake, Marcus would feel bad for waking him.

“Yes,” Marcus says primly.

“For what?”

“Because I’m awake,” Marcus says, leaning down to brush his nose against Tomás’s. “And I’m dreadfully bored here without you.”

Tomás huffs, but he’s starting to smile. He still won’t open his eyes, though. “What exactly do you think I’m going to do about that?”

Marcus hums in thought. “I have a few ideas,” he murmurs a breath away from Tomás’s lips. Tomás doesn’t even open his eyes to close the distance between them, just raises his head a fraction to get to Marcus’s mouth. But that’s alright. Marcus doesn’t mind if Tomás keeps his eyes closed for this.

Later, Marcus is whistling as he steps out of the shower, stomach grumbling when he smells the eggs Tomás must be making. He dries off and ditches the towel in the bathroom, all set to walk around naked as the day he was born when Tomás comes into the bedroom and closes the door behind him.

“We have a guest,” he says lowly.

Marcus blinks. “So clothes, then?”

Tomás gives him a look that says he’s absolutely exasperating. “Yes,” he says. “It’s Verity.”

Marcus pauses from sniffing the discarded jumper he’d found on the floor. “Verity?”

“Verity,” Tomás confirms.

“What’s she doing here?” Marcus asks.

“I don’t know,” Tomás says. “She just got here and hasn’t said much. You know she likes you more than me.” Marcus isn’t so sure about that. Tomás tugs the jumper out of Marcus’s hands and points to the dresser. “This is dirty. Get a clean one.”

Marcus rolls his eyes but obliges. Tomás seems to think his new mission in life is teaching Marcus how to act like a civilized human being. It’s a trade-off of their skillsets; Marcus taught Tomás how to deal with demons, and Tomás is teaching Marcus how to deal with humans.

Marcus pulls on a faded Loyola shirt that makes Tomás’s eyes snag on him for a minute. Marcus smirks. It didn’t take long to notice the effect wearing Tomás’s clothes has on him.

“Pants, too,” Tomás reminds him.

“Don’t think she’ll be able to tell if I’m wearing pants under my trousers,” Marcus shoots back, earning himself another exasperated look and some muttered Spanish about Marcus and English and gringos in general. Tomás is feeling off-balance and it’s making him cranky, Marcus can tell. They’ve only been back in Chicago two months, fresh into whatever retirement looks like for two men who’ve never been good at sitting still. So far it’s been trading off sleepless nights and nightmares, eating dinner with Olivia and Luis, and obliterating their vow of chastity.

Well, Tomás’s. Marcus no longer has a vow of chastity. And, technically, Tomás had already broken that one, so there wasn’t much left to obliterate. They’re just enjoying the wreckage, then.

“Hey,” Marcus says quietly. He wraps an arm around Tomás’s waist and Tomás immediately folds himself into Marcus’s body. There’s a part of Marcus, no small part, that’s still incredulous he evokes that kind of comfort in anyone with just a touch.

“Bad memories,” Tomás mumbles into Marcus’s neck.

Marcus swallows hard against the image of blood spatter on the wall behind Andy’s head, the sense-memory of the trigger against his finger. “Yeah,” he says. “I know.”

Tomás sighs and squeezes Marcus’s waist. “Are you okay?” he checks.

“Sure,” Marcus says nonchalantly. “We can’t both have a breakdown at the same time, can we? Wouldn’t be efficient at all.”

“Marcus,” Tomás says.

Marcus presses his face against Tomás’s hair. “I’m fine,” he promises. It’s a lie, technically, but fine is a sliding scale these days and he’s fine enough. “Let’s go see what Verity needs.” He pats Tomás’s chest as he turns away.

Verity is sitting at their chipped kitchen table in the chair that doesn’t match the other three. Marcus made some kind of vague plan to paint all four chairs and fix the broken leg on one when they picked them up from the thrift store. Tomás had shrugged, uncaring either way if their chairs matched or if Marcus fixed them, and the chairs have languished for two months. The broken one is Luis’s favorite because it rocks, and now Marcus thinks maybe he can’t fix it and break the kid’s heart.

“Hey,” Verity says when she sees them. “Your chair is broken.”

“Yeah,” Marcus says. “I’m gonna fix it, maybe.”

“You should.” She doesn’t say anything else. Marcus sits down across from her. Tomás hesitates for a second.

“Are you hungry?” he asks Verity. “We were just about to eat breakfast.” It’s nearly noon, but they don’t exactly keep regular hours.

“No,” she says, but Marcus knows what hunger looks like and nods at Tomás. Tomás gets down three plates and splits up the eggs. He hands Marcus the plate with the most and they have a silent battle over that. It’s silly, really, to argue about that now, when they have plenty of food and a market a block away and no exorcisms to keep them away from food, but old habits and all that.

“Thank you,” Marcus says, nodding at Tomás instead of squeezing his hand like he normally would. It’s not that they’re doing much to keep their relationship under wraps, or even that he’s afraid to be affectionate in front of Verity. Mostly he’s just getting that same jumpy feeling that’s rolling off Tomás in waves. Marcus hasn’t had much success in keeping in contact with people after he’s finished an exorcism and left. Most people don’t want much to do with him. And he hasn’t seen Verity since he killed her father, so he can’t imagine he’s her favorite person on the planet. He’s half-expecting her to start swinging at him.

“You’re probably wondering why I’m here,” Verity says after a second of awkward eating. She sounds about as nervous as Marcus feels.

“You’re always welcome here,” Tomás says, almost robotically. You can take the priest out of the parish, Marcus figures, but you can’t always take the parish out of the priest.

Verity huffs. “Yeah, sure. Um. I turned eighteen, so. Not a foster kid anymore, technically.”

“Rose could not have asked you to leave,” Tomás says skeptically.

“No, of course not,” Verity assures them. “I just…” She shrugs. “I think I needed to.”

Marcus just looks at her for a moment. She has dark circles under her eyes. Her hair’s longer than it was, now an awkward length between her ears and her chin, and her fingernails are bitten ragged.

“Nightmares,” he says.

Verity nods jerkily. “Almost every night.”

“That’s normal,” Tomás promises. “They will go away.”

It’s something of a lie. Not a lie, necessarily, but not completely the truth, either. They might go away sometimes. But in Marcus’s experience, they never really go away. And Tomás knows that, too.

Verity blows out a breath. “Well, they haven’t yet. And no one else—” She bites down the rest of her sentence. Marcus nods.

“No one else still has them,” he finishes. “Or if they do, they don’t talk about it. And they don’t seem affected. Everyone’s gone back to normal but you.”

Verity blinks hard, looking down at her plate. “Yeah.”

“Does Rose know you’re here?” Tomás interrupts, ever the concerned uncle.

“Yeah,” Verity says, a duh hidden in her voice just like Marcus remembers. “She’s the one who told me how to find you.”

“And what exactly are you hoping to find here?” Marcus asks, hoping he doesn’t sound harsh. He doesn’t mean it in a harsh way. But he’d like to get a handle on her expectations early. Better to dash them now than later.

“I don’t know,” Verity admits. “I just…” She looks around the room, not meeting their eyes.

“You needed people who understand,” Tomás supplies softly.

“Yeah,” Verity says. “And—you’d know, right? If I was possessed?”

The room goes very quiet. “Why do you think you’re possessed?” Tomás asks.

“I don’t know.” The words come tumbling out now, like she shoved them in a too-small closet and opening the door sent them all cascading out. “I just—I haven’t felt like myself and I have these awful nightmares and I can’t make them stop and—and—”

“You’re not possessed,” Marcus says. He doesn’t need her to go on to know that.

“Are you sure?” Verity asks, eyes huge in her face. She’s thinner than Marcus remembers. “Are you really sure?”

Marcus touches her hand across the table. “I’d be willing to put money on it.”

“Have you been seeing things?” Tomás prompts. “Knowing things you couldn’t know? Speaking in tongues?”

“No,” Verity says.

“Gaps in your memory?” Tomás goes on. “Blank spots where you can’t remember? Wake up and you’re not sure how you got where you are?”

“No,” Verity says.

“Hurting people? Or animals?”

Verity recoils. “No, of course not.”

Marcus shakes his head. “You’re not possessed, duck.” He gives her hand a squeeze. This is all too familiar. “You’re traumatized, to be sure. But only by the demon that already did its damage.”

Verity pulls her hand away to wipe at her nose. She sniffs. Her voice comes out choked. “I guess I just…”

“A part of you wanted to be possessed,” Marcus guesses gently. “Because it’d be a reason to feel that way. It’d mean we could fix it.”

Verity’s crying now in earnest. “How’d you know?”

“I’ve been doing this a long, long time,” he reminds her, his own eyes feeling a bit wet. Tomás puts his hand on Marcus’s leg under the table and Marcus covers it with his own.

“Did you tell Rose you were worried about this?” Tomás asks.

Verity shakes her head. “I didn’t want to talk about the demons at all,” she says. “I didn’t want to scare everyone again. Everyone’s finally okay now, you know? I didn’t want to bring it all back.”

“Why does Rose think you’re here?” Marcus asks.

Verity shrugs. “Just said I needed closure.”

“Closure?” Marcus echoes.

“It’s some bullshit therapy thing,” Verity says. “They’re always talking about closure. I don’t really know how I’m supposed to feel closure over the only dad who ever cared about me being dead.”

Marcus flinches and Tomás’s hand on his leg spasms. “He died protecting you and everyone else,” Tomás reminds her.

“I know,” Verity says. “But he’s still gone.”

Marcus pushes back from the table, unable to sit still with the weight pushing on his shoulders. He paces. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t know what else I can say.”

Verity looks up at him, surprised. “I don’t blame you.”

“You know I killed him, don’t you?” Marcus spits. He’d rather she’s angry at him, yell and scream and punch him. He doesn’t know what other kind of relief he can give her.

“No, the demon did,” Verity counters.

“I pulled the trigger,” Marcus hisses.

“Marcus,” Tomás cuts in quietly.

“I know that,” Verity says, getting mad now, too. “But I know he would’ve wanted you to. He would’ve died a million times to save anyone else.”

“He didn’t have to die,” Marcus says. He’s not entirely sure why he’s pushing this. Verity doesn’t need to know these details. It doesn’t change anything, doesn’t bring Andy back, and there’s no world where Marcus is strong enough to sacrifice Tomás.

“Marcus,” Tomás says, sharp this time. “Stop it.”

“Just want her to know where she should lay the blame.”

“Maybe she should lay the blame on me,” Tomás points out. “It was my fault we were in that position.”

“You were trying to save him,” Marcus says.

“So were you.”

“I don’t blame either of you,” Verity interrupts. “I learned a long time ago not to just get mad for the sake of being mad. A demon killed Andy. You guys saved me and my family. I came here because I just want to know how to feel better.”

Tomás and Marcus look at each other for a minute. “Not sure we’ll be much help there,” Marcus says, slinking back to his seat. Tomás grabs his hand under the table again as soon as he’s in reach.

“Haven’t you done this like a million times?” Verity asks. Her voice is stronger now, but her eyes are still damp.

“We do the exorcism,” Tomás tells her quietly. “We don’t really see the aftermath.”

But that’s not actually true, either, not anymore. Tomás was possessed. They can’t help her because they don’t know. They’re still living the aftermath themselves, feeling their way along blindly, and Marcus doesn’t know if he can handle failing two people at once.

Verity slumps. “What am I supposed to do?” She’s trembling. “I can’t—I don’t know what to do.”

Tomás sighs. “You stay with your family,” he says. “They love you. You all need to lean on each other.” He’s not just trying to put her off; that’s their only game plan here, too.

Verity dashes at the tears clumping her eyelashes together. “No,” she says. “I’m not dragging them down with me. Do you know how long it took for Harper to stop being scared of everything?”

That sends a pang through Marcus. Harper. Bad enough she’d had to face the human kind of demon, but then they sent her straight to the spiritual kind, as well. He thinks about her a lot.

“That’s what families are for,” Tomás says. “To lend strength when we need it.”

“I’m not going back,” Verity says fiercely. “They think I’m here getting closure and looking at colleges and I’m not taking my broken bullshit back with me. I’ll sleep on the streets if I have to. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Of course you won’t—” Tomás starts to protest.

“You can stay here,” Marcus says, finishing Tomás’s thought, because they’re not going to turn her out on the street when she’s come all this way. He tries to keep his voice gentle when all he feels like doing is running. “I’m just not sure what you’re going to get with us. We’re not exactly whole ourselves.”

Verity blinks. “But you’re professionals.”

Marcus laughs out loud. “Darling, I started doing this when I was twelve years old and a priest locked me in a basement with a demon. There’s no qualifying exam. I was in a pseudo mental facility barely a year ago. You’re not getting the cream of the mental crop.”

“Marcus,” Tomás chides, like he always does when Marcus disparages himself. And then, because he’s unable to ever let Marcus wade into murky waters alone, he adds, “I was possessed until two months ago.”

Now Verity looks distressed. “What the hell,” she says. “I thought you’d be able to help.”

“We help in the early stages,” Tomás says. “At this point, you are probably much better off with Rose.”

Verity rubs her eyes. “But you know demons,” she says. “You’ll know if I get possessed.”

It’s not unusual, the obsession and the mistrust. Marcus has seen it plenty of times before. It touched him, as well, back when he was younger and less experienced.

“We’ll know,” Marcus assures her, because there’s no arguing with someone in this state. “And you can damn well count on us killing the thing if it happens.”

Verity slumps back in her seat. “Okay,” she says shakily.

The three of them sit there in silence, not looking at each other. All their eggs are cold and rubbery now. Marcus keeps clenching and unclenching his fists, afraid of just what exactly they signed up for. Tomás is staring intently at his plate.

And then Kat Rance turns up.

“This isn’t a bloody halfway house for people getting over demon possession,” Marcus snaps.

“Why not?” Kat asks. She’s never been afraid of him, no matter what he does, and when he’s not frustrated by that fact he’s a bit charmed by it.

“Because that doesn’t exist!”

“Maybe it should,” Verity says, and great, they’re already teaming up after getting one look at each other.

“I’m not the person who can lead you through this,” Marcus says, frustrated. “This isn’t what I know how to do.”

But now Tomás has his head tilted the way he does when he’s getting an idea. A bad idea, in Marcus’s experience, an idea that Marcus is going to hate and grit his teeth through. And sure enough, Marcus hates it.

“Marcus,” Tomás says, holding up a hand. “Let’s think about this.”

Kat grins triumphantly, and Marcus leaves. He stalks away, bursts out the front door barefoot and without a coat. He’s halfway down the street when Tomás catches up to him, holding Marcus’s shoes and his coat.

“You don’t have to come back right now,” Tomás says, brandishing the items. “But put these on.”

“I can’t do this, Tomás,” Marcus says. He’s shaking and it’s not from the March chill.

“I think you can,” Tomás says steadily.

“How?” Marcus demands. “How could you possibly think that? What about me, of all people, makes you think I could help anyone to—to—recover? What coping strategy do I have that you think I can teach them? Why would I be able to do any of this?”

Tomás drapes Marcus’s coat across his shoulders. He kneels down and taps insistently at Marcus’s foot until Marcus raises it so Tomás can slip a shoe on. Then he does the other one. He ties both shoes and leaves Marcus oddly choked up, thinking of Christ washing the feet of his disciples. He probably shouldn’t compare Tomás to Christ, if not for the sacrilege than for the crucifixion. Tomás stands. He puts his hands on Marcus’s shoulders and forces Marcus to meet his eyes.

“Because you love them, Marcus. You care more than anyone I’ve ever met. You’ve exorcised so many demons. And you say you don’t know this part, but I think you do. You’re helping me all this time, Marcus. You do the exorcisms and you leave, but I think it’s time you saw things from this side.”

Marcus takes a shuddering breath. “What if I fail?”

Tomás leans closer. “You won’t.”

“I might.”

“I think,” Tomás says, resting his forehead against Marcus’s, “the only way you could fail is if you give up on them. And I know that’s not going to happen.”

Marcus closes his eyes. “I’m not fit,” he whispers, an echo of something he said to Tomás long ago. Tomás must remember. He puts his hand on Marcus’s cheek.

“You were wrong then,” he says softly. “I think you’re wrong now, too.”

“I don’t want to let them down,” Marcus says. “I don’t want to let you down.”

“You could never let me down,” Tomás promises. “As long as you’re still here.”

Marcus takes a long breath, lets it out slowly. “I’ll try,” he finally says. “Long as they both understand I’m not promising anything.” He doesn’t include Tomás in that. He promises Tomás plenty and doesn’t plan to stop.

Tomás kisses him, neighbors be damned. Marcus isn’t sure there’s anyone in the Church who’d cross Tomás at this point, anyway, so even if some nosy Parker wanted to run to the bishop about the priest kissing the grizzled old man on the stoop, they’ll be okay.

“They just need someone to try,” Tomás murmurs.

“But I don’t know what this will even be,” Marcus points out. “We’re not going to sit around in a circle holding hands.”

Tomás laughs a little. “I can’t see either of them agreeing to that, anyway.”

“I don’t know how to do—therapy, or whatever it is they’re looking for,” Marcus protests. “My only experience with that was St. Aquinas, and…” He shakes his head. Tomás nods, face going dark at the mention of St. Aquinas. He doesn’t like to think of Marcus, broken and shunted off there, especially once they found out about Brother Simon and the demons using St. Aquinas as a hunting ground.

“They just need someone to try,” Tomás repeats. “I know you. I know you’ll give them everything you’ve got.”

“But that’s not much,” Marcus says, trying to be humorously self-deprecating and only managing the second part.

“It’s everything I need.”

It’s a bit dramatic and a lot cheesy, but Marcus just ran out of the apartment without shoes or a coat and he’s sobbing in the middle of the sidewalk, so he probably doesn’t get to talk about dramatic. He wipes his nose on the sleeve of his coat the way Tomás hates.

“Okay,” he says, feeling almost numb now. “Fine, I’ll try. But you have to help me, too.”

Tomás gives him a chagrined little half-smile and puts his arm around Marcus’s shoulders to steer him back home. “I don’t know that I can offer much help, either,” he says.

“But you’ll try,” Marcus says, because if he has to promise it, so does Tomás. Tomás gives Marcus a squeeze and pulls him closer to kiss his temple.

“Whither thou goest, I will go,” Tomás murmurs right into Marcus’s ear.

It’s probably a bit weird and a lot sacrilegious, the way they quote scripture at each other to express their feelings, but Marcus feels confident God isn’t too cross about it. He hasn’t struck either of them down, anyway, and Marcus doesn’t think they’d be where they are now if God had many objections to the way they do things.

“Alright then,” Marcus says. They walk home together, ready to fight a new battle.

Chapter Text

“We have an extra room,” Tomás says, looking between Kat and Verity. “But…you’ll have to share.”

“Someone’s going to have to kip on the camp bed or take the couch out here,” Marcus adds briskly, hoping they don’t realize Tomás called it an extra room instead of pretending it was one of theirs that they’d be giving up. “Work it out amongst yourselves.”

Verity shrugs. “Whatever.”

Kat, accustomed as she is to having her own room, looks a bit warier. “Um. Okay.”

In an undertone, just to Marcus, Tomás says, “I’ll have to go to Olivia’s to get the cot.”

Marcus glances at Kat and Verity. He looks back at Tomás. “I’ll go with you.”

Tomás holds down a smile. “Afraid they’ll bite?” he teases. Marcus glares at him. In truth, Marcus doesn’t have much experience with women who aren’t possessed or nuns. At least with demons, Marcus knows what to do. With these two…well, he has no idea.

“We don’t have to go right now,” Tomás says. “Olivia’s not even home from work for a few hours. For now we can just…” He frowns in thought. “Well, I was going to go for a run.”

“Go,” Marcus says, because he knows it makes Tomás sleep better. Not much, of course, because Tomás’s nightmares and memories are worse than most, but anything that helps at all is something Marcus is going to encourage him to do.

Tomás’s teasing smile comes back. “Are you sure?”

Marcus rolls his eyes. “Get out.”

Tomás laughs and turns to Kat and Verity. “I’ll be back in a little bit,” he says. “If he misbehaves, you can call me. I’ll have my phone.” He heads off to the bedroom to change before either of them can point out they don’t have his number and Marcus can think of a retort.

“Well,” Marcus says. Then he has nothing else to say.

Verity snorts. “What do you normally do right now?” she asks helpfully. He can imagine her helping Rose figure out how to be a foster parent. She’s been through enough of them to know what works and what doesn’t, probably. This would be more helpful, he supposes, if he had any kind of routine or normalcy in his life.

“Sometimes I draw,” he says. “Sometimes I nap.” Lies down, anyway, with his eyes closed. Sleep comes when it will, and he doesn’t try to fight it.

“What do you draw?” Verity asks.

Marcus shrugs. “Whatever I want.” He leads the way to the living room and they trail behind like ducklings. Kat’s still carrying her bag; Verity’s is discarded in the entryway. Marcus nods at Kat’s bag and then at Verity’s. “Might as well put those away,” he says. “Tomás doesn’t like a mess.”

“Do you have to get anything out of your room before we take over?” Verity checks, used to taking over someone else’s room or having hers taken over.

Marcus can feel his cheeks going scarlet. “No,” he says, refusing to let himself shrink away. He waves a hand. “All yours. Be right back.” He all but flees to the bedroom after Tomás.

“Tomás,” he hisses. “They’re asking questions.”

“About what?” Tomás asks, voice muffled as he digs through the closet for one of his million running shirts.

“About the room and how it’s obviously not being lived in.”

The rustling in the closet stops and Tomás pops his head out. “Oh,” he says. “I didn’t really think about that.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Do?” Tomás echoes, going back to his search. “Why do we have to do anything?”

“You don’t care if they know?” Marcus asks.

“Do you?” Tomás stops rooting around, finally, and comes closer to Marcus. “Does it bother you?”

“No,” Marcus says honestly. “But you’ve still got your vows.”

Tomás sighs. He leans forward and rests his forehead against Marcus’s shoulder. “Yes. Those.”

Marcus huffs. “You want me to make something up?”

Tomás leans heavier into Marcus. “No,” he says softly. “I don’t.”

“Tomás,” Marcus says, a little warningly.

“For one thing,” Tomás starts, standing upright and looking Marcus in the face. “I am not ashamed. And for another, I don’t think either of them are going to tell anyone.”

Now it’s Marcus’s turn to pitch forward and bury his face in Tomás’s neck. “You know we’re going to have to deal with that eventually,” he says. “There’s only so long we can live here together before people will talk.”

“I don’t care,” Tomás insists stubbornly. “I don’t have a parish anyway.”

“Not right now,” Marcus points out. “Won’t be long before they give you one.”

“Well, I’m not leaving Chicago,” Tomás says aggressively. “So they don’t have many options.”

Marcus pushes back and examines Tomás’s face. “What is this?” he asks. “Where is this coming from?”

“I know we agreed,” Tomás says. “No more exorcisms. But…”

“But?” Marcus’s voice comes out higher than he’d intended, panicked in an instant. “But what? You want to go back out there? After everything that happened? After the demons—”

“Marcus,” Tomás cuts him off. He cups Marcus’s face in his hands. “I don’t know if I can go back to being a parish priest. It just feels…” He sighs again, looking away for a moment. “I don’t feel like I can relate to the people anymore.”

“Oh, Tomás, no,” Marcus breathes. He reels Tomás in, pulls him close. “Don’t let this change you.”

“Too late,” Tomás mutters.

“Well, that’s true,” Marcus concedes, because there’s no denying it. Marcus hates it, hates that he blew into town and the trusting, naïve Tomás who stood in front of him and boldly announced he’d seen him in a dream is lost forever.

“I was thinking,” Tomás says tentatively. “Well, I just started thinking.”

“Reassuring,” Marcus jokes with a grin.

Tomás rolls his eyes. “But what Verity said—maybe she’s right. Maybe the Office of Exorcism should put some focus on helping the possessed and their families after possession. After exorcism.”

Marcus raises his eyebrows. “You going to pitch a new department to Bennett? You know how he feels about bureaucracy.”

“I think it will be useful,” Tomás says. “Think how many people need that help. You’ve helped so many people with exorcisms, but what happened to them after you left?”

Marcus swallows hard, thinking about the ones who never found a happy ending. “Fair point.”

Tomás squeezes Marcus’s hips. “It’s an idea. I have to think about it more. Preferably on my run.”

“Alright, fine,” Marcus grumbles. “Go. Abandon me to the teenagers.”

Tomás laughs brightly. “Kat is twenty-one,” he reminds Marcus. “She’s not a teenager anymore.”

“Twenty-one,” Marcus says mournfully, shaking his head. “Might as well be a newborn compared to me.”

It makes Tomás laugh again. He kisses the corner of Marcus’s eye, where his crow’s feet live. “I’m closer to her age than yours,” he reminds Marcus slyly, making Marcus groan even though it’s only true by a hair.

“Stop that,” Marcus scolds. “I don’t need to feel old in the comfort of my own home.”

“No, you never seem old here,” Tomás assures him, adding in a giant wink that makes Marcus laugh despite himself. It’s awful and ridiculous and it makes Marcus’s heart feel like it’s swelling in his chest. He swats Tomás on the ass.

“Go run before your body gets decrepit like mine.”

He leaves Tomás laughing behind him. Verity and Kat, both sans bags now, are waiting for him on the couch. They’re not talking and the awkwardness hangs heavy in the air. Marcus raises his eyebrows, relaxed now and languid with love.

“Getting acquainted?”

Kat’s eyes turn assessing as she looks at Verity. “Were you possessed?” she asks. Apparently Marcus is her ice breaker. He can’t imagine why.

“No,” Verity says. “My dad.”

“Oh.” Kat nods. “My sister. And then the demon jumped to my mom.”

Verity’s eyebrows shoot up. “Didn’t really know they could do that.”

“I didn’t know they could do any of it.”

Verity nods. “Yeah. Real bummer to find that one out, huh?”

Kat bursts out a little laugh. “Real bummer,” she echoes. She tilts her head and looks at Marcus. “How many exorcisms have you done?”

Marcus blows out a breath. “283,” he answers without hesitation. He could name all of them, too, but he won’t tell them that. They’re shocked enough as it is.

“What about you, Father Tomás?” Kat asks. Tomás has just come out of the bedroom, changed into his running getup now. Marcus lets himself appreciate the cut-off sleeves for a second. While they were on the road and Tomás could only do his workouts irregularly, he always made sure to do pushups in the hotel room. It had been a real trial for Marcus, who had been trying desperately to keep his hands to himself at that point.

“Nine,” Tomás says.

“Ten,” Marcus corrects.

Tomás gives him a look. “My own doesn’t count.”

“It does,” Marcus counters. “Couldn’t have worked without you fighting.”

“You were possessed, Father Tomás?” Kat asks, shocked. “When?”

Tomás looks caged now, eyes darting around the room. Marcus can’t take it. “Go on,” he says gently. “Go run.” Tomás hesitates for a second, then nods, swallowing hard.

“I’ll be back soon,” he says quietly. He leaves. He closes the door softly behind him, but it’s loud in the silent apartment.

“Sorry,” Kat says once he’s gone. “I didn’t…I shouldn’t have…”

Marcus shakes his head. “I shouldn’t have brought it up without him telling you himself first. Sometimes he’s fine with talking about it, sometimes he isn’t.”

“Yeah,” Kat says. “I know how that goes.” She looks at Verity. “Does your dad talk about it?”

Marcus’s stomach drops. He thinks of Andy’s sightless eyes, the body they’d left behind when they had to run.

“My dad died during the exorcism,” Verity says, voice completely flat. Kat’s eyes widen.

“Shit,” she says. “I’m just going to stop talking today.”

Verity’s mouth pulls up at one corner. “Might help.”

“So, what,” Marcus says, pulling out his notebook and holding it aloft to change the subject. “Are we calling this art therapy now?” He’d done art therapy at St. Aquinas. Needless to say, it hadn’t helped much.

Verity snorts. “I think you need to be a therapist to call it therapy.”

“I could be considered a type of therapist,” Marcus jokes. “A soul therapist.”

“You slit a guy’s throat with a crucifix,” Kat says. “I don’t think anyone would give you any kind of therapy license.”

“He was a demon,” Marcus defends himself. “And he was going to kill the Pope.”

“Holy shit,” Verity says. “With a crucifix? Marcus, that is unbelievably badass.”

“Thank you,” Marcus says. “It didn’t feel great.” His insides twist. It did, in a way. He remembers the demon inside Andy, finally figuring out his secret love of violence. He buries that, pushes it down again.

Verity joins Kat in looking chagrined. “Wow, we all keep fucking up with saying stuff.”

It startles a little laugh out of Marcus. “No need to worry about propriety with me,” he assures them both. “I don’t know much of it. Tomás calls me a stray cat. I never learned much about manners.” He shrugs. “You both know that.”

Neither of them deny it, not even out of politeness, which seems like a bad sign for Marcus’s manners. Marcus flops down onto the couch on the other side of Verity and pulls the pencil out of his notebook. He starts drawing the kitchen chairs, thinking about what he’s going to do to fix the broken, mismatched one. He looks up when Kat snorts.

“Are we supposed to just sit here and watch you draw?” she asks.

Marcus makes a face. “I told you I didn’t know what this was,” he points out. “Do whatever you want. Do you have friends you need to visit?”

Kat’s face clouds over and Marcus remembers the girl in the accident, the one who died. He remembers what the demon said about her, too, and his heart aches for Kat.

“No,” she says shortly.

Now guilt is clogging Marcus’s throat. He should know better than that. He knows the stigma that follows exorcism, and there was so much media attention for Casey. It’s been just over a year. Kat came here specifically because she was hurting and felt out of any other options. Marcus should mind his tongue better. He sighs and rips out two blank pages from his notebook. He digs through the drawer in the coffee table and finds two pencils. One is severely chewed up, which means Luis was using it to do his math homework the last time he was here. He keeps that one for himself and gives over the two unchewed pencils.

“So draw,” he says with a shrug.

“I don’t know how to draw,” Kat says blankly.

“I barely do,” Verity adds.

Marcus shrugs again. “Figure it out. Or don’t draw. Up to you.” He goes back to his chairs. If they were younger, he’d guide them more. With Harper’s age, he can do so much more. But these two are too old for his pet names and silly magic tricks, a coin pulled from an ear and a disappearing rock. Simply saving them isn’t enough to make them love him, especially not when they saw all the damage he did along the way. Verity, especially—Marcus has no idea why she’d trust him with anything, given what he did to her father.

It’s all making him very jumpy, on edge the way he usually is only at night these days, when nightmares creep up on him or Tomás or both of them. He doesn’t know what to do for these two, so he focuses on the chairs. He has a better idea of what to do with those.

When Tomás comes home, Marcus feels more settled. Kat’s just drawn lines on her paper. Verity hasn’t drawn anything, but she did write her name and draw a bunch of swirls in the corners of her paper. Marcus shrugs. Tomás is on the phone when he comes inside.

“You don’t have to,” he’s saying. He gives Marcus a smile that means the run helped him calm down. “Olivia, we can—well, no, but—okay, I—” Tomás laughs. “Ay, Olivia, déjame hablar, por favor.” He huffs at whatever Olivia’s response is. “Because you listen better when I use Spanish. Do not bring dinner, okay? If you’re coming here I’ll cook.” He rolls his eyes, still smiling. “Goodbye.”

“You’re cooking?” Marcus asks skeptically. Left to his own devices, Tomás won’t take the time to make anything more complicated than a sandwich. He just never cares enough to make the effort.

“I can cook some things,” Tomás points out, giddy like he gets sometimes after a good run in the sunshine. “Luis loves my enchiladas.”

“He loves when you order pizza more.”

Tomás laughs. “Because Olivia never lets him have pizza. Anyway, she’s bringing the cot. She didn’t want us to have to take it on the train. So I’m not going to make her cook, too.”

Marcus can’t help the smile that takes over his face. “Such a good brother,” he says. A little bit of the light goes out of Tomás’s face, probably as he thinks of all the times he hasn’t been a good brother, but he smiles anyway.

“What have you guys been doing?” he asks, going into the kitchen for a glass of water.

“Drawing,” Kat says, so mournfully Tomás and Marcus both laugh.

“Did he just hand you a pencil and tell you to draw?” Tomás guesses. Marcus can hear the smile in his voice and it tugs his own lips upward.

“Has he done that to you?” Verity asks.

Tomás leans in the doorway of the kitchen, hip cocked alluringly. Not that he knows it’s alluring, of course. That’s part of his charm. “He tried to tell me it would settle my mind and give me something to do with my hands,” Tomás says, shaking his head fondly. “It didn’t work for me.” Then they found other ways to occupy his hands, but Marcus certainly isn’t going to say that here.

“Me neither,” Kat says, showing off the lines.

“It’s better than mine,” Tomás assures her.

“He’s not just being polite,” Marcus adds in a loud whisper, earning himself an eyeroll from both Tomás and Verity.

“I’m going to shower,” Tomás announces. Marcus opens his mouth to say he’ll join him, but he swallows it instead. Marcus has gotten too used to living alone with Tomás, where every thought he has can pop freely out of his mouth. Censoring himself used to be second-nature, but he’s gotten out of practice.

So instead, Marcus turns to a new page, done with his chairs. He can draw Tomás’s face mostly by instinct at this point, could probably do it with his eyes closed or asleep. But he does it again, captures Tomás’s face halfway through the word hablar, curves his lips up in the special smile he saves for Olivia and Luis. His hair is getting long, the curls going unruly. He trims his beard but doesn’t shave the facial hair completely, and Marcus can’t pretend he doesn’t appreciate that. Tomás’s face has changed a lot since Marcus first met him, even though it was only a year ago. He has a scar down his left cheek from an exorcism with Mouse. Marcus wasn’t there to see it happen or help him take care of it after, but he’s drawn it over and over like drawing it will retroactively comfort Tomás. Tomás has a few lines around his eyes now, lines he didn’t have before he was possessed. He has shadows under his eyes more days than not, lack of sleep and figurative demons clouding his face now.

He’s still the most beautiful person Marcus has ever seen, by far. Marcus doesn’t even think he’s being overly biased. Objectively speaking, Tomás is beautiful. He turns heads everywhere he goes. The fact that he’d choose Marcus is baffling, but he’s stubbornly and flatly rejected every counterargument Marcus has ever tried to bring up in that regard.

“Damn,” Verity says. “You’re fucking amazing.”

Marcus blinks. She’s looking down into Tomás’s pencil face. “I don’t mind the swearing,” Marcus tells her. “But cool it a bit around Tomás, yeah? Bible words and shit don’t bother him, but watch the fucks. He’ll start a fire with his blush if you keep it up.”

Verity snorts. “Yes, sir.”

“And don’t say any of them around Luis.”

“Who’s Luis?” Verity asks.

“Father Tomás’s nephew,” Kat supplies, reminding Marcus that she was part of Tomás’s life before. Before Tomás knew about demons. Before Marcus.

Marcus nods. “He’s twelve.” Marcus, of course, had heard plenty of swearing by twelve, and he’d be willing to bet Luis has, too. But Tomás shelters Luis, and Marcus isn’t going to fault him for it. He’s found himself doing it, too, in the two months they’ve been here. He wants Luis to stay innocent as long as possible.

Verity looks almost offended. “Hello? I’ve been around kids. I know not to swear with them. I don’t swear around Harper. Not even with Truck and Caleb sometimes.”

“Good,” Marcus says. “Because that won’t be just a blush from Tomás. If you ever want to awaken the bear, Luis is his weak spot.” He knows he can tell Verity that without repercussion. She won’t actually use that against Tomás. Verity herself has a weak spot for kids, and telling her that about Tomás will make her like him more.

“Got it,” Verity says. “But my original point stands.”

Marcus shrugs. “Thanks,” he says carelessly. “I see his face enough, I ought to be able to draw it.”

“Is Father Tomás going to have a parish again?” Kat asks, drawing some more lines on her paper.

“Not sure,” Marcus says noncommittally. “He wants to stay in Chicago, to stay close to his family. They closed down St. Anthony’s and gave away the place at St. Bridget’s. We’ll see.” He hopes his voice isn’t tightening the way he feels it is. If he spends even one second considering Tomás going back to exorcisms, he’s going to lose any semblance of composure he has. He wants to keep Tomás as far away from any demons as possible. And Marcus himself can’t think of exorcising demons without panic clawing at his throat, but he knows he’ll be incapable of allowing Tomás to go off without him.

“He was a good priest,” Kat says. “I didn’t ever go to confession and I stopped going to Mass when I left for school, but Dad really loved him.”

Marcus can feel himself smiling fondly. “He is,” Marcus says. “Sometimes he takes my confession. He could do yours, if you want.”

Kat raises her eyebrows. “I’m good.”

It makes Verity snicker. Marcus shrugs again. “You’ll not find any pressure here,” he assures them both, trying not to make a big deal out of it. He knows they both have their reasons, and they’re good reasons, especially for Verity. He’s never been a fan of pushing anyone toward confession or other rituals, even with the structure and power it gives him, and not many things get Tomás’s hackles up quite like hearing about people being forced and harassed into religion.

“Yeah,” Verity says quietly. “I know.”

It’s an offering, Marcus can tell. She’s telling him: I trust you. It’s astounding to Marcus. Not only because of what he did, though killing her father is a quite the fault to forgive. But more than that, Marcus has an inkling of what Verity went through. To gain her trust is no small feat. He holds that in his heart for a moment, swallows hard to keep himself under control. Verity doesn’t react well to big shows of emotion, not when she hardly knows him. He needs to reign himself in.

“Alright,” Marcus says brusquely. “Tomás eats like a starving man after a run. If we want something before dinner, we’d better get in there before he comes back and eats it all.”

They both laugh a little, more at him than with him, and follow him into the kitchen, and Marcus finds himself thinking, I don’t know how to do this, but damn if I’m going to stop trying.

Verity sighs, trying not to toss and turn. She took the cot, because that Barbie doll looks like she’s never slept on anything but memory foam in her whole life. It’s not a terrible bed—far from the worst Verity’s slept on, that’s for sure—but it’s not great, and it creaks when she moves. Verity’s shared plenty of rooms with strangers, so she’s not bothered by Kat in the same room. Verity’s not too worried about Kat messing with her, either. For one thing, Verity’s pretty sure she could take that skinny little chick. And for another, Verity kind of can’t help trusting someone who knows exactly how she’s feeling.

Well, not exactly. Kat’s sister and her mom didn’t die, though Verity found out at dinner Kat’s mom’s in a wheelchair after the demon snapped her spine. Still. She has her family back.

Verity holds in another sigh. Dinner was awkward. Tomás and Marcus only have four chairs, so they’d brought in stools from somewhere and made sure everyone else sat in the chairs. It didn’t even seem like they were just being polite when they said it was fine, either; Marcus had flopped down onto a stool with no problem, languishing like it was the most comfortable he’d ever been. Tomás’s sister, Olivia, was nice and laughed easily, but she’d already known Kat. Not well, barely enough to remember her name, but it was something, and it left Verity as the outsider. Tomás’s nephew didn’t remember Kat, at least, so Verity wasn’t the only stranger, but he didn’t talk much and when he did, he mostly stuck to whispering to his mom and Marcus on either side of him and using Spanish to talk to Tomás across the table. Verity had barely said more than he did.

Tomás had ended up being an alright cook, actually. The enchiladas were good. But a family dinner scene made Verity’s stomach ache. She thought of Rose and Shelby and Caleb and Truck and Harper and what they’d be eating for dinner. She thought of Andy’s enchiladas, which she won’t tell Tomás are better and might not actually be, objectively instead of nostalgically. Verity blinks away tears. Andy was only her dad for a few years, and it took her most of that time to ever call him her dad. But he and Nicole were the first parents who ever loved her, despite all her flaws and brattiness. They made sure she knew, all the time, that there was nothing wrong with her or her sexuality and everyone who made her think there was had been wrong.

Verity presses her hand over her eyes and stuffs the other into her mouth to keep herself quiet. She used to be so proud of how she never cried. Even with everything those “counselors” did to her, she refused to give them what they wanted. All that went out the window with Nicole and then Andy dying. And Verity doesn’t feel bad about that.

“Hey,” Kat whispers in the dark, making Verity jump. “You okay down there?”

“I’m fine,” Verity whispers back harshly.

“We can swap if you want,” Kat offers. “Or, I don’t know, take turns.”

“The bed’s fine,” Verity tells her. “I’ve slept on worse.”

“Oh.” Kat goes quiet for a minute. “Honestly, I haven’t.”

It makes Verity laugh a little. “Yeah, I could tell.”

There’s a rustling and Verity squints through the shadows to see Kat rise up on her elbow. “This makes me think of sleepovers,” she says, smile in her voice. “Whispering in the dark.”

“I didn’t go to a lot of those,” Verity admits. “My freak parents didn’t let me.”

“Really?” Kat asks. “Why not?”

Verity weighs her words, considering how much she wants to reveal. “They’re hardcore Christian,” she says slowly. “Like…really hardcore. They thought sleepovers gave too much opportunity for immorality.”

Kat absorbs that for a minute. “Huh,” she finally says. “That’s pretty weird.”

Verity snorts. “You have no idea.”

“We’re Catholic but we were never Catholic Catholic,” Kat says. “My parents started going to Mass every Sunday after my dad’s accident. Um, he had a brain injury. Routine was a big deal. Important. It helped him. But when I was growing up we only really went on Christmas and Easter.”

Verity doesn’t know how to respond to that. She still has a hard time talking about all the church her parents dragged her to, all the prayers and sharp-edged smiles as people talked to her about her immortal soul and damnation. Tomás is the only priest she’s ever been around who doesn’t make her feel like she’s going to puke, and that’s only after she got to know him a bit and he helped save her and her siblings from a fucking demon.

“You want to know the real reason I came here?” Verity whispers. “It’s not some bullshit about closure. I know demons are real now and I know what they can do. I want Marcus and Tomás to teach me how to fight them.”

“You want to learn to be an exorcist?” Kat asks, shocked. “I thought you had to be a priest to do that.”

“Marcus isn’t a priest,” Verity points out.

“Not anymore,” Kat says. “But he was. For forever.”

“I don’t care,” Verity says. “A demon killed my dad. I’m not just going to sit back and let it happen to other people.”

“Your dad…?” Kat sounds confused now. “The freak who wouldn’t let you go to sleepovers?”

Verity breathes out through her nose. “No. Um. Andy was my foster dad. He and his wife took me in after…I had to leave my freak parents.” She’s not going to elaborate on why.

“Oh.” Kat’s quiet for a minute. “And then the demon killed him.”

“Her too, I think. We just didn’t know it.”

Kat sighs. “Yeah, I could see why you’d want to fight back.”

“I think Marcus will teach me,” Verity says. “I don’t think he really cares about the priest thing. Tomás…I don’t know.”

“Father Tomás breaks rules,” Kat says. “If he thinks it’s the right thing, he’ll do it.”

“Really?” She’s not actually surprised; she saw Tomás in action, kind of. But Kat sounds absolutely certain, like she has a reason to know it’s true.

Kat leans further over the bed so they’re eye-to-eye. “They weren’t supposed to exorcise my sister. The Church told him no and he did it anyway. And something happened when the Pope came to visit. I don’t really know, because I was busy with Casey and my mom, but the thing with Marcus killing that guy…I don’t know. Something went down and they weren’t just traveling exorcists. They were on the run. A Church guy tried to find us to get info but we left after the exorcisms, too.”

Verity absorbs that. The thought of Marcus and Tomás hitting the road as exiled exorcists on the run is pretty badass, really. And it makes her think they’ll be more likely to teach her. If they already don’t care about rules, what’s another one broken?

“I want to learn, too,” Kat suddenly says, fierce. “I want to punish any demon who thinks they can hurt an innocent kid.”

Verity thinks of Truck’s blank eyes, his hands around her neck and the confusion and fear on his face when he came back to himself. She hears Harper’s screams of terror, so soon after she was supposed to be safe from her mom. Caleb’s broken cane and everything that could’ve happened to him out at the well that night. Shelby, standing as tall as he could to protect them all with his shattered leg. And Andy. The sneer she’d never seen on Andy’s face before, the way he’d fought up through the demon and gasped at her to get away, to be safe.

“Yeah,” Verity whispers. “Yeah.”

They don’t talk anymore after that, and eventually, they both fall asleep.

Verity presents her plan to Marcus and Tomás the next morning. She’s already told Kat, so she figures she might as well start convincing them. She doesn’t know how long it’ll take. Marcus is making pancakes and Tomás is at the table pretending he wasn’t crowding up behind him to feel him up before she and Kat came into the kitchen. Verity had already gotten a vibe from the two of them at home, that night they came over to dinner, just from the way they talked to each other with their eyes. She’d taken one look at that extra room and how empty it was and known something was up. Not like she cares. It’s actually kind of cute, if she really thinks about it.

“I want to learn exorcisms,” Verity announces as Marcus stacks pancakes in front of her and Kat. Tomás chokes on his coffee.

“What?” he gasps.

“Me too,” Kat adds.

Marcus throws down the spatula. “Absolutely not.” His voice is shaking.

“Why?” Verity asks. She really didn’t expect this kind of reaction. Marcus sounds…he sounds almost scared.

“It’s dangerous.”

“More dangerous than letting demons run around possessing people?” Kat fires back.

Marcus clenches his teeth. “You don’t just decide to become an exorcist,” he snarls. “You have to be called to it.”

“You told me you started when you were twelve,” Verity challenges. “Are you trying to say you were called then?”

Tomás raises his eyebrows, looking down at the table. She can tell she’s hitting truth, or at least something close to it.

“You have no idea,” Marcus says, voice hoarse, “what being an exorcist really means. You have to be willing to risk your own soul, your own body and safety. You have to leave everyone you love behind. Because you can’t love anyone more than anyone else, do you understand that? No soul gets to be worth more than another. That’s why I—” He breaks off, tears spilling from his eyes. Tomás pushes back from the table and goes to Marcus, apparently deciding he doesn’t care anymore about witnesses. He puts his hands on Marcus’s face and murmurs at him, too softly for them to hear. Verity doesn’t know what he’s saying, but it seems to help Marcus calm down. She wonders what on Earth they’re talking about. She thought Marcus would have some arguments about rules and religion. She didn’t plan for this kind of reaction, but Tomás doesn’t seem surprised at all.

“No,” Marcus says, Tomás’s hands still on his face. “I’m not teaching you.” He turns and leaves before anyone can argue further. The bedroom door closes behind him with a snap. Tomás sighs, watching him go.

“All of this is very complicated for Marcus,” he explains quietly. “You don’t understand. The things he’s been through, the things he’s seen, his life…” Tomás shakes his head.

“How did he start doing exorcisms when was twelve?” Kat asks. Her voice is small and meek like Verity feels. “That seems…way too young.”

Tomás looks down at the floor. “That is not my story to tell,” he says. “But I can tell you I would never allow a twelve-year-old to see those things.” There’s anger in his voice, bitterness. Harper’s twelve, and she’s seen enough awful shit for a lifetime. Verity thinks of Tomás’s shy little nephew, clinging to Olivia’s side, and thinks of the way Tomás looks at Marcus. Yeah, Verity would be mad, too.

“But do you understand why I want to do it?” Verity asks, because she can’t just let this go. “Why we want to?”

Tomás sighs again. “Of course I understand,” he says. “That doesn’t mean I think it’s a good idea.”

“What, because we’re not priests?” Kat asks. “Marcus isn’t a priest, either.”

“That’s not it,” Tomás says. “I know plenty of exorcists who aren’t priests. You remember the nuns at the convent, with Casey. They were exorcists, too. And I met some who aren’t even Catholic. But…” Tomás looks out the kitchen window. It faces a brick wall, so Verity’s not sure what he’s looking for. “It is not a life I would wish on anyone.”

“But people need help,” Verity presses. “Someone has to do it. Why not us?”

“I know.” Tomás sounds weary. “I feel that way myself. But if Marcus teaches you, he’ll feel responsible for whatever happens to you, and I don’t know if he can take any more of that kind of pain.”

“Why are you so sure it’ll end badly?” Kat asks warily.

“That is the only way it can end,” Tomás tells them, avoiding their eyes.

“But aren’t you guys retired? Now you’re here. This is bad?”

“This is not,” Tomás says quietly. “What happened to get us here was.”

He doesn’t say anything else, and he’s so serious Verity doesn’t even want to ask. He must be thinking of his possession. A shiver goes down Verity’s spine as she imagines Tomás sneering, considers some of the hateful things a demon could make him say, especially to Marcus.

“Well I’m going to learn,” Kat says hotly, because apparently she doesn’t share Verity’s guilt. “If Marcus won’t teach me, I’ll find someone else who will.”

Tomás’s eyes flash with anger for a second. He takes a deep breath. “Let’s all calm down,” he suggests, voice forcibly calm. “Give us time to think about it.”

“But I’m not just going to—”

“You came to us for help,” Tomás interrupts her sharply. Verity’s never heard him sound like that, angry and biting. “You don’t get to tell us what form that takes.”

Kat’s almost visibly restraining herself. Verity holds up her hands, palms out. “Hey,” she breaks in. “Guys. Not to get all foster-kid backseat social worker on you, but you two should go in separate rooms and calm down for a few minutes, okay?”

Tomás rubs his temples. “Thank you, Verity.” He’s not even being sarcastic, which she’s not used to. She’s heard him use sarcasm, and it’s not like he’s some weird babe in the woods with the incapability of being rude to people, but as a general rule, Father Tomás is the sincerest guy she’s ever met. “Kat,” he adds. “Forgive me, please, for getting angry.”

Kat nods. “Not the first time,” she mutters, and then she flashes him a rueful little smile he returns with a huff of laughter. Great, another inside story Verity doesn’t know. Her first inclination is to roll her eyes, act like they’re absolutely uncool and she doesn’t care that she doesn’t know what they’re talking about. That was her go-to method of dealing with being left out for most of her life. But she reigns it in. They’re not trying to leave her out. They’re not doing it on purpose.

“Please, have some breakfast,” Tomás says, gesturing at the pancakes. “I’m going to talk to Marcus.”

He disappears down the hall and Kat blows out a breath. “So, I have a tendency to get bitchy,” she says conversationally. It startles a laugh out of Verity. “And for some reason it seems to happen around Father Tomás a lot,” Kat adds. “I think because I know he’ll call me on it.”

“Other people don’t?” Verity asks.

Kat shrugs and looks away. “Well, I got in this car accident. And my…” She hesitates, clears her throat. “My girlfriend died.”

Verity sits very, very still. “Your girlfriend died?”

Kat lets out a little laugh that doesn’t sound happy whatsoever. “I guess she wasn’t really my girlfriend. Yet. She was going to be. We were—it was—” She stops again. “Anyway, I got hurt, too. And I used to be a dancer and it screwed up my knee, so it was this whole big thing. And no one wanted to upset me, so I got away with being really awful to everyone.”

“Except Tomás,” Verity says, trying to ignore the way her heart’s hammering. She still gets a thrill of fear whenever she hears someone come out. On the one hand, she gets excited, like a part of her brain says hey! me too!, but on the other hand, she feels straps on her arms and freezing water pelting her and counselors getting inches away from her face and screaming obscenities and damning her to hell and spitting on her.

“Oh, no, he never gets mad when I’m awful to him,” Kat explains. “Actually, this is the first time I was bitchy to him. But I was absolutely horrible to my dad, because of his accident, and Father Tomás yelled at me in my own house.” Kat huffs. “I deserved it. And I’m glad he stood up for my dad.”

“I’m sorry,” Verity says, belatedly. “About your girlfriend.”

Kat swallows hard. She nods. “Thanks.”

After a pause, Verity adds, voice steady, “I’m a lesbian.”

“Yeah,” Kat says with a little grin. “I could kinda tell.”

Verity cracks up laughing. “Um, well. That’s the goal.”

They giggle for a minute, and then Kat passes Verity a pancake. Verity laughs some more, feeling light and giddy. She’s never had other gay friends. Unless you count the other kids in her conversation camp, which, well, she doesn’t. No one was making friends there, least of all with her, because she was a troublemaker and being her friend would drag them down with her. She doesn’t blame any of them. All of them just wanted it all to stop. And the island isn’t exactly a metropolis buzzing with all kinds of diversity. Their family is the most diverse the island gets.

“So, you know Marcus and Father Tomás are totally a thing, right?” Kat whispers, eyes glinting gleefully.

“I know,” Verity hisses back. “No one is living in that room. I’m guessing Luis is the only one who’s ever slept there.”

Kat presses her hands to her mouth to hold in her laughter. “They’re not even good at hiding it.”

“Okay, but do you think they feel guilty about it?” Verity asks. She feels guilty for gossiping about it.

“They’re Catholic,” Kat says, rolling her eyes. “Of course they feel guilty.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t talk about it,” Verity says, gut churning. She was only raised with the mindset that being gay was an abomination for about a decade. She'd barely been going through puberty when she got away from it. They’re both way older than that, so she can’t imagine how hard it would be to go against what they’ve been taught for so long.

“I don’t think Father Tomás would have touched Marcus like that in front of us if they were hiding it,” Kat points out reasonably. She cuts into a pancake.

“But it’s not allowed, is it?” Verity asks. “Tomás is a priest.”

“I’m telling you, they don’t care about the rules,” Kat reminds her. “They do what they want.”

“Tomás did say he didn’t believe I had a demon in me just for being gay,” Verity muses.

Kat snorts. “What? Of course he didn’t believe that.”

“My parents did,” Verity says quietly. If Kat can tell her about her girlfriend, Verity can talk about her camp. A little. She still doesn’t know this girl. She’s not going to pour her heart out or anything. She’s talked about it with Nicole and Andy, with a state-appointed therapist, with Rose, and with her brothers, mostly Shelby. Marcus and Tomás know a bit about it—mostly just that she was in a conversion camp. It’s just not something Verity wants to go announcing to people.

Kat abandons her pancake to look directly at Verity. “Is that why you lived with your foster dad?” Her big eyes are full of concern. Verity nods. “Fuck,” Kat swears. “That’s awful. I’m so sorry.” She doesn’t ask for details, and Verity is more grateful than she knows how to explain. Now Kat shakes her head, angry. “People shouldn’t have kids if they’re not ready to just fucking love them.”

Verity blinks hard. “Yeah,” she agrees. She and Nicole used to have long discussions about that. It was always hard for Nicole to see, day in and day out, the different ways people came up with to hurt their own children.

Marcus and Tomás come out of their bedroom at that point. Verity has to say she’s relieved for a change in subject, even if it’s likely Marcus is going to yell at her some more. He’s got his arms crossed over chest and Tomás is holding onto his elbow.

“We’re not talking about exorcisms today,” Tomás announces. He gives Kat a pointed look. Kat, for her part, nods obligingly.

“I wanted to say we’re not talking about exorcisms ever,” Marcus says. “But Tomás thinks we should come to a compromise.”

“We can compromise,” Verity promises. “And, um.” She bites her lip, but she thinks about how she’d feel if her past was something people threw in her face all the time. When Andy did it—when the demon inside Andy did it—at the dinner table in front of Tomás and Marcus, it had felt awful. And Marcus went ahead and spent his whole life still doing the thing that was awful, and then Verity just brought it up over pancakes like it was nothing. “I’m sorry,” Verity finally says, because she promised herself, and Andy, kind of, without him ever knowing about it, that she’d be better about apologizing when she needs to. “I’m sorry for not thinking it through better and just, like, springing that on you out of nowhere.”

The smile she gets from Tomás tells her he’s proud of her. And God, Verity has serious issues with authority, she knows that, but getting that smile from him makes her want to do more to make him proud. It’s not even like she has a crush on him or anything, obviously, but Tomás is just someone who really does make you want to live up to his belief in you. It makes a part of Verity hate him a little bit.

And then there’s the look Marcus gives her. It’s a bit more calculating than Tomás, because Marcus is more openly calculating than Tomás just in general. But there’s gratitude in there, too, and there’s an understanding. Marcus doesn’t know every horrific thing Verity’s been through, just like Verity doesn’t have any idea what kind of terrible things Marcus has been through. But they both understand going through terrible things. They understand not using those terrible things against each other.

And if Verity thought Tomás’s smile made her want to keep doing things right to deserve that look? From Marcus it’s even more. Tomás radiates a kind of innate goodness that tells you he’s going to think the best of you when he meets you, no matter what, and makes you really, really not want to let him down. But Marcus puts out a serious vibe like he’s seen tons of shit and he won’t trust you unless you earn it. He’ll help you, of course, and he’s not going to be purposefully rude to you even before he trusts you, but it’s not going to be easy.

Verity wants to earn it. She doesn’t know if this is some kind of need for a father-figure without Andy or just that she’s excited about some old gay guy who knows how hard it is to grow up religious and with a bad past. All she knows is she wants Marcus on her side. She wants Marcus to trust her, and more than that, she wants Marcus to be proud of her. She doesn’t know what she has to do for that, but she’s going to try her hardest.

Chapter Text

Tomás sighs as he drops into bed. Kat and Verity have only been here for about 30 hours, and he’s already exhausted. He forgot how emotionally taxing it is to have people relying on him for the more mundane kinds of spiritual relief. Exorcisms are exhausting, obviously, but they’re so much more straight-forward than human emotion. At least with a demon, he knows they always have an ulterior motive. With people it can be hard to tell.

Then he feels guilty for thinking that. He was blessed in his position at St. Anthony’s, and he’d loved his job. He’s also lucky to have Kat and Verity here. Neither of those two are young women who easily open up to others or trust. If they’re turning to him and Marcus for help, they’ve done something to earn their reliance. He should be grateful. And he is. He knows what a monumental thing it is that they’re here asking for help, and he’s not taking it lightly.

Tomás rolls his shoulders. He’d hauled some boxes of his old textbooks from the closet so he can go through them tomorrow. He majored in theology, but he minored in social work. It had seemed fitting, and he’s always tried to be a good community priest, working to help the broader social ills that can make spiritual devotion harder—poverty, addiction, abuse, mental illness. Things he saw too often being glossed over, things he was tired of hearing priests say could be solved by praying harder. Now he wants to go through his books about counseling and see if they can help with Kat and Verity.

There won’t be anything about putting a family back together after possession, of course, but he can draw analogies from other examples.

“You’re thinking awfully hard over there,” Marcus comments as he comes out of the bathroom.

“I’m just thinking about my counseling textbooks from college,” Tomás tells him. “Maybe the editors will be interested in my new chapter about counseling victims of demonic possession.”

Marcus laughs and takes his place on the other side of the bed. He leans against the headboard beside Tomás, their shoulders pressed together. “I don’t know if they will be, but I certainly am.”

“Good, because you’ll be helping me write it.”

“Ah, mate, you know I’m not fit for academia,” Marcus says carelessly.

Tomás scoffs. “You’ve been a priest for almost four decades,” he points out. “Priests and monks were the original academics.”

“Sure, back when priests were the only ones who could read,” Marcus reasons. “Now most people can read better than I can.”

Tomás rolls his eyes. He’ll never understand why Marcus thinks Tomás, of all people, will fall for his self-deprecating unintelligent routine. Tomás knows him far too well for that. He doesn’t bother bringing up the old argument tonight. Instead, he says, “Verity and Kat have guessed about us.”

Marcus raises his eyebrows. “Think so?”

“Definitely,” Tomás says through a yawn. “I saw them watching us during dinner and then look at each other anytime they thought we were being…” He can’t decide on a word. “Like a couple,” he finally settles on.

Marcus is grinning. “Like a couple?” he parrots.

“Yes, Marcus, a couple is two people in a relationship,” Tomás snips. “Maybe they did not use that term during your time.”

Marcus roars with laughter. Tomás loves the way Marcus laughs. It’s such a big laugh, bigger than Tomás used to expect from Marcus, serious and intense as he always is. But Tomás knows better now. Marcus does nothing by halves; he feels everything deeply, and he’s not ashamed to let it be known. It’s not really an attractive laugh either, objectively speaking. It’s too loud and brash and he opens his mouth too wide. Tomás loves it desperately and thinks it’s one of the most beautiful things in the world.

“What did I say about making me feel old?” Marcus scolds, smiling way too wide for his tone to be effectively chastising.

“Does it really not bother you? That they know?” Tomás asks, getting serious again. He knows for a fact Marcus had been punished for impure thoughts about other boys when he was a child—not just made to pay penance, but actually punished, physically. And he knows that kind of thing takes a long time to get over.

Marcus takes Tomás’s hand and rests his head on Tomás’s shoulder. “No,” he says. “I quite like it, actually.” His smile now is almost shy. “Went so long feeling guilty about it all, you know. Not just that it was men as well as women but just…wanting anyone at all.”

Tomás nods, all too familiar with that particular guilt. “But they hurt you for it,” he says, feeling small. He doesn’t need to remind Marcus of what Marcus went through. “They made you think it was wrong.”

Marcus sighs. “They did,” he agrees quietly. “But I think you’re forgetting I never cared much what the priests and the bishops were saying as long as I had God on my side. And He didn’t turn me out when I thought about kissing one of the other boys training in exorcisms, so I decided He must not mind too much.”

“Oh.” Tomás rests his cheek on the top of Marcus’s head. “Well, okay. That’s good.”

“And besides,” Marcus goes on. “I was married to God before. He’s a man, isn’t He?” Tomás shifts his head around, quibbling without words. And then Marcus adds, “Can’t be too sad when you’re so much prettier than my last guy.”

“Marcus,” Tomás says, pained, because they’re often casually sacrilegious but joking about Tomás being prettier than God might be a step too far.

Marcus laughs again. “Oh, come on, He won’t strike us down. You’re made in His image, remember? He should be proud. Really outdid Himself on you.”

“Stop,” Tomás groans. His cheeks are hot with his blush.

“I’m guessing you’re not bothered?” Marcus mercifully stops teasing him. “You said before you didn’t mind.”

“I don’t,” Tomás assures him. He turns his head to press his lips into Marcus’s short hair. “Like you said, God doesn’t seem to mind. And they won’t tell anyone. And anyway, I think…” Tomás sighs, “Well, we both know a lot of rules in the Church aren’t necessarily from God. So I don’t think I need to torture myself over not following all of them.”

It wasn’t an easy conclusion to come to. And there’s a part of him, absurdly, that feels bad that he didn’t figure it out with Jessica, like he’s doing her a disservice by allowing himself to be with Marcus. It has less to do with Jessica or Marcus and more to do with Tomás himself, everything he’s been through this past year and how much he’s changed and learned about the Church and even about God, but he still feels a little guilty.

Marcus tilts his head up to look at Tomás, looking amused. “Planning to tack up some theses on the door?”

Tomás rolls his eyes. “I think I might’ve gotten my point across to Pope Sebastian.” The memory still makes him cringe. They’d gone to Rome to find Bennett and exorcise him, to kill the demon that had preyed on him while he was in the hospital, and had ended up with the Holy Father himself. He’d owed Marcus his life, after all, and technically he owed Marcus and Tomás and Mouse and Bennett his soul, not to mention all the souls they’d saved in ending the demonic takeover plot. Tomás, fresh from his own possession and exorcism and visions and the righteous power of casting out demons and not completely positive any of what was happening was even real, had frankly told the Pope he needed to take care of things in the Church.

Marcus laughs again. Tomás telling off the Pope is one of his favorite stories. Not that he has anyone to tell it to, really, but he did tell Olivia. She’d been a bit scandalized at first, mostly at the thought of Tomás ever being so brash with the Pope, but now that she’s gotten used to it she thinks it’s as hilarious as Marcus does. Sometimes she and Marcus will look at each other and one of them will say, With respect, Your Holiness, please get your house in order because I am very tired of exorcising the people who are supposed to be leading.

Which happens to be a direct quote of what Tomás told the Pope. The Pope. It’s horrifying. Luckily, Pope Sebastian didn’t hold it against him. It may have helped that Tomás was very clearly not in his best state of mind; he’d been bleeding from both ears when he said it, eyes half-closed in the aftermath of a vision that had left him babbling in Aramaic, with barely-healing cuts on his face and neck from his possession a few days prior, and he’d only been upright through the strength of Marcus holding him up. Also, Pope Sebastian recognized Marcus as the man who’d saved him by murder through crucifix, and Mouse had just set fire to three integrated demons before they could reach him to kill him, and Tomás, Bennett, Marcus, and Mouse had just popped in with five other non-Catholic exorcists to mass-exorcise fourteen people in front of him.

It had been a hectic day.

“I don’t want to teach them exorcisms,” Marcus says, suddenly grave again. Tomás wishes he were silly and teasing again. Marcus isn’t silly enough.

“I know,” Tomás sighs. “But I’m worried who they’ll turn to if we don’t.”

“Tomás,” Marcus murmurs. “You know something awful will happen to them. It’s inevitable.”

“I know,” Tomás repeats. There’s no way around it. Tomás has met so many exorcists now, and the common thread all of them share is the utter devastation and loss they’ve experienced. Tomás has never had so many nightmares as he’s gained in the last year. Sometimes he wakes up and it takes whole minutes to remember where he is, why he’s let himself sleep so long. Sometimes he wakes up and can’t remember if the exorcism worked, if his body is his own or not. Kat and Verity have both already been through so much. He doesn’t want to see them go through anything else.

But…he knows how they feel, remembers wanting so desperately to be useful. Wanting to help others, knowing there’s suffering too many people don’t recognize or believe or understand. Knowing the wreckage demons leave behind and wanting to end it. As soon as he realized Angela was right, that demons were real and Casey needed help, he’d pushed for exorcism. He couldn’t just sit back and let that kind of evil go unchecked, no matter what Bishop Egan said. And he’d only been connected to Casey as her priest; if it had been Olivia or Luis, Tomás would have burned every bridge necessary to learn how to help. He thinks that must be where Kat and Verity are at now, both far too intimately aware of the reality of demons.

“You’re thinking hard again,” Marcus says softly. “You’re on their side?”

“If there are sides, I am always on your side,” Tomás assures him immediately, maybe more intensely than he needs to in this quiet moment in bed. He can’t help it. Marcus spent so much of his life alone, at odds with everyone around him who was supposed to love him. Tomás will not let himself be on that list, not even for a moment. Even knowing how Kat and Verity feel, if it comes down to agreeing with them or agreeing with Marcus, Tomás will go against his better judgment and agree with Marcus. It’s not about blindly following Marcus, although he trusts Marcus enough for that, and Tomás should know by now that Marcus knows better than he does most of the time. But more than anything, it’s about making sure Marcus knows Tomás is with him, supports him, through anything.

“I know you are,” Marcus says, smiling a little. “But?”

Marcus knows him too well. “But I understand how they feel,” Tomás says. “And so do you. You know you do. They know demons are out there now. They know what demons do to people and families. They want to help.”

Marcus doesn’t say anything for a minute, but Tomás can feel him trembling a bit. Tomás pulls Marcus over to rest against his chest. Sometimes he thinks he’d like to spend his entire life just holding Marcus, squeezing love into him until he realizes how important he is.

“The thought of exorcisms,” Marcus finally says. His voice is thick with tears. He shakes his head. “Tomás, I can’t. I can’t be responsible for anyone else. Look what happens when I teach anyone. Mouse, you. And I can’t—I can’t even consider performing exorcisms again. Not after Andy. Bennett. Gabriel. You. I just…I’m so tired, Tomás.”

“I know,” Tomás murmurs, tears pricking in his own eyes now. He and Bennett were both tough exorcisms for Marcus, already strung too tightly from the aftermath of Andy and then having to face them, people he knew and loved. Not to mention the demon inside Tomás had had an awful lot of ammunition to use against him, and it had made Tomás fight tooth and nail against Marcus. Marcus has a scar in his hairline from when the demon pretended to be in hiding, pretended to be Tomás resurfacing, and got Marcus close enough to then slam his head against the bedframe. That memory’s a fun feature in Tomás’s nightmares almost every single night. He’d held his breath every time he’d so much as touched Marcus for the first week after the exorcism. “I know you are, Marcus. I would change everything that happened to you if I could.” He thinks that at least once every day.

Marcus sniffs a sort of half-laugh. “No use going down that road. Can’t change it. And who says we’d be here together now if I did?”

“I could live without you if it meant no one had ever hurt you,” Tomás says immediately. He’s thought that before, too. “If you could be happier without me, I would change it in a heartbeat.” He can’t imagine life without Marcus, not anymore, but it would be worth being alone if it meant Marcus had grown up loved.

Marcus shakes his head. “Can’t be happier without you,” he says simply. “So let’s not think about it.”

Tomás doesn’t push it. It scares him, sometimes, everything he’d be willing to do for Marcus. He’s not supposed to love like that, put one person so high above anyone else. But here he is, and he does put Marcus above everyone else. He’s not entirely sure where Marcus falls in comparison to Olivia and Luis, and he’s not ready to think about that yet. All he knows is Marcus matters more than other people. And he knows Marcus feels the same. Marcus killed someone for Tomás, after all. Marcus gave up on an exorcism for him. If Tomás thinks about it too much, it’s absolutely overwhelming. He doesn’t feel worthy of that kind of love. He doesn’t understand why Marcus is willing to turn his back on everything he believes in for him.

“We don’t need to decide anything now,” Tomás says, stroking a hand down Marcus’s side. Tomás calls Marcus a stray cat a lot, because he sees Marcus as a bit feral, really, personality-wise. He’s used to coming and going mostly as he pleases, he pounces into a brawl without hesitation, he’s wary of every person he meets, and he’s more than ready to eat out of the trash. But with some kindness, some love, some food, some bonding, Tomás has gained his trust. And now Marcus wants his attention. Tomás isn’t going to let that opportunity pass by.

“Don’t know how long Kat will wait,” Marcus says. “I don’t think I would’ve guessed Verity would be the rational one.”

“Kat can be a loose cannon,” Tomás says. “And I find myself losing my temper with her a lot.”

Marcus snorts. “Can’t imagine why.” He’s being sarcastic. Tomás furrows his brow.

“What do you mean?”

Marcus looks up at him incredulously. “You’re exactly alike, Tomás.”

Tomás is floored. “What are you talking about?”

Marcus actually laughs at him. “You’re both always so sure you’re right, and you go dashing off half-cocked to put yourselves in the line of fire so no one else will have to.”

Tomás slumps back against the headboard. He can’t argue that he doesn’t do that. Marcus has more than enough ammunition to back up that claim. He just never considered Kat grated on him because she’s a mirror of some of his most reckless tendencies.

“Think she’s got more of a mean streak than you do, though,” Marcus goes on. “And she lashes out over smaller things. Well, she’s young, it’s to be expected. I admire her and what she’s willing to do for her family. But damn if I don’t want to just throttle her now and then.”

Tomás laughs, then winces. “We shouldn’t joke about that.” Marcus is right about Kat being young. And besides that, Tomás knows a lot of her anger is in response to everything that’s happened to her. Tomás had turned to God when he struggled with his family. Kat doesn’t seem to have taken that route with her own struggles, and Tomás can’t imagine seeing Olivia possessed, especially if it had happened right after something else traumatic.

“No one can hear you,” Marcus wheedles, rolling his eyes. “Make one joke at someone else’s expense.”

“I’m going to make a joke at your expense,” Tomás threatens without any heat.

Marcus is grinning again. “No, you won’t,” he says confidently.

Tomás huffs. “Are you daring me?”

“I don’t know, am I?” Marcus taunts.

Tomás rolls his eyes, but he takes the bait. He knows he’s supposed to. “The real reason you were excommunicated was for crimes against fashion.” He doesn’t like joking about Marcus’s excommunication, not when he knows how deeply it wounded Marcus and not when thinking about it makes Tomás blood simmer, even here in the safety of their bed. But he knows Marcus will think this joke is funny.

Marcus doesn’t make a sound for a second. Then he bursts out laughing so hard he starts to wheeze. “I can’t believe,” he gasps, “you, of all people, think you get to pass judgment on my fashion.” Actually, Tomás stole that joke from Mouse, but he’s not going to tell Marcus that. Not right now, anyway.

“Marcus, I am very fashionable,” Tomás says overly seriously. “You remember that youth group in Montana? I wore my leather jacket and that girl, Abigail, said she would follow me anywhere.” It had been terribly embarrassing, actually, and Marcus had teased him relentlessly across four states.

“She did have quite the crush on you,” Marcus remembers. “But if you recall, I picked out that jacket.”

“Oh, no, I don’t think so,” Tomás scoffs, laughing. “You are trying to take credit for my good looks?”

“No, I’m just taking credit for getting you in a leather jacket. I did the whole world a favor with that one.”

“I can’t have this conversation anymore,” Tomás says, feeling himself blushing again.

Tomás knows he’s an attractive man. People talk about his looks plenty. Even when he was a kid, people would coo over his big, solemn eyes. In high school, he had no shortage of girls trying to get his attention. Tomás never gave his looks much thought, even as a teenager; he had a body, and it looked a certain way, but God didn’t really care what he looked like and He was the one who mattered. Tomás was always just glad he was healthy and could do God’s work. He’s always kept himself in shape because it’s important to take care of his body and be strong enough to help where he’s needed. Running’s another way to glory in God’s gift of his healthy body; he enjoys running, and it helps him remember he’s blessed. Now, of course, running also helps him remember he’s in control of his body, he’s the one calling the shots and making himself move.

But it isn’t as if a part of Tomás doesn’t enjoy being wanted, at least sometimes. In North Dakota on that Habitat for Humanity trip, he’d always known Jessica was out there on the porch watching him work with his shirt off. It wasn’t necessarily why he took his shirt off, but it was a consideration in not putting it back on, even just subconsciously. Before Marcus, he’d only allowed himself the indulgence of enjoying the lust of one person, just Jessica. There were other girls on the porch watching, too, but Tomás never cared that they were there and got embarrassed if they were too open in their desire for him.

And now, when Marcus comments on his looks, Tomás feels…not exactly shy, not completely, because it’s hard for him to feel shy with Marcus after everything they’ve been through together. But knowing that Marcus, with all his righteous power and his knowledge of God Himself, will stop anything he’s doing to watch Tomás do pushups is hard for Tomás to wrap his head around. Marcus has seen the face of God and he still acts like he can’t believe Tomás exists. It makes Tomás want to hide his face, torn between incredulity, pride, and embarrassment. And a bit of ingrained guilt, of course, because Tomás knows he shouldn’t be so prideful, and he definitely shouldn’t be proud to evoke lust in another.

“It’s important to praise God’s creations,” Marcus says, lifting himself off Tomás’s chest so he can put his lips right up to Tomás’s ear. Tomás shivers. Marcus brushes his hand through Tomás’s hair. “And you, my friend, are certainly one of God’s creations most worthy of praise.”

“Marcus,” Tomás complains. Marcus knows Tomás is uncomfortable being praised that way. He says he does it to help Tomás practice taking a compliment.

“I’m serious,” Marcus goes on, pausing for a second to press his mouth against the hinge of Tomás’s jaw and letting his hand snake under the waistband of Tomás’s sweats. “Give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name.”

“Marcus, you know it is very confusing when you quote scripture at me in bed,” Tomás says breathlessly.

“Nah, I know it gives you a thrill,” Marcus whispers in Tomás’s ear. “Catholic priest, you like that sort of thing, don’t you?”

Tomás does, and it makes him feel guilty, and he’s so tired of feeling guilty over everything. So he reminds Marcus, “The glory of young men is their strength: and the beauty of old men is the gray head.” And then he uses his young-man strength to flip them so he’s on top of Marcus, and he sets to work shutting up his gray head.

“Keep in mind, we are fumbling through this together,” Father Tomás says for probably the twentieth time. Kat and Verity exchange an eyeroll. Father Tomás is using his priest voice, the one Kat remembers from the few times she went to Mass before she left for school. She liked him well enough as a priest; he was young and pretty cool about a lot of stuff, and she even caught him rolling his eyes once when the visiting priest from another parish made some comment about a youth group up to no good because they saw an R-rated movie as an official activity. He always ended Mass right on time and he did his best to make things interesting. His priest voice is pretty charismatic, honestly, and it makes people sit up and pay attention without being condescending.

But he seems very concerned that Kat and Verity understand he didn’t go to grad school and he’s not a licensed therapist. He seems less concerned with the fact that neither of them asked him to be. They’re all sitting in the living room. Kat and Verity are sitting on the couch and Marcus and Father Tomás brought in chairs from the kitchen so they can all look at each other.

“Tomás,” Marcus says. “How about inspiring some confidence in our abilities, yeah? You’ve done a lot of counseling as a priest, haven’t you?”

Tomás shrugs. “I did my best.”

“My parents both always thought you were the best counselor they could find,” Kat says, because she kind of feels bad about all the snapping she’s done at him. It’s so obvious he’s doing his best all the time and he only wants to help, and he’s letting her stay here even with how bratty she always is to him. And besides, she will never, ever, forget that he saved her family, and that makes her want to throw him any lifeline he needs. Not to mention she saw him go full badass on that demon and she’d rather not see that righteous anger thrown her way anytime soon.

Father Tomás’s smile is genuinely touched. “Thank you, Kat. I hope you tell them they can still call me anytime, if they need me.”

“Come on, Tomás, what’s our therapy homework today?” Marcus asks impatiently. He’s bouncing his leg, and Kat realizes he’s nervous. Interesting. Father Tomás doesn’t even get annoyed by Marcus interrupting. He just squeezes Marcus’s shoulder and Marcus’s bouncing leg calms down a fraction.

“I think a lot of the first steps are unnecessary for us,” Father Tomás explains. “Identifying what we’re worried about and understanding our fears. Well,” he amends. “In the context of recovering from exorcism and demonic possession. Of course, we all have other fears and worries we could examine internally.” He raises his eyebrows a bit as his eyes cut sideways to Marcus and Marcus rolls his eyes.

“I will if you will,” he mutters. Verity snorts and Marcus grins, proud of himself. Father Tomás looks up at the ceiling like he’s asking God for strength. He probably really is.

“Okay,” he says. “Um, I want to point out that a lot of this is going to be very personal. And—and the four of us need to agree to trust each other with our, um.” He looks down at his notepad. He’s covered the page in scrawling notes and bullet points. He smirks a little. “This is a direct quote from the textbook. Our innermost feelings and demons.”

“Fitting,” Marcus scoffs.

“I think I already have this one down,” Father Tomás says, smiling at Marcus cheekily. “Since I already trusted you with my demon.”

“Oh, we’re joking about that now, are we?” Marcus responds, delighted. “I’ve got a wealth of them saved up.”

“Later,” Father Tomás instructs. “Right now we are going to do a trust building exercise.”

“Trust building?” Marcus asks, sounding as skeptical as Kat feels. “I think we’ve established our trust by now.”

“You and I, yes,” Father Tomás admits without hesitation. “But you and them?” He gestures at Kat and Verity. “You two?” he adds, gesturing between them. “The two of you and me? There needs to be trust between all four of us before we can open up fully.” Marcus smirks at that and Father Tomás immediately glowers at him.

“Seriously?” Verity mutters, and Kat can’t help but nod along with her. “You don’t think we’re past that stage with the whole exorcism thing?”

“No,” Father Tomás answers, unbothered by how prickly everyone’s being.

“And you think playing a game together is going to build that trust?” Kat guesses skeptically. She’s been to enough dance camps to know what kind of trust building they’re probably looking at, and she’s hated it every time she’s been forced into it. “Like, what, Father Tomás, we’re going to do a trust fall in the living room and then we can all cry about our scary feelings?”

Marcus hides a snort behind a cough and even Father Tomás laughs at that. “You can just call me Tomás,” he says. “And, obviously trust is not built in an afternoon,” he allows. “But we have to start somewhere.”

“I’m not doing the human knot,” Verity says wearily. Kat laughs out loud. She would pay money to see some camp counselor try to get Verity to do the human knot.

“I don’t know what that is,” Tomás says, eyebrows wrinkled together in confusion. “I’m not going to make anyone wear a blindfold or anything like that. All I want us to do is go around and everyone tell us one thing they don’t normally tell people. It can be as serious or silly as you want. But remember the point is that we’re putting our trust in each other, and that requires a certain amount of choosing to trust each other.”

Kat shifts uncomfortably. There’s plenty she doesn’t normally tell people, and she’s not sure how comfortable she is talking about that kind of stuff with two dudes and a random girl she met two days ago. But, she reminds herself, that’s Tomás’s point. She’s kind of supposed to close her eyes and just jump off this trust cliff. Besides, everyone in this room already knows about demons, which is a pretty huge secret.

“I’ll go first,” Tomás says. She still doesn’t know him very well, but she thinks that’s pretty typical for him. He’s not going to make anyone else start when this whole thing was his idea. “Um…” He clears his throat, actually looking kind of nervous. “My parents separated when I was six and my sister was nine. Olivia stayed here in Chicago with my mother and I was sent to Mexico to live with my grandmother. I heard my parents arguing about who would keep me, because…because neither of them wanted me. I—now, as an adult, I understand some of their concerns better. It wasn’t really about me; it was about them and what they could give me. And I won’t suggest for even a moment my abuela didn’t love me and give me everything I needed. But she was a bit old, so it wasn’t easy for her to raise me on her own. And for most of my life I thought I was…” He tips his head, considering his words. “I thought I was a burden. So I thought if I was very good, and I didn’t cause any trouble, people would like me better and want to keep me around.” He swallows hard and nods once, definitively.

Kat can’t look at him for a second. This went from zero to sixty real fast. That’s just so sad, the thought of such a little kid hearing his parents arguing over who had to deal with him. And then he got shipped off to a different country away from his mom and his sister. She can’t imagine that. It would never happen to her, not with her mom and dad. When Kat does finally look up, Marcus has one hand on the back of Tomás’s neck and the other on Tomás’s knee and Kat thinks he’s probably doing his best to make sure Tomás knows he’s not unwanted anymore.

“Me next, yeah?” Marcus asks. He moves his hand from Tomás’s neck but leaves the one on his knee. “Let’s see.” His eyes look far away for a moment. “I saw God when I was twelve. That’s what set me on my path and all. And at the time I was very proud of that, and it made me feel powerful and special. Chosen. But as I got older, and I saw the other kids and how…carefree they were, how much fun they got to have while I was locking myself in basements with demons, I didn’t feel so lucky. It was a burden. And I started to feel like it wasn’t a blessing, after all. It was a curse, being chosen like that. So young. I started to feel like—like I wasn’t quite human. Not the way everyone else was. I thought I was a different species, maybe, and God chose me and I was so good at exorcisms because of that. Like demons didn’t have a hold on me because maybe I didn’t have a real soul. And maybe my parents and everyone else, the other boys in the home and the people who ran it and the priests, maybe they all knew it, somehow, and that’s why they all hated me so much.”

This is all very serious. Kat hates it. She doesn’t want to know these things about Tomás and Marcus and she certainly doesn’t want to add any of her own issues to the pile. Especially because she doesn’t have anything nearly as awful as what they’ve been through. She’ll just sound naïve if she talks about any of her problems, like she thinks not being able to dance anymore is as bad as being abandoned and unloved. Not to mention now she’s having all kinds of weird feelings about Marcus just casually mentioning he saw God as a kid. Tomás is murmuring in Marcus’s ear and Kat looks away.

She and Verity look at each other, gauging who’s going to go next. Verity looks as uncomfortable as Kat feels.

“I’ll go,” Verity says, and Kat’s equally relieved and not. On the one hand, Kat doesn’t want to go at all. On the other, now she’s up last. “When I was in the camp, when they were trying to—you know. Make me stop being gay, or whatever. I always talked back at them, and I figured out how to untie myself and run away and everything. And Nikki and Andy always told me it was so brave and it was good that I knew I deserved better than all that. But part of the reason I did it was because I was afraid the counselors were right and God wanted me there because He hated me and was punishing me. I was afraid what would happen if they actually killed me and I had to go see God. But then after a while I started thinking, well, if that’s what God wants, I’ll try to speed up the meeting myself. Better I do it myself than let anyone else do it for me, right? Like, I knew it was a sin, but I didn’t care. If he already hated me anyway, who cares?”

“They were wrong,” Tomás interrupts fiercely, apparently unable to not interject here with validation. “Verity, they did not have God on their side and He does love you. They are the ones who should be worried about being judged, and they will be judged harshly. I am very glad you’re still here with us.”

“Not how God works,” Marcus agrees, sounding completely confident, like he’s got God on speed dial and they just chat regularly. Kat thinks about him saying he saw God when he was twelve. Maybe he does. “And especially not how God wants children treated.”

Kat didn’t know Verity was in one of those camps. She remembers Verity saying her parents were super religious. Kat’s stomach twists. She hardly knows if she believes in God, though she figures after seeing demons and seeing Tomás exorcise her mom she should, especially if Marcus saw God. She believes him, which is pretty surprising. It’s just hard to believe when so many people use God the way Verity’s counselors and her parents did. But if Verity was raised believing all that, hearing people tell her she was evil and God hated her couldn’t have been good. Kat’s heard about those kinds of places, the things they do to kids. Kat could’ve been in one of those places if she had different parents, a different life, she realizes. She pats Verity’s shoulder, feeling dumb but knowing she needs to do something to try to make Verity feel better.

Now everyone’s looking at Kat. She clenches her hands into fists so they won’t shake. She looks down at her knees instead of at any of them while she talks. She’s only even thought about this a few times, too guilty to really examine it, and the fact that she’s about to say it loud is making her want to throw up.

“I had that car accident, and Julia died. I was really messed up and everything. And everyone kept talking about survivor’s guilt, and how I felt guilty because I thought I was the one who should’ve died instead of Julia. But…I never felt that. I knew it was my fault, and I felt guilty about that, but I didn’t feel guilty for not dying, even though she did. I was never sad I didn’t die and I never thought it should’ve been me who took her place.” Kat lets out a shaky breath and she can only whisper the real heart of her guilt. “I was just so glad it wasn’t me.”

“There is nothing wrong with that,” Tomás says gently. “You do not have to feel guilty for being happy to be alive. And it wasn’t your fault, Katherine.”

Kat just shrugs. Easy for him to say. If Kat were really a good person, she’d be willing to take Julia’s place. But she’s never wanted to do that, not even for a second. The demon knew that. It used Casey to say if she’d swerved the other way she’d be dead and Julia wouldn’t, because it knew Kat’s wondered if she swerved that way on purpose. Kat can’t say that out loud, though. It took too much to say what she already did. Verity pats Kat’s back, like she’s going off Kat’s earlier attempt at comfort. Her hand is small on Kat’s back. Kat wonders if Verity’s hands are smaller than hers. Verity’s shorter than she is, so it seems likely.

“Okay,” Tomás says quietly. “Thank you, everyone, for sharing and for trusting each other.” He sighs. “I don’t think any of these little meetings are going to get happier.”

Marcus pats Tomás’s leg. “You know what I like after emotional upheaval?”

Tomás huffs. “Ice cream.”

“Absolutely. Nothing better for the soul.”

“Are you really saying we should go get ice cream after talking about this shit?” Verity asks incredulously. It’s almost surreal, like they’ll go chitchat about demons in Dairy Queen.

Marcus shrugs. “Why not? Reward ourselves.”

Tomás stands up. “I say we go. Any objections?”

Kat looks at Verity. Verity shrugs. “I guess not.”

“Perfect,” Marcus says. He throws a little wink at Kat behind Tomás’s back. “I can only convince the health nut to eat ice cream after I bare my soul to him.”

“Really?” Kat fires back without really thinking. “Not even after you bare other things to him?”

Verity slaps her hand over her mouth, gasping, and grabs at Kat’s arm with her other hand. Marcus narrows his eyes, but Kat can see him holding back a smile. Tomás covers his eyes with his hands and starts muttering in Spanish. Kat doesn’t know any Spanish, since she took French in high school, but she’s pretty sure she’s heard those words on the street and they’re not words a priest is supposed to be saying.

“Does switching to Spanish mean we’re in trouble?” Verity asks. Kat actually does feel bad for saying it. It’s not like Tomás and Marcus told them they were a couple. She shouldn’t just assume it, and she definitely shouldn’t make jokes about it without knowing how comfortable they are with that kind of thing. Kat forgets sometimes other people didn’t grow up on the North Side with parents who would love them no matter what, hanging out in dance companies and theaters full of gay guys. Tomás and Marcus probably aren’t used to joking about it. But it just popped out. Marcus set it up so perfectly.

“No, he just does it to be dramatic,” Marcus assures them. “Or he’s dealing with a prophetic vision about demonic possession and doesn’t realize which language he’s speaking. One of the two.”

Kat can feel her eyes bugging out a little bit. “Um, what?”

“Marcus,” Tomás scolds tiredly.

“You have prophetic visions?” Verity asks, halfway between skeptical and awed. She glances quickly at Kat, who can only shrug. This is their life now, apparently.

Tomás shrugs. “I haven’t had one in a while. So…maybe I don’t anymore.”

He looks uncomfortable. Kat remembers Verity apologizing yesterday and thinks about all of them working on building up their trust. “Sorry,” she says. “If you don’t want me to talk about—” She gestures between Tomás and Marcus. “I won’t make jokes about it.”

“It’s fine,” Tomás says. He and Marcus meet eyes. “We’re not hiding it. We’re just…not used to anyone else knowing.”

“Though I can think of a few people who probably have an inkling,” Marcus says.

“Isn’t that…not allowed?” Kat ventures. “With the whole, um, chastity thing?” She doesn’t even bring up the gay part. She can only handle so many emotional minefields in a day.

Tomás is blushing now. Kat figures he probably doesn’t talk about sex much, being a priest and all. Or not his own sex, anyway, since in confession he probably hears about other people’s sex lives way more than he wants to. “Not really,” he admits. “But the vow of chastity isn’t actually from God directly, and He’s who I take my guidance from.”

“Oh, damn,” Verity says, sounding impressed. “Look out, Catholic Church, because Father Tomás does what he wants.”

“I do what God wants,” Tomás corrects.

“And God wants you to bone,” Verity concludes thoughtfully. Kat snorts so hard she thinks she might’ve lost part of her brain. Verity is hilarious. Kat wasn’t expecting it at all; she thought Verity was going to be one of those super bitches who’s just mad at everyone all the time.

“Further proof that God is love and wants His children to be happy,” Marcus says with a smirk, eliciting shrieks of laughter from both Kat and Verity. Kat knew Marcus was a little more irreverent than Tomás, but she was not prepared for that.

“Can we please talk about anything else?” Tomás requests, sounding strangled. He’s blushing furiously.

Marcus claps him on the back. “You want to talk about your leather jacket again?”

Tomás covers his face with his hands again. “Can’t we just talk about demons?”

Marcus laughs and slings his arm around Tomás’s neck. “Of course we can,” he says, overly condescending. “Let’s talk about that demon in Muncie who couldn’t stop goading me about how pretty you are.”

They walk out the door that way, laughing and sniping at each other, and Kat finds herself sharing a look and a laugh with Verity. If anyone had told her a week ago she’d be laughing over priests acting super gay together with a girl she just met and is sharing a room with after revealing one of her deepest secrets to three basic strangers, she would’ve said they were crazy. Now she just smiles and follows Tomás and Marcus. She wants ice cream, too.

Chapter Text

Marcus looks down into Tomás’s face. Tomás is tied to the bed, lips cracked and bleeding, and he’s pleading with Marcus to untie him. There’s a cut on his cheek. Is that from the demon? Marcus can’t be sure.

“I’m not possessed, Marcus,” Tomás promises. “Please, let me go.”

“I can’t,” Marcus says. He strokes Tomás’s cheek, gentling the sting of his words. “I’ve got to exorcise you. It’s for you, you know.”

“But I’m not possessed!” Tomás insists again, straining against his bindings. “You’ll kill me.”

“I’ll do what I have to, my love,” Marcus says. He leans down and kisses Tomás’s chapped lips, and then he stabs Tomás in the throat with Mother Bernadette’s crucifix.

“Marcus,” Tomás chokes, body spasming as blood fills the entire room. Marcus is going to drown in it, probably, but if he’s going to die, drowning in Tomás’s blood he spilt seems only fitting. Tomás focuses his eyes on Marcus as the light fades from them. “How could you?”

Marcus snaps awake with a gasp. His heart is thudding painfully and he’s drenched in sweat. He reaches for Tomás, has to feel him whole and breathing to calm himself.

“Hmm?” Tomás hums, not actually awake.

“Shh,” Marcus whispers, nosing at Tomás’s hair. Tomás goes limp against him, fully asleep again. Marcus closes his eyes, tries to steady his trembling hands by holding onto Tomás’s solid body. Tomás is fine. Tomás is alive. Tomás is snoring because they never reset his nose after Harper’s mother kicked him in the face in the hallway of Andy’s house.

Marcus kisses Tomás’s temple and then leans down to kiss his throat, where he’d thrust in the crucifix in his dream. Tomás’s throat is perfectly unblemished. He’s fine. Marcus takes several deep breaths, finally starting to calm down a bit. He’s had nightmares of exorcising Tomás plenty of times, but he’d never stabbed him in any of them. That’s a new one.

Marcus isn’t going to be able to sleep for the rest of the night, he knows. He’s well-versed in nightmares and his own sleeping patterns. He lies there holding Tomás for a while longer, but he’s still jumpy, keyed up from the adrenaline of his nightmare. His hands are shaking even when he clenches them in Tomás’s shirt. He breathes Tomás in a last time and then slips carefully out of bed. He goes to the bathroom first, washes his sweaty face and clings to the counter for a few minutes. He avoids looking at himself in the mirror. He knows what he’ll find—his pale face, his eyes too bright from fear, the wild way his chest is heaving from breathing too fast.

He doesn’t want to wake Tomás. It takes a long time for Tomás to get to sleep these days, and it’s rare for him to stay asleep very long. He has nightmares, memories of the blood-soaked visions he saw on the road and regular memories of watching demons tear apart human flesh. And he’s still afraid sometimes he’ll wake up and the exorcism and everything after was a dream, afraid he’s still possessed. Besides that, exorcists don’t get regular working hours, and they got used to sleeping in turns, snatching an hour here or there. They’re both trying desperately to regulate their sleep schedules, but now they’re on a vicious cycle of sleepless nights, nightmares, and daytime naps.

Marcus goes to the living room to pace a bit. Tomás has suggested mildly, more than once, Marcus try running, since he always needs to pace so much. Marcus knows Tomás finds running calming, but Marcus hates it. He’ll run when he has to if he’s in mortal danger, but he doesn’t see much point in doing it for recreation. He gets himself a glass of water and looks out the kitchen window.

They face another brick building. It’s ugly and confining, buildings stacked right on top of each other. Marcus used to think about retiring to the countryside somewhere, if he ever let himself think about retiring at all instead of winding up in a ditch somewhere. He thought he’d like living out where no other people would hear him screaming at God, where he could feel nature around him. But Tomás is a city boy, through and through. Their trek across middle America showed Marcus how baffled Tomás is by people who want to live spread out. His disgust at the idea of having to drive everywhere, no public transport and everything too spread out to walk, always made Marcus laugh, when he wasn’t despairing of how Tomás’s hatred of driving translated to his lack of skill at it.

Not to mention too many of the people who do live in those places have a tendency to hate Tomás on sight and especially once they hear him speak. It presented a problem more than once while they were working and always made Marcus long for the bigger cities again. At least in bigger cities, Tomás doesn’t stand out so much, not the only one who looks different in a sea of white. Marcus has never heard anyone in the city yell at Tomás to get back to the watermelon fields.

And in all honesty, Marcus couldn’t live out in the country for too long. It reminds him of his childhood, no neighbors near enough to hear and intervene when Dad got drunk and angry. The countryside can get too quiet, eerie in the stillness when it’s glaringly obvious God is not speaking to him. No, the city is better, even if it means they’re facing nothing but a wall. Marcus wonders if it’s some kind of metaphor. They’re trying to retire, trying to find use for themselves that isn’t exorcism, but so far they haven’t been terribly successful.

Well, now they’ve got Kat and Verity here. Marcus isn’t sure how that’s going. It’s been nearly a week, and luckily no one’s brought up learning exorcism again. They did Tomás’s little secret-telling exercise and moved on to talk about the burden of knowing demons are real while most of the world is blissfully ignorant. Mostly Kat and Verity have been watching a lot of daytime television while Marcus and Tomás try to figure out what to do with themselves and how much touching is appropriate in front of other people. Marcus doesn’t know if any of this is helping any of them. He’s not sure how to measure something like that. He doesn’t even know how to tell with himself, and he knows Tomás is worried he’s just wasting everyone’s time whenever he gathers them around to talk.

“Marcus?” Tomás mumbles from behind him. Marcus looks over his shoulder and sees him rubbing his eyes.

“Sorry,” Marcus says. “Did I wake you?”

“No,” Tomás says. “I don’t know. I woke up and you were gone.”

“Sorry,” Marcus repeats. Tomás comes closer and wraps his arms around Marcus from behind, hooking his chin over Marcus’s shoulder.

“Nightmare?” Tomás asks.

“Yeah.”

Tomás doesn’t ask him to elaborate, thankfully. Marcus doesn’t know if he can discuss this one. “I’m tired,” Tomás says, swaying them a bit.

“Go back to bed,” Marcus says. “I’ll come back in a bit.”

Tomás shakes his head. “Won’t be able to sleep now that I’m up.”

Marcus nods his understanding. “Do you want to lie on the couch with the TV on?” That helps sometimes. They’ve learned a lot about gold jewelry in the last two months. And if they weren’t so used to working to preserve both money and storage space, they’d have rooms full of those gadgets sold on TV. Marcus still thinks they have almost an obligation to get the Wonder Bible, though Tomás’s point that Marcus can’t redact an audio copy is a good one.

“I might read some scripture,” Tomás says. “Do you want to join me?”

Marcus looks at the brick wall again. There’s a corner that’s crumbling a bit, in need of upkeep. That would definitely be him if the wall is a metaphor for them. “What are you going to read?”

“Whatever you want,” Tomás offers, all too aware of Marcus’s attitude about some parts of the Bible not being worth his time. “I can do Psalms. Isn’t that your least-redacted book?”

“After Song of Solomon, since it’s just apocryphal and doesn’t try to be scripture.” And because discovering Song of Solomon in puberty had felt like touching a livewire, but he knows he doesn’t have to explain that to Tomás; it’s something of a known secret in seminary, what all the young priests in training are poring over with wide eyes. “The Psalms are okay. Even though I don’t always like David.”

Tomás smiles against Marcus’s neck. “I know. Bathsheba deserved better.”

“His repentance Psalm is a farce. Against thee, and thee only, have I sinned. Not sure Bathsheba would agree, not to mention poor old Uriah.” It always works Marcus up. He’s interrupted more than one priest who spouted the misguided common belief that Bathsheba was some kind of temptress who deserved to go down in history as a whore.

“I know,” Tomás repeats. He sounds fond. It makes Marcus smile, too.

“Yeah, alright,” Marcus says. “Will you read me some Proverbs in Spanish?” He loves hearing Tomás read out loud. He has a steady voice, confident and sincere in the Word, but he never sounds surer than when he’s speaking Spanish. And Marcus likes when Tomás uses Spanish around him so he can get better. It might be a little over the top, but Marcus wants to make sure his Spanish stays sharp for Tomás. Tomás is better in Marcus’s native language than Marcus is in Tomás’s, and he thinks it’s only fair he work on that.

Tomás gives Marcus a squeeze. “Of course.” He’s always plenty agreeable to reading in Spanish, since it’s more natural for him. He’d once told Marcus he used to practice reading English scripture out loud endlessly during the week, preparing for Mass because he didn’t want to mispronounce anything. He’d do it on his own first, then he’d make Olivia and Luis critique him, and when he felt it was almost perfect he’d turn to his assistant for any last adjustments. He’s harder on himself about his pronunciation and his accent than Marcus thinks he really needs to be, but Marcus also knows Tomás has probably been criticized more times than he can count over it.

Marcus drifts off somewhere in Proverbs 22. It’s surprising, because he wasn’t expecting to get any more sleep. Maybe his body is finally learning. He wakes up disoriented, more like a midday nap than nighttime sleep, and he’s alone in the bed. For one heart-stopping moment, his dream from earlier resurfaces, and he’s seized with terror that he really did kill Tomás.

No, he reminds himself. It was just a nightmare. Tomás is just…out of the room. He’s not in the bathroom; the door is open and the light off. He must be in the kitchen. Marcus rubs his hand down his face, trying to stop the image of a bloodstained Tomás from filling his head again. He climbs out of bed with a little groan. He jokes about his body being decrepit, but he really does wake up full of aches most days. He’s been tossed around by too many demons and slept on too many cramped benches.

He shuffles out of the bedroom, yawning, and then freezes. The kitchen is empty. Tomás isn’t there. Marcus takes a deep breath. It’s fine. Maybe he went for a run. Or maybe they’re out of milk. There’s no need to panic. Just because Tomás is gone doesn’t mean a demon found him. Marcus bites down on his lip, hard, and goes back to the bedroom to search for his phone. He never knows where it is. Tomás usually calls it for him to find it.

Marcus takes another breath, trying to steady himself. His hands are trembling. It’s ridiculous. There’s no reason to think Tomás is in danger. They’re not on house arrest and they’re not attached at the hip. Tomás can go somewhere. Just because he didn’t tell Marcus beforehand doesn’t mean some awful thing happened. Marcus was sleeping. Tomás probably didn’t want to wake him up when sleep doesn’t come easily for them. Marcus would do the same thing.

Marcus can’t find his phone. He tries to remember when he had it last, but he can’t. It isn’t as though he has people calling him often so he needs to keep track of it. He’s breathing hard. He swallows. He needs to calm down. When Tomás comes back from his run, Marcus is going to feel rather silly.

He’s not convincing himself.

He can hear Kat and Verity in the kitchen now. He doesn’t mean to run out there and pounce on them, but he sort of ends up doing it anyway. “Do you know where Tomás is?” he asks, hoping he doesn’t sound as desperate as he feels. He must not, because neither of them seem concerned.

“Haven’t seen him,” Verity says.

“We just woke up,” Kat adds. “Did he go for a run?”

“I don’t know,” Marcus barks. He realizes he should check the closet to see if Tomás’s running shoes are gone. He dashes off to do that. He knows he’s being unreasonable. But he can’t seem to stop himself. Tomás’s running shoes are neatly in their place in the corner of the closet. There are only four pairs of shoes in the closet—Tomás’s running shoes, his dress shoes, a pair of ancient Mexican flag slides that look like they’ll fall apart if anyone tries to wear them, and Marcus’s sole pair of boots. Tomas’s boots are missing. At least he’s wearing shoes, wherever he is.

“He’s not running,” Marcus says grimly, stalking back out of the bedroom. He opens the hall closet. “His jacket’s gone.”

“Did you call him?” Kat suggests.

“I can’t find my phone.”

Verity and Kat look up at him now, the sharpness of his voice drawing their attention. “Um, are you okay?” Verity asks cautiously.

“Tomás is gone,” he points out impatiently.

“Yeah, is that…” Kat exchanges a look with Verity and changes tack. Absently, Marcus wonders when they learned to talk to each other without words. “Is there a reason that worries you?”

“Because I don’t know where he is,” Marcus says tersely. He has no time to explain that yes, he’s aware he’s overreacting, and yes, he’s aware it’s mostly due to his nightmare last night and the fact that the last time he didn’t know where Tomás was Tomás was off getting possessed. Don’t think about that. Marcus is pacing a hole in the kitchen floor.

“Do you want me to call your phone?” Kat asks.

“Yes,” Marcus seizes this opportunity. But he remembers to add, “Thank you.” Tomás will be proud. Assuming he’s alive to find out. Marcus’s stomach lurches even while his brain tells him he’s being absolutely ludicrous.

“Here.” Kat holds out her phone. “I don’t have your number.” She already has the keypad pulled up for him. She has one of those new phones that’s so large Marcus doesn’t even have to squint. But he does pause for a second, trying to remember which phone number he’s on now. They used to switch phones with every new exorcism, making sure to keep the Church off their tail, and Marcus is usually perfectly fine to remember all the numbers but just now he’s breathing hard and everything in his head is jumbled up.

“I can’t…” He blows out a shaky breath. Before he can get too frustrated, and before Kat and Verity have too much time to pity him and probably think he’s going senile, the door opens. Tomás comes in, herding a rather sad-looking Luis in front of him.

“Oh, hi, everyone,” Tomás says, blissfully unaware of the fool Marcus just made of himself. “Poor Luis has a sore throat, so he’s going to spend the day with us today. Probably tomorrow, too, if his fever doesn’t go down.”

“Okay,” Marcus says faintly. He’s still clutching Kat’s phone in his hands. Tomás does a double-take when he looks at Marcus.

“Marcus?” he asks.

“I’m fine,” Marcus manages to say. He hands Kat her phone with a nod of thanks. “Um. Why don’t we put Luis in our room?” Luis usually sleeps in the spare room when he stays over, but that’s obviously not possible now, and the couch won’t be a great spot for him to get some rest while they’re all up and about.

“Yeah,” Tomás agrees uncertainly, still looking concernedly at Marcus. But Luis is looking more pitiful by the second, so Tomás turns his attention to his nephew. “Ven, chaparro,” he says, rubbing Luis’s shoulder. He leads Luis to the bedroom. “Marcus,” he tosses over his shoulder just as they reach the room. “Can you bring in that trashcan?”

There’s no real reason to ask Marcus to bring a trashcan; there’s one in the room already, and Tomás didn’t say anything about Luis feeling sick. Marcus is being summoned. He follows Tomás down the hall and just barely hears Verity mutter, “You forgot the trashcan.” Kat laughs loudly. He ignores them both. Antagonizing him, just a little, seems to be something of a bonding ritual for them, and he doesn’t mind. But just now he minds everything.

Tomás is kneeling on the ground, untying Luis’s shoes for him, and Marcus wants nothing more than to examine every inch of him to make sure he’s unscathed. Then he wants to hold him for a hundred years and never let go. He’s being dramatic. He can’t really help himself. But he manages to contain it while Tomás works to get Luis situated.

“Does he need some medicine?” Marcus asks.

“I don’t know if we have any he can take,” Tomás says. “Olivia only gives him the Children’s Tylenol. But he is twelve now so I guess he can take the adult kind.”

“I’ll run down and get some,” Marcus suggests, relieved to have a few minutes alone to compose himself. “Better safe than sorry. The corner store should have it, yeah?”

“Probably,” Tomás says. He’s got his eyes narrowed at Marcus. “Are you sure—?”

“Won’t be a minute,” Marcus cuts him off briskly. “And how about some popsicles, too, Luis? How’s that sound?”

“Thanks,” Luis says, and his voice does sound hoarse and painful. Tomás winces at the sound as Luis climbs onto Tomás’s side of the bed. Tomás fusses with the pillow a bit, making sure Luis is comfortable. Then he shepherds Marcus into the bathroom, the only place with a semblance of privacy at the moment.

“What’s wrong?” he asks lowly.

“Nothing,” Marcus says, shaking his head. “I was overreacting.”

“About what?”

“I should go get that medicine for Luis,” Marcus reminds him.

“Marcus, what happened?” Tomás isn’t budging.

Marcus sighs. “Woke up and couldn’t find you, is all.”

“I’m sorry,” Tomás says. “I should have left you a note, but I was hoping to get back before you woke up.” He clearly doesn’t understand why that would send Marcus into a panic. How could he? He doesn’t know what Marcus dreamt.

“It’s fine,” Marcus says. He starts to move past Tomás but Tomás blocks his way again.

“Why were you overreacting about that?” Damn him and his observation skills.

“Because I’ve lived a very difficult life.” Marcus figures cheekiness will convince Tomás he’s fine. “And I often don’t have full control of my emotions.” That’s a nice tidbit from Brother Simon in the St. Aquinas days.

Tomás is wholly unimpressed by Marcus’s attempt at humor. “Yes, I’m aware,” he says, eyebrows raised. That seems a little rude. “But there’s usually some kind of logic to it.”

“Can we talk about this later?” Marcus requests. Tomás purses his lips, obviously caught between concern for Marcus and concern for Luis. Marcus puts his arms around Tomás, the contact settling his heart further. “It was really just an overreaction,” he promises quietly. “It’s nothing big.”

“You looked terrified when I came in,” Tomás frets, raising a hand to Marcus’s neck.

“I’m fine now.”

Tomás makes a sound like he wants to disagree but doesn’t want to push right now. “Okay,” he says. “But take your phone, yes?”

“Oh,” Marcus says. “I don’t know where it is.”

Tomás raises his eyes heavenward. “Did you call it?”

“Couldn’t remember which number I’m on now,” Marcus admits sheepishly. It’s kind of funny now that’s he’s not panicking.

Tomás huffs. “Well, you can learn this one for good now, since we don’t have to change numbers anymore.”

“I’ll work on it,” Marcus says as Tomás pulls out his phone. There’s a certain amount of comedy as they follow the faint buzzing to different corners of the room, trying to determine where it’s strongest. In the end, they find Marcus’s phone shut away in a drawer of the dresser.

“You would’ve found it if you ever bothered to wear a real shirt,” Tomás points out reproachfully, raising an eyebrow at Marcus’s vest. “Were you going to run outside in that?”

“Never heard you complain before,” Marcus remarks, obligingly pulling a jumper over his head. Tomás rolls his eyes, because it’s the gray jumper Marcus picked up in prison after Kat called the police on him during Casey’s exorcism. Tomás hates that jumper with a passion, and Marcus isn’t sure if the problem is the fact that he got it in prison or the fact that Tomás first experienced Marcus in the jumper when he smelled like a sewer. But it’s warm and soft and doesn’t have any holes in it; Tomás can wrinkle his nose all he wants, but Marcus isn’t parting with it.

“Be right back,” Marcus says, squeezing Tomás’s arm. He’d pull him in for a kiss, but Luis isn’t asleep yet. Tomás hasn’t said anything to Olivia about them, and they’re not going to ask Luis to keep a secret from his mother. They’re not entirely sure Olivia doesn’t suspect something anyway, considering she’s perfectly aware they share a bedroom, but Marcus figures that’s something Tomás has to decide to tell her in his own time.

It’s not quite ten in the morning, and the corner market isn’t busy. He’s missed the morning coffee rush but beat the lunch crowd. He finds the Children’s Tylenol and debates between the three varieties of popsicles. He’s not very well versed in frozen treats, as it turns out. He decides on the tropical pack, because he doesn’t know what Luis likes but he does know what Tomás likes. It’s less that he thinks Luis will share his uncle’s tastes and more that Marcus wants Tomás to have a treat.

He can admit he’s a bit lovesick, maybe.

The kid behind the counter is probably Verity’s age. He’s called Jerry and he’s worked there the whole time Marcus and Tomás have lived here. He looks at the Children’s Tylenol and the popsicles and then gives Marcus a surprised look.

“I didn’t know you had a kid,” he says.

“I don’t,” Marcus tells him.

“Whoa,” Jerry says, “Father Tomás doesn’t have a kid, does he?” His eyes are big and round in his face and it actually makes Marcus laugh.

“He has a nephew with a sore throat,” Marcus tells him.

“Oh, okay,” Jerry says. “I mean, a gay priest is one thing, but a gay priest with a kid?” He shakes his head with a little laugh as he rings up the popsicles.

“What?” Marcus asks faintly.

Jerry blinks. “What?”

“A gay priest?”

Jerry looks uncomfortable. “Um…sorry, I thought you two…?”

Marcus has no idea how to respond. His first inclination is to deny it, because they have vows, they could get caught. But Marcus doesn’t have vows. And Tomás doesn’t seem to care if they get caught. Marcus scratches the back of his neck. He doesn’t really want to deny it. It gives him a little thrill to think someone who’s just casually observed them can tell. On the other hand, he’s woefully clueless about how to talk about this.

“Well,” he says awkwardly. “Gay’s not the only option there.” Marcus hasn’t spent a long time internally examining his sexuality, with the confusion of Mouse and all his other feelings, but he knows for a fact Tomás wouldn’t call himself gay. He isn’t sure what Tomás would call himself, but he sticks to what he does know.

Jerry gulps, eyes wide again. “Okay.”

Marcus shuffles his feet. He’s not wearing socks inside his boots. That can’t be sanitary. He pays and declines a bag, and as he’s leaving, Jerry calls out,

“Don’t worry, dude, it’s totally cool with me!”

Marcus feels like he has to acknowledge that, but hell if he knows how. He turns around and gives Jerry a nod, for lack of even an inkling of what else to do. Then he all but runs home. The inside of his head is scary enough, with all his nightmares and bad memories and overreactions. But the outside world is still an intensely baffling place he thinks he may never understand.

When he gets home, Tomás has mostly decided to let Marcus’s earlier panic lie. Marcus doesn’t know if it’s because he’s more focused on Luis, who is currently drenching their bed sheets in fever sweat after half an hour, or if he’s just trusting Marcus to take care of his own emotions.

No, Marcus realizes, it must be Luis. Tomás knows better than to trust Marcus with his own emotions.

“Did they take his temperature at the school?” Marcus asks.

“It was only 100,” Tomás says. “It seems higher than that now.”

“I don’t know if the corner store has thermometers,” Marcus says. He can’t go back now, not after that horrifying display with Jerry.

“No, we have one,” Tomás says distractedly. He squints as he thinks. “I used to keep it in the cupboard by the medicine…but I still haven’t unpacked everything here.”

“Oh, it’s in the bathroom,” Marcus remembers. “I saw it and thought about checking your temperature the other day when you had that headache.”

“You’re right,” Tomás says. They don’t discuss the headaches. Those used to be a precursor to visions. Now they seem to be a lasting after-effect. They find the thermometer, under about twenty little bars of motel soap in various states of use that Tomás, for whatever reason, saved up from each of their trips. Luis’s fever is up to 102, and Tomás is officially worried.

“We’ll see if it goes down with the medicine,” Marcus points out.

“I’m making him an appointment at the clinic,” Tomás says. “I don’t want Olivia to worry about it.”

“You do that, I’ll give him the medicine,” Marcus says. “Says it’s grape flavored. Sounds ghastly.”

“Not as bad as cherry,” Tomás says, making a face. He rests his hand on the back of Marcus’s neck, that spot that makes Marcus’s eyes close automatically. “Thank you,” Tomás says.

“For what?” Marcus asks.

“For being here. For helping. For caring about him.”

“Of course I care about him. He’s a great kid,” Marcus points out. It makes Tomás smile.

“I know. But I’m glad you know that, too.” He’s brushing his thumb across Marcus’s ear and Marcus can finally let go of his nightmare and his earlier panic. Tomás is here. Waking up to an empty bed was bad timing this morning, but everything is fine.

“I don’t need much convincing,” Marcus tells him. “Hard not to love him.”

“It makes me happy to see it,” Tomás says. “Helps me know I picked you well.”

“You picked me?” Marcus echoes, amused. “I think I picked you.”

Tomás rolls his eyes. “I picked you. I’m the one who went and found you first, remember?”

“If we’re going off that, I think God picked me,” Marcus says. He swallows hard after his ears catch up to his mouth and he realizes what he just said. For a long time, it felt like God had pushed him aside. He felt decidedly unpicked.

Tomás’s smile gets softer. “He did,” he says. “In more than one way.”

Marcus huffs. “Okay,” he says. “I’m going to give Luis the medicine.”

Tomás squeezes the back of Marcus’s neck one last time before releasing him. “I’ll call the clinic.”

“Oh, you know that boy from the corner store?” Marcus asks, making his voice light.

“Yeah, Jerry,” Tomás says, because he remembers everyone’s names.

“He knows,” Marcus says. He gestures at Tomás. “Us.”

“How?” Tomás asks. He just sounds curious, not worried or upset. It makes Marcus smile.

“Dunno. Guess he just guessed it himself from seeing us.”

“Huh.” Tomás thinks that over. Then he smiles at Marcus. “I like that.”

“You do?” Marcus says, like he wasn’t thinking the exact same thing.

“I do. I like that he could tell just from seeing us together. It means we’re doing it right.”

Marcus raises his eyebrows. “I wasn’t aware I needed to be worried we were doing it wrong. I haven’t had anything to complain about.”

Tomás snorts. “Well, it’s not like either of us have much experience here,” he says logically. “But I just like knowing people can tell.”

“Tomás…” Marcus feels like they need to have a discussion about Tomás’s vows. They’ve touched on it, and Tomás seems to have decided the vow of chastity doesn’t matter, or they aren’t breaking it, or whatever he’s decided. Marcus can’t say he’s upset by that decision, not really. But there’s a part of him, no small part, that’s worried Tomás is more willing to play fast and loose with his vows after his possession. Maybe there’s a part of him that doesn’t feel worthy anymore, and he sees this as a way to express that. Maybe the possession scared him so badly he doesn’t care if he’s following God’s plan anymore. Maybe it’s why he doesn’t want a parish anymore.

But this isn’t really a good time to get into all that. Luis is sweating away with his fever, and Tomás is worried about that, and Kat and Verity are out in the living room needing guidance, and Marcus is worn out from his dream. This conversation is going to require heavy emotion, and he’s not sure either of them are in the headspace for that today. Their day-to-day life, at this point, requires so much heavy emotion. Further discussion just seems exhausting. Not to mention a bit cruel, when Luis needs them right now.

“Marcus?” Tomás checks, because Marcus’s pause has gone on for far too long.

“Never mind,” Marcus says. “Go make the appointment.”

Tomás examines him for a minute, but he just nods and leaves. Marcus watches his back, admiring the way Tomás walks and hoping Marcus isn’t some kind of self-flagellation for him. Then Marcus shakes his head. After all they’ve been through together, there’s no chance Tomás doesn’t really care for him. That’s Marcus’s mind playing tricks on him. He grabs the medicine off the bathroom counter and goes over to gently shake Luis awake. There aren’t many things Marcus is certain of anymore in this world. But Tomás’s genuine feeling and care for him is not something he needs to worry himself about. And with that one security, really, Marcus thinks he can handle most everything else.

Chapter Text

Kat’s sitting on the couch with Luis. Tomás took him to the doctor two days ago and it turns out he has strep throat, so he’s been staying with them while Olivia goes to work. Kat overheard Olivia stressing about it when she came to pick Luis up last night, saying she should just take time off work or quit if they won’t let her.

“Olivia, no,” Tomás had murmured. “You waited so long for this job, and it’s permanent and it’s a good job. I’m here.”

“You shouldn’t have to do all this,” Olivia had said, voice tearful. “And I shouldn’t just be dumping my kid when he’s sick.”

“I feel lucky to be here and help, you know that,” Tomás had assured her. “I love having Luis here and I love taking care of him. And he knows you love him. You’re working for him. He understands.”

Kat knows she can’t really understand their life, the idea that Olivia literally can’t afford to stay home from work when Luis is sick. Angela worked mostly from home when Kat and Casey were little, and she and Henry had both been more than able to take time off when they needed it. It makes her sad. She’s never had to give much thought to how other people live, but the older she gets, the more she realizes how lucky she’s been. Especially hearing about Verity’s awful parents. At least with Olivia, she loves her kid but has to be away from him. It all makes Kat wish she hadn’t been such a heinous brat so many times. She’d sent both her parents a text after that, telling them she loves them. It probably made them worried she’s possessed now.

She and Luis are watching The Price is Right, because some things never change. “I used to watch this when I was home from school sick, too,” she tells him. Luis looks over at her.

“I don’t get it,” he says. His voice is finally starting to sound better. “How do they guess how much stuff costs?” It’s the first full sentence she’s heard him say that wasn’t in Spanish or a shy whisper. He’s talked a bit more to Verity, which definitely doesn’t make Kat jealous. That would be a stupid thing to be jealous over. Kat just has no idea how to talk to kids, and Verity apparently has a million siblings and is used to kids. Kat bets Verity’s a cool big sister, the kind who would help you pierce your own ear and hide it from your parents or something like that.

“I don’t actually know,” Kat admits. “Maybe they look a bunch of stuff up online before they go on the show.”

“Oh, yeah,” Luis says. “They probably study.”

“Probably,” Kat agrees. “We can watch something else if you want.”

“There’s nothing on,” Luis tells her.

“Isn’t Sesame Street or something on?” Kat asks. Luis gives her a look like she’s a total idiot.

“Sesame Street’s for little kids,” he points out. She figures he won’t appreciate if she asks, aren’t you a little kid? The last time she was around a twelve-year-old, it was Casey and Kat was fourteen.

“Right,” she says instead. “I guess Tomás and Marcus don’t have a smart TV with Netflix or something?”

Luis snorts. “Uncle Tomás says it goes against his vow of poverty,” he scoffs. “But really he just doesn’t know how to work them.”

Kat laughs. Apparently twelve-year-olds know more than she thought. “At least he’s not super old and he knows how to use phones and computers and stuff.”

“Yeah, not like Marcus,” Luis agrees. “He doesn’t know anything. I had to teach him emojis.”

Kat cracks up over the mental image of Marcus meticulously choosing emojis. She wonders if he uses the devil one when he’s talking about demons. Someone knocks on the door. Kat looks over at it. She’s been here for over a week, and Olivia and Luis are the only people who have come over. Tomás and Marcus went grocery shopping and Verity’s in the shower, so Kat is officially the resident adult here. She checks the peephole before she opens the door, because maybe it’s a demon or maybe it’s just a regular bad guy. She’s not going to let some crazy person come in and do something to Tomás’s nephew. Or Verity. Although at this point, with everything Verity’s been through, Kat thinks she should let some bad guy in here and see what he’ll get if he tries to hurt Verity.

Kat sees a guy in an immaculate suit with a priest’s collar and feels even more suspicious than she did before. She still remembers Dad talking about the Church people trying to track them down and Tomás and Marcus talking about how a bunch of Church people were possessed and even more were trying to bring down the Pope and like, all of humanity. Tomás said they exorcised the demons from the Church leadership and the Pope’s taking care of it now, but it doesn’t exactly ease her worries. She opens the door just wide enough to plant her body in the space.

“Can I help you?” she asks. The guy blinks at her.

“I’m looking for Tomás Ortega and Marcus Keane,” he says. He has an accent, closer to Marcus’s than Tomás’s but not one she immediately recognizes.

“And you are?” She knows she’s being hostile. She doesn’t care.

“Devon Bennett,” he says. “Who are you?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because you’re a teenage girl in the house where I’m supposed to be finding two adult men,” he points out.

“I’m not a teenager,” she corrects automatically, defensively, which probably makes her sound like a teenager. “My name is Kat.” She doesn’t want to use her last name. She just saw a headline about Casey two weeks ago and she’d rather not bring it all up right now.

“Okay,” Devon Bennett says. “Are Tomás and Marcus here?”

As if they’ve been summoned, Tomás and Marcus turn the corner just then. They’re laughing, but Marcus elbows Tomás when he sees the guy at the door. He points.

“Bennett!” he calls. “Finally come for that drink you owe me?”

Kat relaxes a bit. Marcus doesn’t sound worried at all. He actually sounds happy to see this guy. But the feeling doesn’t seem very mutual. Bennett purses his lips as soon as he hears Marcus’s voice, like it’s an involuntary reaction.

“Marcus,” he says. “Did you ditch your mobile without telling me?”

Tomás snorts. “So you tried calling?”

“Yes,” Bennett says. He looks at Kat and then back at Tomás and Marcus. “Do you have a few things to tell me?”

“Don’t worry, Bennett, you know we still love you best,” Marcus says. Bennett’s face doesn’t even change. “Shove over, Kat, let us in. How long have you been guarding the door like that? Very good impression of an attack dog.”

Kat huffs. “Well excuse me for not letting a random stranger into your house. I was worried he could be a murderer or a kidnapper or something.”

“I’m clearly a priest,” Bennett points out mildly.

“Um, yeah, so I definitely didn’t want to let you in,” Kat says.

Marcus laughs. “That’s my girl,” he says as he comes inside, and for some reason it makes Kat sort of preen. She doesn’t need a dad; hers is a good one. But something about Marcus is undeniably cool, even with all his weird, ratty clothes and how he’s like BFFs with God or something, and it makes Kat want to impress him.

“It’s good to be careful, Kat,” Tomás says. “But Bennett is a friend of ours. He’s perfectly safe. I didn’t know he was coming or I would’ve warned you.”

“You would have known,” Bennett says, inside now. “If Marcus bothered to use modern communication methods.” He and Tomás share a commiserating look. Marcus just rolls his eyes.

“Luis, ¿cómo te sientas?” Tomás asks. He hands Marcus his bag of groceries and goes over to feel Luis’s forehead. “Hm, not as hot.”

“I’m okay,” Luis says, eyeing Bennett. He’s not big on strangers, Kat’s learned. Tomás whispers something to him and he nods.

“Bennett, would you like something to drink?” Tomás asks, ruffling Luis’s hair and then leaving him be. “Did you just get here from Rome?” They all follow after him into the kitchen.

“I got in last night,” Bennett says, taking a seat at the table. “Coffee would be fine.”

“Not that we don’t love having you here,” Marcus says, overly affectionate to be aggravating. Kat sees a muscle start twitching above Bennett’s eye. “But what are you doing here? I’ve never known you to pop in for social chats.”

“I’m here to discuss your…proposal,” Bennett says, glancing at Kat from the corner of his eye. Verity comes in just then, wearing a ripped-up tank top that shows off that she actually has arm muscles and says, in sparkly, capital letters, QUEER AS IN FUCK YOU. Bennett blinks once and gives no other reaction. Kat breaks out in giggles. She can’t help it. Marcus had been very appreciative the first time he saw that shirt, but Kat’s not sure any other priest will feel the same.

“Uh,” Verity says. She eyes Bennett’s collar and her eyes dart sideways, and suddenly Kat remembers what Verity’s had to deal with from religious people and doesn’t feel like laughing anymore.

“Bennett is a friend of ours,” Tomás assures her quickly, voice soothing. “Everything is fine.”

Verity doesn’t look terribly relieved, but she nods. She slides over to stand next to Kat, leaning against the kitchen wall. Bennett looks at them and then looks expectantly at Tomás and Marcus. “Is there somewhere we can speak privately?” Bennett asks.

“They’re alright,” Marcus tells him. “They know everything.”

“Kat Rance,” Tomás adds, sliding a mug of coffee to Bennett. “Verity Kim.”

Bennett nods, recognition in his eyes that makes Kat want to hunch her shoulders. “I’m sorry for both your families’…trouble,” he says. “And for your father,” he says to Verity. Verity swallows and nods. Kat gives her arm a little squeeze for comfort. “Tomás, your idea was interesting,” Bennett says.

“It was actually their idea,” Tomás says. “They came here for help and it made us realize there’s not much support in place.”

“Bennett’s head of the Office of Exorcism,” Marcus fills Kat and Verity in. “Tomás pitched your idea about the halfway house.”

“Not exactly,” Tomás says. “I don’t think we could fit anyone else in here. We already need to buy more chairs, obviously. But the Office of Exorcism should do more for victims of demonic possession.”

“We haven’t exactly had a surplus of resources,” Bennett says.

Tomás scoffs. “The Church has plenty of resources,” he argues. “Just because they’re not distributed well to help the people who actually need them doesn’t mean the resources aren’t there.”

Bennett’s eyes narrow a little, but he doesn’t look surprised, like maybe he and Tomás have already argued about this. “Well. As you know, Pope Sebastian is quite…appreciative. And when he heard this was your idea, he thought we should make it a priority.”

Marcus snorts. “Sure, all it takes is saving him from possession and certain death to get him to listen to reason.”

“Marcus.” Bennett sounds tired. “Just be glad we’re doing it now.”

“How’s it going to work?” Tomás asks. “I can’t take care of everyone.”

“No,” Bennett agrees. “We’ll use this as something of an experiment.” He gestures at Kat and Verity. Kat’s not sure how much she loves the idea of being used as a guinea pig. “I see you’ve already started. Hone your strategy. Draw up some ideas and plans and let me know. If it works well, we’ll start up a training program.”

Tomás looks apprehensive. “I don’t know if I’m qualified for this.” Kat wants to roll her eyes, thinking of how many times he reminded them he wasn’t a real therapist. Kat’s never been to a real therapist, but she thinks she wouldn’t trust one as much as she trusts Tomás. Which is a shock to her more than anyone else, really.

“Well, you’re what we’ve got,” Bennett tells him. “We don’t have a wealth of people who know demons exist and are willing to put together a recovery plan. You’ll be back under the purview of the Office of Exorcism, and your stipend will be slightly larger than when you had a parish. For now. Once we know what kind of resources you’ll be using, we’ll likely adjust it.”

“Adjust it down,” Marcus concludes with a snort.

“What about Marcus?” Tomás asks.

“I thought my job was going to be sitting back and living in luxury thanks to your big, new salary,” Marcus cuts in. He sounds like he’s joking, but his eyes haven’t left Bennett’s face.

“Your excommunication will be…rescinded. If you so choose.” Kat didn’t even know Marcus got excommunicated. She never really thought much about why he wasn’t a priest anymore.

Marcus swallows hard. “That so?”

Tomás is watching Marcus carefully. “Will he be under the Office of Exorcism again?”

“Yes,” Bennett says. “Assuming you accept the offer,” he adds, raising an eyebrow at Marcus.

Marcus huffs. He juts a thumb at Tomás. “If he is, you know I am.”

Bennett inclines his head. “That’s what I thought.”

“You came all this way just to tell us this?” Tomás asks suspiciously.

“Marcus doesn’t answer his phone,” Bennett points out.

Marcus looks delighted. “Bennett! You came to check in on us.”

“Pope Sebastian sent me,” Bennett insists.

“Nah, he didn’t,” Marcus says, grinning triumphantly. “Don’t worry, the feeling’s mutual. We do love you.”

Bennett drinks his coffee. Kat has a sudden thought. “You’re the head exorcist guy?” she asks.

“I lead the Office of Exorcism,” Bennett corrects. Whatever that means.

“Sure,” Kat says. “We want to learn to become exorcists.” She gestures between herself and Verity. “How do we do that?”

Marcus throws her that same betrayed, disappointed look she got when she called the ambulance during Casey’s exorcism and got him arrested. It didn’t affect her much that night, but she feels it now. Weirdly, she wants to apologize to him. But she doesn’t have anything to apologize for. She told him she was going to find a way. And anyway, she’s just asking.

Bennett looks at Marcus and Tomás. “Is this something you’ve discussed?”

Tomás’s lips are pursed. He’s not happy with Kat either, and she doesn’t like that any more than she does Marcus being mad at her. “We can’t, Bennett,” Tomás says softly. “We can’t do that anymore.”

“They’re too young,” Marcus adds.

“You were twelve,” Verity argues.

“Exactly.”

That shuts Verity up and Kat looks down at her feet, cowed. She doesn’t like to think about Marcus as a kid, an orphan who already felt unloved, being locked up with a demon. She can’t imagine the kinds of nightmares he must have.

“The demon population is severely reduced,” Bennett says. “Things have quieted down considerably since the plot to take over the Vatican failed.”

“But there were demons around before that,” Kat presses. “My mom was possessed as a kid, too.”

Bennett nods. “We have exorcists in place already.”

“Enough?” Verity asks. “You want me to believe you don’t need more exorcists?”

Bennett doesn’t say anything, just looks at Tomás and Marcus again. Marcus runs his hand over his short hair and down his face. “I can’t do it, Bennett. Don’t ask me to.”

“Someone else could,” Bennett says. “It would take some of the workload from Mouse.”

Tomás looks at Marcus, eyebrows raised. “Mouse.”

Kat doesn’t have any idea what mouse they’re talking about, but Marcus obviously does. He swears and pushes away from the table to get up and pace.

“You want Mouse training them?” he demands. He points a finger at Bennett. “You want more exorcists like Mouse?”

“Mouse is a good exorcist,” Tomás defends whoever or whatever this Mouse thing is.

“Sure, when she’s not bloody killing people,” Marcus shoots back. Quieter, he adds, “Or getting possessed herself.”

Tomás makes an aborted move like he’s going to get out of his chair and go over to Marcus. But instead he just looks at him. “Mouse has learned a lot since then,” he says softly.

Marcus puffs out a frustrated breath, looking a little ashamed. “I know that.”

“She could come here,” Bennett suggests. “You could have oversight. If you recall, I did try to give you a position leading exorcism training months ago.”

“We’re not going to do exorcisms,” Tomás says firmly, eyes still on Marcus. “We’re done.”

“You won’t have to,” Bennett says. “You can talk to them about what works, what doesn’t. Mouse will train them in actual exorcisms and you’ll be here for the…” He pauses. “Emotional support.”

All three men look skeptical. Marcus is shaking his head and pacing. His shoulders are twitching, like if he was holding still he’d be trembling. Kat thinks of the other morning, when Tomás was gone picking up Luis and Marcus hadn’t known. Marcus had panicked. It’s kind of scary to think about what’s happened to him to scare him like that. She wonders if there will come a point where that’s her, where having her loved ones out of sight sends her spiraling and imagining horrible things because she’s seen so many horrible things actually happen. It sends a shiver down her spine.

“We don’t even know if Mouse would be willing to do that,” Tomás points out reasonably. “Maybe we should ask her opinion before we try to settle anything.”

Bennett nods at him. “She’s in Canada at the moment, I believe. She doesn’t always share things with me. I think she rather likes reminding me she’s not part of my office.”

Kat feels like someone just sent a shock through her. “What part of Canada?” she asks, voice shaking. “Who’s possessed?” They’d tell her. Wouldn’t they? If something happened to Mom or Casey or Dad—they’d tell her. They’d have to.

Bennett looks at her. “Vancouver,” he says, and Kat can breathe again. But beside her, Verity stiffens. Marcus, just turned around to check in on Kat, notices and points at them.

“You see? You think you’re ready for exorcisms and you’re not. That fear for your families will be the first thing a demon uses against you.”

“We know we’re not ready,” Verity says. “That’s why we asked for training.”

“Some things can’t be taught,” Marcus snarls, retreating to the far corner of the kitchen.

“How would you know if you won’t try?” Kat demands, teeth clenched. She’s sure he thinks they can’t do it because he sees them as little girls. Kat isn’t afraid of the demons. She saw them take over her mom and her sister and she lived through that. She can handle anything else. And Verity’s dad died during the exorcism. It’s not like they don’t understand this is dangerous.

“I can’t,” Marcus hisses, digging the heels of his hands into his tear-filled eyes.

“Fine, then let someone else teach us! Why should we be held back just because you’re fucked up and can’t hack it anymore?” Kat yells, losing a hold on her common sense. And then Tomás stands up, chair scraping back harshly.

“Shut your damn mouth,” he says, voice and face thunderous. He takes a step forward and Kat backs up a little, presses herself flat against the wall. “Get out.” Kat swallows, actually kind of afraid of him for a heartbeat. Verity grabs her hand and squeezes it.

“Tomás,” Marcus says, going to Tomás’s side immediately. He puts his hand on Tomás’s shoulder. “Calm down.”

“She doesn’t know,” Tomás insists. “She can’t say that to you—she has no idea.”

“I know,” Marcus assures him. “But that’s not her fault. Maybe I should tell them more.” Tomás doesn’t look convinced. His hands are balled into fists at his sides and he’s breathing hard. “Look at them, Tomás,” Marcus instructs.

Tomás looks at Kat again. His lips are pursed and his nostrils are flaring, but she’s not afraid of him anymore. It had only been a split-second before she remembered he wouldn’t ever hit someone. But she is still clinging to Verity’s hand. He slumps, closing his eyes for a second.

“I’m sorry,” Tomás says. He’s sincere about it. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper like that.”

“Me too,” Kat manages to say.

Tomás shakes his head. “I am much bigger than both of you. It isn’t right for me to get—loud.” He looks specifically at Verity and Kat realizes men menacing Verity has probably had a significantly different outcome for most of her life. “I don’t want to scare you. I’m very sorry.”

Verity doesn’t tell him she wasn’t scared. She just nods. Kat squeezes her hand, suddenly furious at everyone in the past who’s hurt her.

“I do want you both to know my temper is shorter since I started exorcisms,” Tomás says frankly. “I think that might be a side-effect.”

“Is that supposed to scare us off?” Kat asks, like she wasn’t terrified a second ago. She thinks he must be right, though; when he snapped at her at home last year, she was just mad about it. She hadn’t been afraid for even a second.

“No,” Tomás says. “I just want you to have a full idea what you’re signing up for.”

Verity glances at Kat. “Can you give us a better idea?” she asks it cautiously, like she’s afraid of how they’ll react, and Kat wants to go back to when Tomás was looking scary and shield Verity from it.

“I’m going to call Mouse,” Bennett says. “We’ll see what she says. I’m staying in Chicago a while to supervise your little project, so I’ll be in touch.”

“You can come for dinner later,” Tomás offers.

“No, thank you,” Bennett says, and it actually makes Kat giggle a little. Marcus shares an amused look with her, part peace-offering, and she starts to feel like she’s back on solid ground again, though she definitely owes him a huge apology.

“Tío?” Luis calls tentatively from the living room. Kat’s stomach drops. She forgot Luis was there. They’ve been yelling—and she said fuck, oops—with Luis ten feet away. Tomás winces and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Go talk to him,” Marcus says, rubbing Tomás’s back. “We’ll wait.” He nods at Bennett, who looks supremely relieved to get out of there and takes off without another word. Tomás takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

“I’m going to walk through there,” he says quietly, gesturing to the doorway beside Kat and Verity. Kat has no clue why he’s telling them that. Obviously he is; it’s the only way to get to the living room.

“It’s okay,” Verity says, and Kat realizes with a painful thump in her heart that he was warning Verity he’d be getting close to her. “I’m not—I wasn’t worried.”

Tomás nods. Even with her reassurance, he still slips out close to the other wall, leaving as much space between himself and Verity as possible. Kat squeezes Verity’s hand again. Verity squeezes back and then drops Kat’s hand. Kat can’t decide if she’s miffed about that. She knows she shouldn’t be; Verity doesn’t have to hold her hand if she doesn’t want to. But she just wants to lend some comfort.

“Are you alright?” Marcus is asking them both, but Kat doesn’t think for a second he’s not more concerned with Verity. Kat’s never had specific reason to be afraid of a man getting mad at her.

“I’m fine,” Verity says harshly. “Everyone doesn’t need to baby me.”

“We’re not babying you,” Kat says. “We just don’t want you to…feel bad. Or have bad memories or be scared or whatever.”

“Okay, thanks, but I’m not,” Verity insists, still sounding impatient and annoyed. Kat’s only known her for a week, but she’d bet her good knee Verity gets extra mad when she is scared. She doesn’t like people knowing she’s upset. And even that makes Kat want to hide Verity from anything bad, even knowing it would make Verity mad at her.

“Okay,” Marcus says easily. Kat wants to make a face at him. He can’t possibly believe Verity wasn’t scared or isn’t thinking about other men who have scared her like that. He looks steadily back at her, and then Kat gets it. Verity doesn’t want them making a big deal of it. So they won’t. It’s not going to help Verity to keep her on the defensive and make her uncomfortable some more.

Tomás comes back in and stands with Marcus. Marcus puts his hand on the small of Tomás’s back. “Luis alright?” he asks softly.

Tomás shakes his head a little. “He heard us shouting,” he says. “He doesn’t like that. But he’ll be okay.”

“I’m sorry,” Kat says, because most of this is her fault. “I—I don’t mean to be awful all the time.” She really doesn’t, and she doesn’t know why she’s such a bitch. She thought she was starting to get over that, after the possession when she decided she had to be better to her family.

“You’re not,” Verity tells her. That makes Kat feel a little better, but not much. Verity isn’t the one Kat keeps butting heads with.

“She’s right,” Tomás says, like he could hear what she was thinking. “You’re not. And even if you were, it’s my own responsibility to control my emotions. It’s not your fault I lost my temper, and I am going to do better about that.”

“Sorry if I like…hurt your feelings,” Kat tells Marcus. She can’t quite bring herself to look at him when she says it. She feels really guilty about that, but she’s not great at apologies. She knows like four things total about Marcus’s awful life, and every single one of them is more horrible than the last. She doesn’t want to be responsible for making him feel worse about it.

“No, sweetheart, don’t spend a minute thinking about it,” Marcus assures her. “Right, well, we’ve all had an emotional morning.”

“Let me guess, you think we should go get ice cream again,” Verity says. It’s kind of a weak joke, but everyone laughs at it anyway, trying to ease the tension in the room.

“I think we should sit down and have a talk,” Marcus says. “But it’s not going to be a very enjoyable talk. For any of us.”

“No offense, but most of the talks I’ve had with you guys haven’t been very enjoyable,” Kat says. That gets a laugh out of everyone.

“You hear that?” Marcus asks Tomás. “We’re not fun guys to be around.”

“Probably because I’ve never been in a bar fight,” Tomás deadpans. Marcus laughs and nudges him, so it must be some kind of inside joke. “Please give us a minute before we start this,” Tomás adds to Kat and Verity. He tugs at Marcus’s arm until Marcus follows him into their bedroom. Kat looks at Verity.

“I’m not babying you, but are you good?”

“I’m fine.” Verity isn’t being all defensive and harsh anymore. Now she sounds tired. “I really wasn’t that scared. I didn’t really think he was going to do anything. I’m pretty over that, because it’s been a long time since I’ve had to worry about…you know.” She shrugs. “Someone hurting me.” Then she sighs. “Well, except for when the demon was in my dad.”

Kat cringes. “Yeah, they’re good at that, huh? Hurting people.”

Verity huffs. “Actually, the demon didn’t even hurt me as bad as some real people. It just sucked way more because it looked like it was Andy doing it.”

Kat’s stomach churns. She can’t believe Verity can just blithely say human beings have hurt her worse than a demon from hell. And she doesn’t believe for a second Verity’s over it, no matter what she says. “The demon in my mom didn’t even hurt me herself. Or himself. Or whatever.” Her knee twinges like thinking about it brought on the pain. “I did it myself.”

Verity looks up sharply, and Kat remembers the round-about way Verity implied she tried to kill herself. “What do you mean?”

“It wanted my sister to smash my knee with a hammer. And she wouldn’t do it, obviously, but then it was hurting my dad to make her do it. So I just…” Kat shrugs, swallowing hard and trying not to remember the sick crunch of the hammer hitting her bone. “I did it myself.”

Verity stares at her. “You smashed your own knee with a hammer?”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Kat points out. “What was I supposed to do, let it kill my dad? Or make my little sister do it?” She shakes her head. “My knee was already messed up anyway, and Casey already felt bad enough from what the demon did when she was possessed.”

“Wow,” Verity breathes. “I’m starting to think they’re right. Maybe we…maybe I don’t actually have any idea what I’m in for.”

“Does it make you want to change your mind, though?” Kat asks. She already knows the answer. Maybe she doesn’t know Verity very well yet, but she knows this.

Verity looks away, into the living room where Luis is laughing at some commercial with a talking dog. She shakes her head. “No,” she says. “No, I know too much. I know there are demons hurting people and I want to help.”

Kat nods and squeezes Verity’s arm. “That’s what I thought,” she says. “And I think they’re starting to come around to our side. They want us to be prepared, but I think at least Tomás knows we’re not changing our minds.”

“It’s gonna suck,” Verity says softly. Kat’s stomach tightens. She thinks of Casey, reading all those stories about the EMTs the demon killed with her hands, and she thinks of her mom, who has permanent dark circles under her eyes because sleeping scares her, and she thinks of her dad, writing every single thing down so he doesn’t forget. She thinks of Marcus, how he was absolutely frantic when he didn’t know where Tomás was the other day and the way she’s heard him prowling around in the middle of the night every night she’s been here, and she thinks of Tomás, who used to smile all the time and now is so quick to anger. She thinks of Julia, blood and broken glass everywhere. She thinks of Verity, finally finding parents she deserved and then losing them.

“Doesn’t it suck already?” Kat asks. “Demons are out there. They’re ruining people’s lives either way, whether we help or not.” She shrugs. “We might as well learn to do some damage and kick some fucking ass, right?”

Verity looks at her for a second, and then she huffs a little laugh. “Yeah,” she says, knocking her shoulder into Kat’s. Kat has to resist the urge to put her arm around that shoulder and hold onto Verity for a minute. “Let’s kick some fucking ass.”

The second they’re alone in their room, Tomás pulls Marcus close to him. He can’t believe he lost his temper like that, especially right there in front of Verity. That has been a far too frequent occurrence in Verity’s life, he knows that. He hates himself for adding his own name to the list of people who have made her feel unsafe.

“It’s alright,” Marcus murmurs. “She knows you won’t hurt her.”

“How can she know that?” Tomás asks. “It took so long to get her to trust me in the first place, and I just ruined all that.”

“I don’t think you did,” Marcus tries to soothe. Tomás shakes his head. Even if Verity does forgive him, she shouldn’t. It’s bad enough that he’s a priest who can’t control his temper, but more than that, he knows what she’s been through. He shouldn’t raise his voice, and the way he’d stepped toward them…Tomás can’t breathe around the guilt in his chest. He wants to believe he wasn’t going to do anything, but he’d been so wildly angry. Hearing Kat so dismissive of Marcus’s pain had broken something in him, knocked down every bit of self-control he had, and his whole field of vision had gone red. That kind of anger can only be destructive.

“Are you okay?” Tomás checks.

Marcus sighs. “Not my favorite visit from Bennett,” he admits. “But probably not my least favorite, either.”

“You don’t have to tell them anything if you don’t want to,” Tomás says. He doesn’t want Marcus to tell them anything. He doesn’t want Marcus to think about it all.

“I know,” Marcus says. “But I think I should.”

“You don’t have to be responsible for them,” Tomás tries. Marcus gives him a sad little smile.

“We both know that’s not true.”

Tomás doesn’t have an answer for that. Marcus feels responsible for just about everyone on Earth, really, and especially two young women whose lives they already entered through exorcism. Tomás kisses Marcus’s hair.

“We can stop whenever you want,” he says. “And you can leave out anything you want.” He hopes Marcus doesn’t talk about his childhood. There’s nothing Tomás can do to combat the pain from that, and every time Marcus talks about it he inevitably has nightmares.

Marcus nods. “We’ll play it by ear.”

“I’m worried about you,” Tomás says. Marcus pulls him closer.

“I’m not,” he says. “You’ll be there, yeah? That’s all the protection I need.” Tomás sighs. They stand there holding each other for a few heartbeats, and then Marcus pats his back. “Come on,” he murmurs. “The anticipation’s only going to make it worse.”

Tomás isn’t sure anything can make it worse, but he doesn’t argue. He takes Marcus’s face in his hands and kisses him softly. Marcus belies how upset he really is by clenching Tomás’s shirt in his hands, clinging to him, and Tomás, not for the first time, wants to pack Marcus up and take him somewhere warm and far away from anyone who knows them and could ever possibly remind them of their past.

But that’s not going to happen. So instead he kisses Marcus as gently as he can, and then they walk out holding hands. Kat and Verity are sitting at the kitchen table, ready for them with grim faces. Someone poured four mugs of coffee, which is a generous touch. Tomás wants to pull Verity aside and talk to her privately, but he knows now isn’t the time. If there even is a time for that. Maybe she’d be uncomfortable sharing a private moment with him.

“I’m just going to check on Luis one more time,” Tomás says. It’s partially another way to steady his nerves and remind himself to keep his anger in check. Luis doesn’t remember his father at all, but distress over loud arguments is the only gift the man left him.

Luis is asleep, mouth open. It makes Tomás’s heart melt. He watches his nephew for a minute, basking in the love and tenderness he feels in the moment. Watching Luis sleep always reminds Tomás of God’s love. Luis is a pure blessing. And if Tomás can feel this way about a child who isn’t even his, who he had no hand in bringing into the world, he can only imagine how God feels about His children. He pulls the blanket up further around Luis and kisses his forehead. He takes a picture to send to Olivia. Then he turns down the volume on the TV and forces himself to go back to the kitchen.

“He’s asleep,” he says, mostly to Marcus. Seeing Marcus with children is always a special treat, but seeing Marcus and Luis become instant friends made any last part of Tomás not in love with Marcus fall.

“We’ll keep it down,” Kat says guiltily. Tomás nods, holding her eyes for a minute and trying to apologize again with his face. She seems to get it; she nods back at him, and she smiles.

“Alright,” Marcus says nervously. “Well. You already know this won’t be a happy story.”

“Do you want me to go first?” Tomás asks, putting his hand on Marcus’s leg under the table. His version of the “why being an exorcist is horrible for your mental and emotional stability” story is much shorter.

“I think I just need to get it all out right away,” Marcus says quietly. Tomás can’t help the little noise that comes from the back of his throat. The urge to run off with Marcus comes back. Marcus squeezes the back of Tomás’s neck, and Tomás is annoyed with himself. Marcus shouldn’t be comforting him right now.

“Okay,” Marcus says. “Well. You know I started exorcisms when I was twelve. The reason for that is…” He swallows. “My parents died, so I was in a boy’s home. And the Church bought me.” Tomás wonders about the omission. He finds it interesting that Marcus is tighter-lipped about his abuse at his parents’ hands than the fact that he was literally sold like property.

“Bought you?” Verity interrupts.

Marcus nods. “Me and some other boys. They bought us to raise us to be exorcists. We didn’t have families to appease, no one worry about us if we disappeared.” His voice is bitter for a moment, but he shakes his head and keeps going. “I was good at it. Exorcized the demon on my first crack at him. And I saw God, and I knew I had my purpose. So I stayed there for the next four years, working with a priest called Sean. At the end of those four years, Father Sean died. We were exorcising a woman and the demon got to him, pulled him in close. Father Sean gave in, and when he was, ah, compromised, the woman managed to set him on fire with one of the candles in the room.”

Tomás thinks of Marcus walking in to see him on his knees in front of Casey, how he must’ve remembered Father Sean, and then again when the demon in Tomás pulled Marcus close. He shudders.

“The demon set him on fire,” Kat says, voice faint.

Marcus nods. “Burned pretty much his whole body. He died two days later. After that, I took my vows early and the Church sent me where they needed me.” He pauses. “I was very good,” he says frankly. “God worked through me, and I didn’t fail. Not ever. I was always alone, but it was okay, because I had God. I didn’t need anyone else. I—well, I didn’t realize, at the time, how lonely I was. How…how much I did need someone else. I didn’t know it wasn’t normal to feel that way all the time, like you’re not an actual person. But people avoid exorcists, because they don’t believe or because they’re scared, and it made me feel even more like I wasn’t human.” He sighs. “And then I met Mouse. You heard us talking about her before. She was getting ready to take her vows and I was staying at the convent for an exorcism. We built up…”

He glances at Tomás. Tomás hopes Marcus doesn’t think he’ll be upset to hear this. For one thing, it’s decades past and he already knows. For another, Tomás can’t bring himself to be upset about something that brought Marcus any measure of happiness.

“We built up a relationship, of sorts. Nothing concrete, exactly, just little stolen moments and touches, trying to toe the line between what we felt and keeping our vows. We had dreams of being together, some shared fantasies. Stupid of us both, because there wasn’t a good way for any of it to end. She was fascinated by the exorcisms; God, she was so curious about it all. And I indulged it. I was so arrogant, wanted her to see how powerful God made me. And she got possessed. And I couldn’t do…anything. Nothing I did worked. Couldn’t stop the demon from getting in my head and hurting her more. So I left, and other exorcists had to finish the job.”

“Did she come find you?” Kat asks.

“Eventually,” Tomás fills in. “Don’t interrupt.” He doesn’t want this to take any longer than it absolutely has to. Kat makes a face, but she closes her mouth.

“After Mouse, I didn’t want to get close with anyone ever again. I stopped talking to most people. Got a bit meaner. Did the exorcisms and went on my way right after. Went almost a whole year without talking to a single human being besides information about the exorcisms. I just talked to demons, and I think you can understand why that’s a bad idea. Started having worse nightmares than before. The exorcisms started getting harder. Taking longer. Sometimes I’d be working and I could feel God leave me, and I’d have to wait hours or days for Him to come back. And then I was in Mexico City.”

Tomás clutches Marcus’s hand. Marcus has mostly kept his voice flat and emotionless up to now, but that’s not going to be possible when he talks about Gabriel. Marcus swallows hard, and he’s already tearing up.

“I lost the little boy I was exorcising,” he says hoarsely. “The demon beat me. The exorcism took forever, lasted so long, and God wasn’t there even once. But I kept trying, thought I was good enough to just…push through it on my own. But the little boy died, snapped his own neck, and I…” He shakes his head, dashing at his tears. “I broke. Disappeared for nearly a week, just out of my mind and wandering. Screaming at God, completely alone, without even Him with me. Still couldn’t tell you where I was. So Bennett had me sent me to St. Aquinas. It’s supposed to be a treatment center.” He snorts. “Infested with demons, of course. And I couldn’t even tell. My one job, the one thing I was made for, and I didn’t even notice it at my own door. I don’t know if I slept for the whole eighteen months, probably didn’t eat either. Everywhere I looked, I saw Gabriel. I was sick every day. I didn’t hear God, didn’t feel His love, and I was ruined. All I felt was hatred and uselessness.”

“Not the only thing you’re made for,” Tomás murmurs, because he can’t help himself. He hates when Marcus talks about himself as the gun, the empty pitcher. An object.

“Then this one comes to me,” Marcus says, jutting his chin at Tomás. He’s almost smiling at the memory. “Says I was in his dreams.” He huffs. “Romantic, isn’t it?”

Kat and Verity both laugh a little, but they look unsure. For good reason, Tomás would like to tell them. Sometimes he wonders what would have happened if he’d just left Marcus alone. Maybe all that art therapy would’ve actually helped. The demons couldn’t have been targeting Marcus for integration—they had to have known he would never accept—and he didn’t realize they were there, so maybe they would’ve just left him alone. Maybe he would’ve actually healed, found someone to settle down with. Got a dog.

Except Tomás knows that isn’t right. If he hadn’t gone to Marcus, the Pope would have died, and Marcus would’ve realized what was happening. Either way, Marcus would’ve ended up back in the fight, assuming they didn’t just kill him outright. At least this way, they’re together.

“And then the Church excommunicated me.” Marcus’s voice turns bitter now. “Never had a choice in joining them, not really, but it was all I knew, the first time I felt I belonged somewhere. And they pitched me out into the cold with nothing. I think my last grip on sanity snapped for a bit.” He shakes his head. “Until we had to get there to help your sister,” Marcus says to Kat. He smiles a little. “I’m still proud of her, you know. She withstood more than anyone I’ve ever seen. I wasn’t lying when I told her that, and I hope she knows it.”

Kat’s teary-eyed. “I don’t know if she does. But she’s doing better.”

“Good.” Marcus wipes at his eyes. “Well, then there was the plot against the Church. And they killed—they killed a couple I turned to for help. Innocent people, good people who wanted to protect other people. Shot to death in their own home. Mother Bernadette and all the sisters—” He breaks off, voice choked. “And then Brother Simon, one of the demons at St. Aquinas, he tried to get me to accept a demon. Integrate.” He huffs. “Don’t know if he was really that stupid or if they thought I was that desperate. They had Bennett there, too, almost killed him, but the bastard’s too tough. So I got away from that lot and had to kill Brother Simon, right there in front of Pope Sebastian.” He bares his teeth, a smile if you don’t know him. “Didn’t feel too bad about that, really.”

“All those nuns died?” Kat asks, eyes wide. “The ones who helped Casey?”

“They did,” Marcus says. He glances at Tomás, but Tomás knows he won’t tell her it was her mother who did it while she was possessed. There’s no point. It wasn’t actually Angela. “Well, then we went on the road, running from the Church and tracking down all the influx of demons. And you know, besides all the nightmares and the worry about being caught and not hearing God, I think our six months on the road were some of the best of my life.” He smiles at Tomás, an actual smile, and Tomás can only shake his head. Leave it to Marcus to discount how horrible all that was.

“An unconventional courtship,” Tomás says, because he wants to make Marcus laugh. It works. He still has tears in his eyes, but at least he’s laughing a little. For now.

“So then we found Harper,” Marcus says, smile dimming. He looks at Verity. “You know how we found her.”

“Her mom,” Verity says softly.

Marcus nods. “Wish I could say that was the first time I’ve been called to an exorcism that was just regular human abuse.”

“My parents probably would’ve called you for me if they knew that was an option,” Verity says.

“Wish they had, actually,” Marcus says. “I would’ve gotten you out of there earlier.”

Verity looks down at the table and nods. “I thought about that when Harper was telling me about her mom.”

Marcus sighs. “Well, you know what happened with your dad,” he says. “Or you don’t, actually. Not fully. You think I had to shoot him, but actually I—” Marcus bites his lip. Tomás folds Marcus’s hand between both of his own, trying to lend him any strength he can. “I chose to shoot your father, Verity.”

“Hooooly shit,” Kat breathes, who so far only knew Andy died during the exorcism, no other details. “What?”

Marcus is crying now. Tomás wants to stop him, wants to tell him not to explain the whole thing, but he knows Marcus is going to do it. Verity doesn’t know any of this part. She thought the problem was the police were coming, and she thought the demon was killing Andy anyway and they’d just sped it up out of mercy. That was what Tomás told them, after, still unsure how to even think about what had happened and not wanting any of them to hate Marcus.

“The demon was going to take Tomás,” Marcus says. “Tomás was giving himself up, and we didn’t even know if it would work, if it would save Andy or get rid of the demon.”

That’s not entirely true, Tomás thinks. It would have saved Andy. Marcus just hadn’t known if he’d be able to save Tomás after that. But if Marcus needs to believe they didn’t know it would work to actually save Andy, Tomás isn’t going to contradict him.

“The exorcism wasn’t working. And killing the host will kill the demon. So I did it,” Marcus says, voice breaking. “I sacrificed your father. And after that…” He shakes his head. “I can’t be an exorcist anymore. I can’t. Gabriel was one thing; that was the demon who beat me. But with Andy, I chose to do it. I knew what I was doing. I gave up on him because I put someone else above the soul I was saving. It was him or Tomás. And I killed him.”

Verity pushes back from the table so fast she knocks her chair over. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Verity,” Kat tries, reaching out a hand.

“No.” Verity’s voice is shaking. She practically runs out of the room. Marcus buries his face in his hands.

“I’ll go talk to her,” Kat says. She hesitates for a moment before she leaves. She pats Marcus’s shoulder on her way out. Tomás gets his arms around Marcus and holds him.

“I had to tell her,” Marcus says, just barely not sobbing. “She had to understand, Tomás.”

“I know,” Tomás says, even though he doesn’t, really. He thinks Marcus could’ve censored that. He didn’t have to tell Verity he chose to kill her father to save Tomás. Tomás doesn’t know how Kat’s going to be able to say anything comforting after that.

“And I can’t lie, Tomás,” Marcus whispers. “I’d do it again. That’s why I can’t go back out. I’d do it again.”

Tomás exhales heavily and pulls Marcus closer. “I would, too,” he admits. God help him—or not, probably—but he would.

Chapter Text

The mood in the entire apartment is oppressive for the rest of the day. When Luis wakes up, he can feel it. He takes his medicine obediently, but he looks at Tomás with worried eyes.

“Uncle Tomás, did something bad happen?” he asks. “It doesn’t feel good in here.”

Tomás sighs and runs his hand over the top of Luis’s head. When Luis was a baby, he was totally bald until well after his first birthday. Olivia had been terrified she’d given birth to a child who was going to stay bald forever. Tomás had read some blog post that said rubbing a baby’s head could help stimulate hair growth, so he’d gotten into the habit of rubbing Luis’s head like a magic lamp. He still does it sometimes, especially when Luis is worried about something.

“Something bad happened a while ago,” Tomás explains. “But we talked about it today. And it made Verity and Marcus both feel really bad to think about it.”

“Why?” Luis asks. “What happened?”

Tomás shakes his head. “It’s not something I can tell you.” Olivia knows they were off doing exorcisms and that Tomás was possessed. She knows about the plot against the Church and the Pope. She even knows Verity and Kat are here because they had family members who were possessed and they need help. She doesn’t know the details of anything else, and she certainly hasn’t give him the green light to explain demons to Luis. Even if she did, Tomás isn’t going to tell his twelve-year-old nephew Marcus shot someone.

“Like confession stuff?”

“Kind of.” That’s as good an explanation as any. Luis won’t ask questions if he thinks it’s about confession. He knows confession is confidential.

“Is Marcus okay?” Luis asks. It sends a little jolt through Tomás’s heart. Pain, because no, Marcus is not okay, but love at Luis’s concern for Marcus.

Tomás shrugs. “He’s as okay as he can be.” He doesn’t add that Marcus hasn’t been okay probably ever in his life. Marcus probably doesn’t even really understand what okay feels like.

Luis frowns. “Can I help him at all?”

Tomás can’t help but smile. He pulls Luis in for a hug. “The best way to help someone you love when they’re sad is just being there for them,” he says. “So you’ll help by being you.”

Luis looks skeptical. “That sounds like I can’t help but you don’t want to hurt my feelings.”

It makes Tomás laugh, even with how awful the day’s been. “Well if that’s the case, it means I can’t help either. Because being there for him is all I can do, too.”

Luis shrugs. “Alright,” he says, still dubious.

As if he’s got a sixth sense for any child doubting their own worth, Marcus comes out of the bedroom. He smiles tremulously when he sees Luis is awake.

“There he is,” he says. “Feeling better?”

“I’m okay,” Luis says solemnly. “Do you want to watch TV with me?”

“I would love to,” Marcus says, biting his lip to keep it from trembling. “You want to sit in the middle of us?”

Luis shrugs. “You can sit by each other if you want. I don’t really care.”

Marcus lets out a little laugh. It’s barely more than a breath, but it’s something. Tomás is so grateful he wants to pick Luis up and spin him around, like he used to do when Luis was much smaller. Instead, he settles back on the couch with Marcus at his side. He’d like to hold Marcus’s hand, but they don’t do that in front of Luis. They haven’t had a discussion about it or anything, but they both keep their hands to themselves when Olivia and Luis are around. Tomás wonders if Marcus is following his lead on that or the other way around. He honestly isn’t sure. Maybe he should tell Olivia and Luis. It would be worth it not to police themselves. Luis laughs at something on the TV and brings Tomás’s attention back to the present.

“You’ve watched a lot of TV today,” Tomás realizes, feeling guilty. “Did you finish all your homework that your teacher sent?”

Luis makes a face. “I’m sick,” he justifies himself. “I can’t do homework.”

“Luis,” Tomás says. He’s not very good at making Luis do his homework, and Olivia always complains about how he lets Luis watch TV and eat pizza and play video games without any responsibility or punishment.

“Oh, come on, Tomás,” Marcus butts in. His voice is lighter than it’s been all day, though, so Tomás can’t even pretend to be mad. “He’s sick. And today’s Friday. He has the weekend to do it.”

Luis nods emphatically. “Yeah, it’s Friday!”

“Hmm, you’re teaming up against me, huh?” Tomás asks.

Luis grins. “Marcus is on my side.”

Tomás pretends to be chagrined. “I guess I’m outnumbered.” He raises his eyebrows. “Until your mom gets here.”

Luis rolls his eyes. “Nuh-uh. Mom feels bad about going to work when I’m sick, so she’ll let me watch TV instead of doing homework.”

Tomás laughs a little, but it’s the kind of laugh that comes from someone saying something vaguely inappropriate. “Luis, don’t take advantage of your mom feeling guilty,” he scolds. “She really feels bad about it.”

“She doesn’t have to,” Luis says with a shrug. “I know she has to work and at least I get to stay here with you.”

Tomás sighs. “I know, but your mom doesn’t always think of it that way. She wants to do everything for you and if she can’t, she feels really bad. So make sure she knows you don’t mind, okay?”

“Okay,” Luis agrees with another shrug. “I already told her like fifty times. She kept hugging me yesterday when I was trying to go to bed.”

“Did you hug her back?” Tomás asks.

“Yeah,” Luis says carelessly. “I always do.”

“That’s good,” Marcus says. “Your mum loves you.” His eyes are far away again. Tomás curses himself internally. He could’ve just dropped it and let Luis watch TV.

“I know,” Luis says with the confidence of a child who’s never had to doubt that fact. “She tells me all the time.”

“Good,” Marcus murmurs, eyes sliding out of focus. Tomás shifts so their shoulders are pressed together, but he doesn’t know if it’ll help much. They quiet down, but Luis is the only one watching Ellen dance around. Marcus is lost in his own head, and Tomás is focused on paying attention to him.

“Are you going to want to eat?” Tomás asks him quietly. “I’m going to make something for when Olivia gets here.”

Marcus blinks. “Hm?”

“Dinner,” Tomás says. “You need to eat something.”

Marcus makes a face. “Not very hungry.”

“You need to eat anyway,” Tomás says. He tries to sound lighthearted. “You’re too skinny to skip meals.”

Marcus doesn’t even acknowledge the teasing. “I’ll try.”

Tomás nods. He lets himself squeeze Marcus’s leg, and then his shoulder, and then he gets up to start getting food together. He doesn’t know if Verity will come out of her room. He’s more than happy to make her something she can eat in there; he doesn’t blame her for wanting to hide out. He just doesn’t know if she’ll want to see him, either. It’s bad enough that he lost his temper earlier, but now she just found out her father would still be alive if not for him. He wouldn’t blame her if she hates him for that.

He’s just trying to picture the size of the crack under the door and whether he could slide a sandwich through when the door in question opens and Kat comes out. Her eyes look slightly puffy, like she’s been crying, too, but she pulls up a big smile for Luis, the kind usually reserved for babies that perfectly announces that she’s not familiar with kids. She closes the door behind her pretty quickly, so Tomás figures that answers the question of whether or not Verity’s going to come out. Kat bypasses the living room and comes to stand beside him in the kitchen.

“How is she?” he immediately asks, voice low.

Kat raises her eyebrows. “Is that a real question?”

Tomás shrugs. “Just tell me.”

“Not great after finding out her dad didn’t need to die,” Kat says, the duh unspoken. “She’s actually crying. I don’t get the feeling she does that a lot. And she let me hug her while she did it, which I’m pretty sure she does even less.”

Tomás winces. He has to agree with both assessments. “Thank you for being there for her,” he says, because he knows he and Marcus can’t do that. He’s so grateful Kat is here.

Kat shrugs, suddenly looking away. “I don’t know how much good I actually did. She’s talking about leaving.”

“I’m not surprised,” Tomás murmurs. “And I don’t blame her.”

“I don’t know where she’s planning to go, though,” Kat says. “She said she’s not going home.”

Tomás stills. “Kat, she can’t just leave if she doesn’t have anywhere to go.”

“Yeah, I know,” Kat snaps impatiently. “I’m not an idiot.”

Tomás takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, reminding himself Kat is twenty-one years old and worried about Verity. She holds up her hands.

“God, I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m working on it.” She tips her head. “Trying to work on it.”

It almost makes Tomás want to smile. “Well, so am I,” he tells her. “And Kat, I really am sorry about before. That was not your fault; it was mine, and it was wrong of me to react that way.”

Kat sighs. “I get it, though,” she says. “I mean, I got it even while it was happening, but now? After hearing everything Marcus went through?” She shakes her head. “Yeah. I get it. You don’t want me or anyone else fucking with him.”

Most people don’t swear around Tomás, too conscious of the collar and his office to do it without at least apologizing, but Kat and Verity both swear like sailors. He’s getting used to it. “That’s not even actually everything,” Tomás mutters, thinking of all the parts Marcus watered down or left out. He didn’t mention, for example, watching his father brain his mother with a hammer and then seeing Harper’s mom wielding a hammer wet with Tomás’s blood on it. Or that Andy Kim was not the first man he’d ever killed. It’s hard for Tomás to put Marcus’s father in the same category with Andy, though. He knows it’s wrong for him to think this way, but Marcus’s father deserved to die.

“There’s more?” Kat asks, distressed.

Tomás nods grimly. “He gave you the big parts,” he says.

Kat taps her fingers on the countertop. “I…” She hesitates. “I still want to learn how to be an exorcist.” She sounds wary, but she raises her chin and looks directly at him. He has to admire her for that. Kat Rance is not someone who backs down easily.

He nods wearily. “I kind of thought that might be the case.”

“It’s kind of because of everything Marcus told us, though,” Kat goes on. “Like…everything he went through was awful. But maybe we can make it different.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, we can’t make it different for him, obviously. But we can change it. Being an exorcist doesn’t have to be so awful like that. And Verity isn’t going to back down, for sure, so I can do my best to make it not so awful for her.”

Tomás shakes his head. She has no idea. “It is awful,” he says softly. “For everyone. You’re seeing true evil, Katherine, and how it ruins and twists people. It takes its toll.”

Kat bites her lip. “But if we went in pairs—it seems like a lot of his problems were from being alone all the time. And Marcus said going around with you was better.”

“I don’t think he actually meant that,” Tomás says. “He was teasing. Because we were together, getting to know each other.”

“I don’t think so,” Kat argues. Part of Tomás wants to demand, you think you know him better than I do? But he bites his tongue. They’re working on not snapping at each other. “He said he didn’t realize how lonely he was before. I think having someone with him helped. And, like, yeah, I’m sure it made a difference that it was you and he’s so in love with you and you guys got to go on, like, a big lover’s road trip together.”

Tomás feels a little funny about how casually she says that. “We weren’t—back then, we weren’t…doing this.” He’s blushing just from that halting sentence. “This is all pretty new.” The sex part is new. The love and devotion less so.

“You weren’t?” Kat asks, surprised. “Wow, I thought you guys were already together when you exorcised Casey. Like, at least hooking up.”

Tomás feels his mouth drop open. “I’m a priest,” he reminds her faintly. “I don’t—hook up.” Even Jessica hadn’t been a hookup in the sense she means it, a one-night stand or unattached sex. It should’ve been only one night but wasn’t, and there was never any hope of it being unattached. He’s pretty sure hookups aren’t generally preceded by years of exchanging letters and longing for one another.

Kat shrugs. “You’re not supposed to be basically married to a dude, either,” she points out logically. “Isn’t that a double-whammy? You’re living together and he’s a guy?”

Tomás pinches the bridge of his nose. “I think technically it might be more of a…four-whammy,” he says, unsure of the phrase. “Living together without being married, sex before marriage, we’re both men, and I’m breaking my vows for any of it anyway.”

There’s a beat of quiet. “But hey, at least you don’t have to worry about the birth control thing,” Kat jokes, and suddenly Tomás can’t stop the laughter bubbling out of his throat. He drops his face to his hands, laughing helplessly, almost hysterically, until he feels tears pricking his eyes—they aren’t laughter tears, just actual tears. He can tell from her shocked silence that Kat thinks he’s losing his mind. He’d like to tell her she’s right, except that he’s worried he lost it a long time ago.

“Tomás,” Marcus says, suddenly right at his side. “What is it?”

“What is it?” Tomás echoes, disbelieving, all the laughter gone now. “Marcus, it’s everything.”

Marcus puts his hand on Tomás’s cheek, grounding him. “I know.”

“Maybe this isn’t the right thing to say,” Kat starts slowly, and part of Tomás wants to tell her to just stop right there, then, keep her mouth shut for once. “Um. But I just wanted to say—I get it.” She shrugs, looking at the ground. “I get why you did it. You haven’t had love. Like…ever. And then you saw a way to save him, and.” She swallows hard. “Yeah. I get it. I’d do it too.”

“’S not an excuse,” Marcus says gruffly. “Exorcists aren’t supposed to give up on anyone.”

“Maybe not,” Kat says. “But I get it.”

“Verity won’t,” Marcus bites out.

Kat sighs, chagrined. “Yeah, probably not.”

“Thank you, Katherine,” Tomás says, because he can tell she’s just trying to help. He doesn’t know how to tell her it’s not really possible. Marcus comes back to himself enough to come to the same realization and nods his thanks as well. She pats Marcus on the shoulder and goes back to the living room to watch TV with Luis. Marcus braces his hands on the kitchen counter and bows his head. Tomás rubs his back.

“One way or another, this will end,” he reminds Marcus. “Either Verity will stay and we’ll work past this, or she’ll leave.” He doesn’t know how he’ll convince her not to just wander the streets, but he thinks Kat can help with that.

“I know,” Marcus says.

“Were you hoping telling her would make her change her mind about being an exorcist?” Tomás asks. Marcus shakes his head.

“I’m betting it makes her want to do it more now.” He sighs. “I just didn’t want her here under false pretenses. And if they are going to do exorcisms, she had to know. Don’t want a demon telling her that in the middle of it all.”

That’s a good point Tomás hadn’t thought of before. A demon would have a field day with that bomb, and they still don’t know how much demons have talked to each other or how. Maybe the demon in Andy somehow shared everything with the other demons. Even if it didn’t, Mouse will be in the exorcisms, too, and the demons could find out through her. He sighs.

“Well, it was probably made worse by the whole emotional day,” Tomás says. “I didn’t set you up for success.”

Marcus shrugs. “Not like there was a way to have success with that at all.” It’s a fair point. Then Marcus looks at Tomás and says, “Sorry. I think I’ve ruined your pet project.”

“Pet project?” Tomás asks blankly. He doesn’t know what that is.

“Getting the Office of Exorcism to provide counseling after possession,” Marcus clarifies. Tomás still doesn’t see what that has to do with pets, but he lets it go.

“You didn’t ruin it,” he says. “Even if you did, you’re more important than that.”

Marcus huffs an incredulous laugh. “I’m more important than helping countless people around the world who need guidance?”

Well, when he phrases it like that Tomás feels a little bad. He shrugs. “To me, yes.”

Marcus shakes his head, smiling ruefully. “I’ve ruined you,” he says softly, voice breaking. “You shouldn’t put me ahead of anyone else.”

Tomás raises his eyebrows. “Then I’ve ruined you, too,” he points out. That’s kind of how they’re in this mess today.

“I was ruined long before you came along,” Marcus says bitterly. “You’ve fixed me more than you’re ruined me.”

Tomás presses close to Marcus and drops a kiss to the juncture of his shoulder and his neck. “That’s how I feel, too,” he says softly. “My life is better now with you.”

Marcus scoffs. “How can that possibly be true?” he asks. “With everything that’s happened? You were possessed, Tomás.”

“I know,” Tomás says steadily. He doesn’t need the reminder. Every time he closes his eyes, he sees his hands moving without his accord, hears his own voice jeering at Mouse about secrets he never wanted to know, sees Marcus’s face distorted and warped. That feeling of being trapped in his own body, knowing the demon was going to do awful things. The pain of trying to hold it back, of seeing every terrible thing in his life pop up into his mind to break him down. He hadn’t killed anyone. He doesn’t know why, but he hadn’t. He thinks the demon was trying to keep a low profile, trying to get to the Vatican for more damage, and it hadn’t counted on Mouse keeping such a close eye or on Marcus’s fury when he got there.

“I’m not worth that kind of pain,” Marcus says. “I’m a trial for you, I think. You’re probably supposed to resist me and send me packing.”

Tomás sighs. He rests his chin on Marcus’s shoulder and considers how to tell Marcus what he means. “Sometimes I wish I didn’t know about demons,” he admits. “But that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t still be there. Now I know, and I know I did something to help. I did God’s work, and He was happy with the work I did. I got possessed because of my pride, because I thought I was stronger than anyone else and I could do more than anyone else to help people. Not because of you. You saved me, Marcus. You brought me back over and over again, from the visions and with Andy and then with the exorcism. And now we get this, we get to live here together, as our reward. That’s what I’ve decided. That’s what I think God wants.” He gets his arm around Marcus and holds him close. “You are my blessing, not my trial. I love you, Marcus.”

“I love you, too. Of course.” Marcus is crying. Tomás is, too, he realizes. Marcus turns his head and kisses Tomás, and Tomás lets go of him to hold Marcus’s face, murmuring nonsense at him about how he’s important and Tomás loves him. It’s the kind of thing Tomás says after nightmares, when they’re both scared and unsure of what’s real. Marcus rests their foreheads together and they just breathe for a moment. They both jump at the knock on the door.

“Olivia,” Tomás says. He kisses Marcus again and then pulls back. “Luis,” he calls. “Ready?” Marcus lets his hand trail across Tomás’s back as Tomás leaves the kitchen. There’s something different in Tomás’s chest now. He already knew he loved Marcus and would do anything for him, and he’s thought Marcus was some kind of divine reward for a while now, even if he still isn’t sure he deserves such a reward. But voicing it, airing it all out, seems to have solidified it. Now, more than ever, Tomás knows he doesn’t care about his vow of chastity, about how he’s supposed to love everyone equally and not fall in love with one person, one man. Any lingering guilt he had over his selfishness is gone. It’s easier, in a way, to love everyone else now that he loves Marcus. He imagines everyone has someone who cares about them the way he cares about Marcus, and he remembers to love them all accordingly.

And it’s not the best time for this, probably. Olivia is tired from working all day and all week, and she’s worried and feeling guilty about Luis. But Tomás opens the door for her, hugs her hello, and whispers in her ear, “Olivia. Marcus and I—we—” Trying to figure out how to phrase it makes a bit of his confidence ebb away. Olivia pulls back and looks at him for a second. “We are…” Tomás tries again. Olivia’s eyes widen, but she sees him floundering and puts her hand on his chest.

“Okay,” she says. “I know.”

“You do?”

“I mean, I wondered,” she admits. They’re still standing right in front of the door, whispering like they’re children keeping secrets again. “You’re sharing a room with one bed.”

“Well.” Tomás shrugs. He’s blushing, but he’s not ashamed.

“He makes you happy,” Olivia says. It’s not a question. Tomás smiles.

“Yes, he does. And he makes me feel safe.”

“Good.” Her smile is a little shaky, but it’s there.

“I love him,” he adds. He’s not sure why he does. Part of him just needs to say it again. Olivia sucks in a breath.

“Oh,” she says. She searches his face for a second. He knows she’s wondering about his vows, wondering if he’s going to stop being a priest. He doesn’t have an answer for that. When he’d told her about Jessica, about giving in again just like she’d been worried he would, she’d said I told you so and reminded him yet again no one would judge him for giving up the collar. But she doesn’t ask any of that now, luckily, just pulls him back in for another hug. “I’m glad,” she tells him. “And I like him.”

Tomás has tears in his eyes. He wasn’t worried, necessarily, about telling Olivia. She’s proven again and again she loves him, no matter what. She believed him when he told her he not only was he an exorcist, but he’d also been possessed. This probably seems pretty tame in comparison. He just hadn’t known how to say it, how to tell her something he’d barely known about himself until recently. He kisses the top of her head.

“Okay,” he says. He blinks away his tears and then gently shoves Olivia toward the living room. “Your son hasn’t done homework in two days.”

“Tío!” Luis cries, betrayed.

Olivia groans, but she laughs. “Well, whatever,” she says. “You’re sick. And it’s Friday.”

Luis gives Tomás a triumphant look. “See?” he says smugly. “Told ya.”

Despite the day they’ve had, despite how awful everything is, despite all the worry and emotion and distress he’s felt and caused, Tomás feels giddy. He sticks his tongue out at Luis and laughs. He has so much love in his life. It’s all more than he deserves, to be sure, but he has it, and he’s going to appreciate it.

“Fine, you told me,” he agrees. “Who’s ready for dinner?”

Marcus doesn’t sleep that night. He’d known he wouldn’t. He doesn’t deserve to, anyway. He lies there in bed for a while, watching Tomás. Tomás. He’d been so happy all night after telling Olivia about them. He’s so sure Marcus is some kind of blessing, a reward. And yes, Tomás deserves a reward. But Marcus doesn’t, and Tomás is undoubtedly so much more of a reward than Marcus could ever be and leagues beyond what Marcus deserves. Marcus can’t figure out if God is giving him Tomás just to take him away later, to punish him in the cruelest way possible.

If Marcus stays here in bed, he’s going to end up waking Tomás just to get him to drive the dark thoughts from Marcus’s head. Tomás is actually sleeping peacefully for once, no furrowed brow or anxious twitches. Marcus kisses the side of his head and leaves him to it. He glances at the closed door of Kat and Verity’s room. A week ago, it was the other room, maybe Luis’s bedroom every once in a while. Now it’s Kat and Verity’s room.

But it probably won’t be much longer.

Marcus sits heavily on the couch. Something jabs him in the back and he hisses, twisting around to find the problem. It’s a popsicle stick, no doubt left from Luis. Marcus huffs, smiling despite himself. If Tomás knew Luis left his trash in the couch, there’d be hell to pay, so Marcus will keep this secret. He puts the popsicle stick on the coffee table, sternly reminding himself to throw it away later. If he doesn’t, he’ll just lie and say he left the popsicle stick there. Tomás can’t get all that mad at him; Marcus is the one who picked out the coffee table. Tomás hadn’t been in much of a decorating state of mind when they first got back to Chicago. At that point, his nightmares still had him waking up screaming every night. Now they’re down to screaming only once a week or so.

Marcus slumps down on the cushion, resting his head on the back of the couch and looking up at the ceiling. He sighs. “Well, now what?” he murmurs. “Hmm? Any ideas? Not sure exactly what You want me to do.”

He doesn’t get a response, of course. The last time God spoke to him, He was telling Marcus to haul ass to Tomás, pronto. And Marcus is grateful for that, he truly is. But he could use a bit more. Even just every once in a while. It’s rough going from God as his constant companion to hearing from Him once every six months if he’s lucky.

“I’m trying,” he reminds God. “I am. I tried to be honest. Isn’t that what You want? She deserved to know the truth.” He blows out a breath. “What am I meant to do now?” He wipes at his eyes. Crying again. He’s always crying these days. “Are You going to make me watch more of them get hurt? Make me love them and then make me watch them suffer?”

He drops his head to his hands. His hair’s too short for him to pull at it anymore. He thinks of the moment of silence on Peter’s boat, wishes he could go back there. Not necessarily for Peter, though he’d been a safe haven for a few days. He hadn’t fully understood Marcus, not exactly, because Marcus hadn’t let him, but he’d understood feeling broken and not sleeping at night and seeing horrible things behind his eyelids. But he was so well-adjusted, so healthy, and Marcus could only have ruined him. Marcus just wants that quiet again, the peace of nothing but the call of birds and the lap of waves. No screaming in his brain. He’s not hearing much now, truth be told, but it’s not the peaceful kind of nothing. There’s a difference between hearing nothing because God’s drowning out the voices and hearing nothing because he’s empty.

The door to Kat and Verity’s room opens. Marcus tenses as Verity emerges. She closes the door quietly behind her. In the disappearing crack, Marcus can see Kat’s asleep, one hand stretched out like someone was lying on it. Verity, obviously. Verity leans against the closed door, arms crossed, and they look at each other for a frozen second.

“Do you want me to leave?” Marcus whispers. “I can go back into the bedroom.” She doesn’t say anything. “Are you hungry?” She hadn’t come out for dinner, obviously, and Marcus doesn’t know if she ate anything Kat took into her.

“I’m going to stay,” Verity says. “Here.”

Marcus’s heart leaps. “Okay,” he says, a little confused.

“I’m going to train to be an exorcist.”

Marcus swallows hard. “Okay,” he repeats.

“Not from you,” Verity adds.

“No,” he agrees.

“We’re not going to talk about it,” Verity says. “Andy.” Her voice breaks. “We’re not going to talk about him.”

“Okay,” Marcus says.

“Your—friend. Or whoever. She’ll train me and Kat. And we’ll stay here and Tomás can keep working on his…therapy plan thing. Or whatever it is. With us.”

“Do you want me to sit that out?” Marcus asks. He’ll do whatever she wants. She deserves that much. She doesn’t say anything for a beat.

“No,” she finally says. “You need it.” Marcus isn’t sure exactly why, but it makes tears prick his eyes. Even as much as she hates him, she’s giving him this. He nods at her, trying not to break down. He doesn’t get to do that in front of her. Verity crosses the room slowly and sits on the other end of the couch, as far away from him as she can get. “What happened to your parents?” she asks.

Marcus runs his hand over his head. He wants to ask if she’s sure she wants to know, but he won’t insult her. He’s not going to second-guess her. “My dad killed my mum,” he says. “Cracked her skull open with a hammer.”

“How old were you?”

“Seven.” His voice cracks a little. He’s trying hard to stay composed.

“And what happened to your dad?” Verity asks. She hasn’t looked at him once.

Marcus puffs a breath out. “I killed him,” he says. “He stood over her body and I took his rifle off the wall and shot him.”

“Did he hit you? Before that. Did he hit you when you were a kid?”

“Yes,” he tells her bluntly. “They both did.”

Verity looks at him. He knows she understands that all too well. He forces himself to hold her gaze. If she’s not shying away from looking at him, he won’t shrink, either.

“Have you killed anyone else besides him and Andy?”

He flinches. “Um, that demon. In front of Pope Sebastian.” She’d said it was badass, before. He doubts she thinks that now.

“Okay,” she says softly.

“Okay?” he echoes.

Verity sighs. “I’m not going to think about it. It’s the only way I can stay here.”

“Alright.”

“I need to stay here.”

“You can stay here as long as you want,” he promises. “I can go and you can stay, if you need.”

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, that would work,” she says sarcastically. “Tomás is kind of an important part of this equation.”

Marcus doesn’t bother trying to say he could leave and Tomás would stay. It wouldn’t happen and they both know that. But there is something he needs to make sure she understands. “Verity,” he says. “Every demon you meet is going to use this against you.”

She looks down at her hands. “What do you mean?”

“Demons. They find your weaknesses, the things that hurt. They’re going to find this, what happened, and they’re going to use it against you. You need to be ready.”

“How exactly do you suggest I get ready for that?” she asks coldly.

Marcus pauses. He’d mostly prepared himself by hating himself far more than any demon could, by thinking every awful thing about himself so that when the demons did it he’d already heard it and worse. And he’d seen God already, so he’d known he was supposed to be there, and in the earlier days he’d been able to feel God guiding him all along the way. But he can’t suggest that to her. He doesn’t want that for her, hating and doubting herself. He wants her to be stronger. To know she’s doing good. He tries to think of how Tomás had handled it, what Tomás would suggest.

“You’ve got to know that there are some things that are out of your hands. There wasn’t anything you could’ve done for him. This wasn’t something you could control. What you could control, you did so well, Verity. You saved your brothers and Harper. You were ready to give yourself up for them, because you loved them that much. And if it had been possible, I know you would’ve done it for Andy. That’s what you need to focus on. Your love and your strength.” Tomás touched on that, a bit, that day Verity came in to help them reach Andy.

Verity is crying. She turns her face away from him and he obligingly looks down at the floor. “I thought you said my fear for my family would be a problem.”

“Fear is a problem,” Marcus says. “Love isn’t. Push down the fear and hold onto the love. If you can do that, the demons can’t hurt you.”

“I’m really mad that you’re the one who can tell me all this,” Verity chokes out. “You’re the one who killed him, but I need you.”

“I know,” he tells her, losing his battle not to cry. “And I’m sorry for that. But I can promise you, I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe. I’ll do everything in my power to help you. You can ask me for anything, and I’ll do it.”

“I don’t want you,” she sobs. “I don’t want to need you.”

“I know,” he repeats, feeling tears spilling down his cheeks. “But you’ve got Tomás, too. He’ll be here. He’ll always help you. You can go to him first, and if he can’t do it alone, I’ll be there.”

“You get me more than he does,” she says, angrily brushing her tears away. “Maybe he had shitty parents, but not like we had shitty parents. And he had his grandma, and she loved him. I know he’s seen people with abusive parents and he—he empathizes with me, or whatever. But he doesn’t know.”

“He doesn’t,” Marcus agrees. He’s glad, personally, that Tomás doesn’t know what that feels like. The thought of anyone hitting Tomás leaves his blood boiling. But he understands what Verity means. There’s a difference between someone caring that you were hit and someone who knows the feeling of a slap across their face.

“So I don’t really have a choice but to turn to you,” Verity says. She’s still whispering, but her whispers are harsh, biting. “Even knowing what you did, I can’t stop thinking—thinking I want you on my side.”

“You’ve got me,” Marcus promises. “As near or as far as you need me. Keep me in the background until something comes up, it’s fine.”

“I know Andy would…” She pauses, shaking her head. “If Andy knew it was him or Tomás, he would’ve told you to do it. I know that. And he wouldn’t want me to be mad at you for it. He’d want me to forgive you.” Andy did tell him to do it. But he’s not going to justify himself to her.

“You don’t have to forgive me,” Marcus cuts in. “You can take that anger to the grave with you.”

Very brings her legs up onto the couch, curls her knees up to her chest and rests her chin on her knees. “But I have to be here with you,” she says. She sounds exhausted. “I have to find a way to trust you. So I have to ignore it. I have to—I don’t know. I’m going to have to pretend you didn’t tell me what you told me.”

“Okay,” Marcus says. “We can do that.”

“Stop agreeing with everything I’m saying,” Verity bursts out. Marcus doesn’t say anything. He could only agree with her, and she doesn’t want him to. She wipes her nose on her sleeve. “I’m going back to bed now,” she says thickly. “And tomorrow we’re just going to…do whatever Tomás has in mind. For the therapy thing or whatever. And we’re not going to talk about Andy, and we’re not going to talk about this. Tonight.”

Marcus nods. He’d like to tell her he thinks she’s a phenomenal person with incredible strength he can’t imagine. But he knows she doesn’t want to hear it. Not from anyone, right now, and especially not from him.

“You should go back to Tomás,” she says. She doesn’t even sound that bitter about it. It would be easy for her to direct some of her ire at Tomás, for being alive while Andy isn’t, but so far she’s placing it all on Marcus, where it belongs. Tomás was more than ready to sacrifice himself for Andy. Marcus wishes he could tell her he would’ve chosen himself, had it been an option. He would’ve saved Andy and Tomás and put himself there instead. But it hadn’t been option, and telling her that doesn’t achieve anything. It would seem like an attempt on his part to seem better. It’s an easy thing to say when there’s no way he ever has to back it up. Verity gets off the couch and crosses the room to her door again.

“Verity,” Marcus stops her. She doesn’t turn around to look at him, but she does pause before she opens the door. “I’m sorry.”

Her back stiffens. “Sure,” she says. She slips back into the room, and Marcus is alone in the dark again. He looks up at the ceiling. He knows better than to think God is actually up in the sky somewhere, but it’s as good a place as any to look.

“Is that meant to be a sign?” he whispers. “If it is, I don’t understand it. I don’t know what You’re trying to tell me.” No answer. He takes a hitching breath. “Please give me the strength to give her what she needs. Help me guide her and protect her. Keep me from hurting her more. Both of them. All of them. Please. And give Tomás whatever he needs to be there first so she can avoid me as much as she needs.” He squeezes his eyes closed. “Please.”

He still doesn’t get a response. He knows by now he really shouldn’t be hoping for one. He shouldn’t have any hope left. Somehow he still does. He takes a few moments to breathe deeply with his eyes closed, hoping his brain will quiet down. He just keeps seeing his father swinging the hammer, but now it’s overlaid with his own finger on the trigger against Andy’s head. This is the kind of thing that made him try to tear apart his own skin as a child. He doesn’t do that anymore, hasn’t in decades. For so long, God took over that need. God was with him, God was leading him, God drowned out the sounds and the memories. Not anymore. Now Marcus has no relief.

He wipes his nose and his eyes and goes back to the bedroom. He can’t sleep, knows in his bones he won’t be sleeping at all tonight, so instead he sits up against the headboard and eases himself as close to Tomás as he can. He wants to pull Tomás over, into his lap, but he won’t risk waking him up. Tomás is lying on his back, head turned toward Marcus’s side of the bed, and Marcus pushes his hand through Tomás’s thick hair and tries not to think anything at all. It helps, looking down at Tomás. It closes down the thoughts of his parents, a bit. He looks at Tomás and even though he gave up Andy for it, he is so grateful to have Tomás here, breathing steadily. Marcus wishes it hadn’t come down to that choice. But it had. And he’d made his choice. He’d do it again. He still has Tomás. The world still has Tomás, and that’s an important fact. Sometimes it can drown out everything else.

Tomás is his relief. Sometimes. Sometimes, sometimes, sometimes. Sometimes he hears God. Sometimes Tomás is there instead. God isn’t here now, apparently. But Tomás is. And these days, if Marcus had a choice, he’s more likely to choose Tomás anyway. Tomás is here. And for Marcus, that is enough.

Chapter Text

Verity didn’t sleep much. Her eyes are gritty from crying and not sleeping. She hates that feeling. And she hates how well she knows that feeling. Kat stayed up with her as long as she could, even though Verity kept telling her to go to sleep. Kat pulled Verity up onto the bed instead of the cot and wrapped her arm around Verity’s shoulders. She kept saying, even through her yawns and half-closed eyes, “Verity. I’m not leaving you to sit here and cry all alone. That’s horrible. And we’re exorcist partners now, aren’t we? We’re in this together. Got it?”

Verity was glad when Kat finally dropped off to sleep. It’s not just that Verity wanted to some time in her own head; Kat doesn’t sleep enough. She seems to think Verity doesn’t notice her dark circles under her eyes are just as pronounced as Verity’s own. And based on how often Verity hears Marcus and Tomás wandering into the kitchen and living room at night, it’s probably not something that’s going to get better any time soon. Kat should try to get as much sleep as she can now, before they start doing exorcisms. Marcus makes it seem like they’ll never sleep again after they start exorcisms.

Marcus. Verity’s stomach churns as she thinks about their conversation yesterday. The one with everyone and their private conversation. She’d heard Marcus last night, knew he was up and in the living room. She’d gone out there initially to yell at him, to scream, maybe to hit him. But she’d walked out and seen him, crying to God, and she’d seen Andy’s face as he fought the demon and told her to run, and she didn’t have any space inside to be angry anymore. She’d just been too sad to feel anything else.

She’s still pretty angry now. But she meant it when she said she’s staying, and she has to put that anger aside to be able to see Marcus every day. Andy wouldn’t want her to be mad. She knows that. But Andy isn’t here to be disappointed at her, and that’s the problem. Verity lets out a long breath. She doesn’t want to think about Andy right now. She doesn’t want to cry anymore. She doesn’t know if she even has any tears left.

She can hear everyone in the kitchen eating breakfast. She hasn’t eaten since lunch yesterday, but she’s not hungry. She knows she needs to eat, though. That was one thing Nikki always pressed her on—Nikki didn’t care what Verity ate, as long as she ate something. Verity spent the first week with Nikki and Andy eating nothing but chocolate cupcakes just to see if they would challenge her on it.

Verity has to steel herself to be able to go out there. It’s not just seeing Marcus she’s worried about. She’s not entirely sure she’s fully okay with Tomás, either. She knows that isn’t really fair. Tomás wouldn’t have chosen for Marcus to save him over Andy. She knows that. But here they are, together, happy, in love, while Andy’s decomposing in the ground.

Except it’s not like she’d still get to be with Andy even if he was alive, would she? Demonic possession isn’t really a defense to murder, and to anyone else, it looked like Andy disemboweled Harper’s mom, not to mention killing Russ and Colleen, too. Would Verity really have been able to trust Andy again after everything that happened, even knowing it was the demon? It was Andy’s voice telling her she was worthless. It was Andy’s body who rounded them all up, tied them up, told them he was going to kill them, held that giant gross spiderweb over her face to suffocate her. Even if Verity could trust him again, could the other kids? Harper had barely even known him and she watched him kill her mom. Verity takes another deep breath. Don’t think about all that.

She spends another few seconds deliberating at the door. If she doesn’t go out there, Kat’s going to bring her food in here again. And it’s kind of a nice thought, not having to face anyone else, but she doesn’t want to make Kat worry more than she already is. Verity likes the idea of them being partners and looking out for each other. She’s never had anyone looking out for her besides Andy and Nikki and the boys. And Harper, now, as much as a traumatized little girl can look out for anyone. Harper does a good job of it, though, against all odds.

Verity misses her family so much her whole body hurts. She glances down at her phone. It’s only 7 am at home, and it’s a Saturday. She can’t call yet. Rose will be up, but Verity wants to talk to everyone and she doesn’t want Rose to wake them up.

So there’s no reason she shouldn’t just go out to the kitchen and eat breakfast. She takes a steadying breath and pushes her shoulders back. She’s faced a lot worse than people who are worried about her emotional state. She can do this.

When Verity comes out of the room, she hears all sound in the kitchen pause for a second. She wants to curse. But then Kat says, overly loudly and way too casually to be actually casual, “So, hey, um, did I tell you my dad started working again?”

Verity has to blink away the threat of new tears. She’s so, so glad Kat is here.

“Really?” Tomás says easily. “That’s great. Does he like it?”

“Yeah, he loves it. He’s actually doing real architecture this time and not toilet stuff.”

No one looks at Verity as she sits at the table. Kat passes her a mug of coffee and Tomás hands her a plate and Marcus doesn’t even look up at her. Verity exhales. Okay. She’s fine.

“What is this?” she asks, looking at her plate. She can see eggs and some kind of meat, and Tomás piled rice and beans on the side of the plate, too.

“Aporreado,” Tomás tells her. “It’s eggs and cecina. Um…like beef jerky, I think?” he tries. “My abuela always made me aporreado when I had a big day or I was upset about something. It was her favorite food when she was growing up, too.” Verity looks down at the food on the plate. She’s not a big beef fan, in all honesty, and she’s barely hungry to begin with. “You don’t have to eat it,” Tomás adds in a rush, looking a little embarrassed when he notices her hesitation. “You can just eat the rice and beans if you want. Or we have cereal. Or you can have just eggs. It’s fine. Olivia makes it better, anyway.”

“It’s good,” Marcus speaks up for the first time. His voice is soft, but Tomás beams at him for it.

“It is,” Kat agrees. “It has hot sauce in it.”

Tomás laughs. “No, it doesn’t. It just has chilis in it.”

“Well, my nose is running,” Kat announces, making Tomás laugh again. “Really clearing my sinuses.” Kat and Tomás are apparently best friends this morning. Verity wants to roll her eyes at that, but she holds off because she knows it’s for her benefit.

“Thanks,” Verity says, picking up her fork.

“You really don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to,” Tomás repeats.

“I want to,” Verity half-lies. It’s not that she doesn’t want to eat this specifically; she doesn’t really want to eat anything. But she thinks of Nikki talking to her about feeding her body to help her deal with her emotions better, and she can tell Tomás did this for her, trying to make her feel special. Even if she doesn’t feel like eating, it’s nice that he wants to help. She’s not going to be rude. Maybe last year she would’ve. But he’s letting her stay here, and he’s doing all he can to help her, and Verity knows better now about not being a heinous bitch to people who care about her. And it’s not bad, she discovers. She thinks she’d probably like it more if she weren’t so numb right now.

“I’m going to St. Bridget’s tomorrow for Mass,” Tomás says. He’s mostly talking to Marcus. Marcus raises his eyebrows.

“They trying to get you back?”

Tomás snorts. “No. I know the priest who took over and he already hated me anyway. Even if I wanted it, I couldn’t get St. Bridget’s from him. He’d be so excited to find out I was possessed.”

“He hated you?” Kat asks.

“He visited St. Anthony’s once when I first took over and said I wasn’t traditional enough.” Tomás rolls his eyes at the memory. Traditional probably means white, Verity would guess. “So after that I brought in the marimbas.” He grins. “That’s traditional where I grew up.”

Marcus laughs. “Dunno why that bishop ever thought he’d get you swept up in Church politics,” he says fondly. “You’re too bullheaded to glad-hand with the elites.”

Tomás shrugs. “Well, it turns out they just wanted my body anyway.”

Kat cracks up laughing. “I know you’re talking about demonic possession, but that’s hilarious.”

Tomás’s eyebrows draw together. “Why?”

“Because generally when people say someone wants their body it means someone wants to sleep with them.”

Now Marcus is laughing. “Honestly, wouldn’t put it past any of them.”

Tomás hums thoughtfully. “Bishop Eagan did talk about how good-looking I was a lot.”

Marcus bursts out another laugh. “No! Wonder how many of them accepted demons after being tempted with you.”

Tomás makes a face. “That’s disgusting.”

It’s all grating on Verity, but she tries not to let it. She shouldn’t be annoyed at them joking and laughing. That used to be kind of her thing, her defining character trait—she hated everyone and was bitter about anyone enjoying themselves. Nikki and Andy helped her out of that, but she can feel it trickling back in. It’s harder without her siblings to keep her happy.

Kat glances at her, raising her eyebrows. Checking in. Verity bites down another wave of annoyance. They’re partners now. Of course Kat’s going to check on her. Verity takes a deep breath.

“Can I go with you?” she asks. Everyone looks at her.

“Where?” Tomás asks. “To—you want to go to Mass?”

She can’t blame him for how completely shocked he sounds. “Yeah,” she says. “The God stuff’s going to be part of exorcisms, right? So I need to get used to it again.”

“Okay,” Tomás says. She can tell he’s trying to sound nonchalant about it. He’s not quite making it, but she’ll give him points for trying. “Of course you’re welcome to come with me. Um. I might stay a bit after it’s over, though, because Father Timothy will probably want to gloat about taking over the parish.” He rolls his eyes. Then they light up. “Oh, but you can get me out of that.”

He sounds so excited it actually makes Verity laugh. It’s a small laugh, but it’s real. “You’re going to use me to get out of a conversation you don’t want to have?”

“Yes,” Tomás says, unashamed. “I will use anything to get away from Father Timothy. Olivia and Luis are coming, too, but Olivia thinks it’s funny to make me talk to him, so she abandons me.”

“Alright,” Verity says. “I can be your out.”

“I’ll come, too,” Kat says. Verity knows that’s entirely for her benefit. Kat doesn’t want to go to Mass any more than she does. Tomás looks at Marcus. Marcus looks a bit caged. His eyes flick over to Verity before flitting away quickly. Verity bites down on her lip.

“I’m not going to stop you from going to church,” she says. The kitchen gets awkward. Kat is suddenly intensely interested in the table. Marcus’s throat works as he swallows and some part of Verity takes a savage sort of pleasure in forcing this discomfort on him. Another part of her is disgusted at that part, but it’s not stopping her.

“Okay,” Marcus says quietly. “Thank you.”

“A big, happy family outing,” Verity says sarcastically, really digging in that knife. “Is that what you were hoping for when you agreed to let us stay here?”

“That’s enough,” Tomás says, all the laughter gone from his face. Verity swallows hard. He’s right. She’s the one who decided to stay, and she said she was going to ignore what Marcus told her. She’s not doing a good job of that. She probably should’ve guessed she wouldn’t. She nods, not looking at anyone, but she doesn’t apologize. Sorry, Andy, she thinks, remembering her resolution to apologize when she needs to. She just can’t right now. She thinks Andy would understand.

Marcus stands up from the table. He puts his hand on Tomás’s shoulder as he stacks their empty plates together and lets his hand trail as he walks over to the sink. Verity takes another bite of her now-cold breakfast, ignoring the stab of bitterness in her chest.

“Finished?” Marcus asks Kat.

“Um, yeah. Thanks.” Kat hands over her plate, then stands up. “I can do dishes.”

“I’ve got it,” Marcus says. Kat puts her hands on his hips and he huffs. “Alright, I’ll wash and you can dry.”

It leaves Tomás and Verity alone at the table. She keeps her head down, but she can feel him looking at her. “Verity,” he says. “I want to warn you, uh, Father Timothy is…” He searches for the right word.

“An asshole?” Verity suggests. She already figured that out from what he’s said.

Tomás snorts. “Well, yes. But I mean he is more, um, old school, you might say.”

“Homophobic,” Verity concludes, stomach tightening.

“Yes.” Tomás doesn’t bother beating around the bush. “I’ve only been to his Mass once, and he didn’t say anything, but I can’t guarantee what kind of things he’ll be preaching tomorrow. He invited me himself, so I assume it’ll be things he thinks I’m guilty of and I don’t know…” He trails off, half-glancing over his shoulder at Marcus.

“Okay,” Verity says. “I mean, nothing I’m not used to.”

“You shouldn’t have to be used to it,” Tomás says. “I wish it wasn’t so typical.”

Verity shrugs. “Yeah, well. It is, so.”

Tomás nods. “Sometimes I think I should go back to a parish, so I can show people it doesn’t have to be that way. But…” He sighs. “There is a lot of politics involved in being a parish priest, and I just can’t deal with it anymore.”

Verity looks up at him, the bitterness, exhaustion, and sadness in his voice drawing her attention. “Is it because of the exorcisms?”

He takes a minute to think it over. She appreciates that about him. Even with some of Harper’s silliest questions about what kind of sandals Jesus wore, he would at least pretend to put a lot of thought into it. That meant a lot to Harper.

“Yes,” he finally admits. “It’s much harder for me to hold my tongue about the disparities between parishes and the hypocrisy of the Church when I know demons prey on that. And I probably should speak out about it. But I wouldn’t keep a parish long if I did, and I don’t know if it would do the people any good to have a priest who gets pulled out right away.” He rubs his eyes. “If I stay with the Office of Exorcism, I don’t have to worry so much. Bennett agrees with me, even if they don’t let him do anything about it, and at least this way I’ll be able to help with something people aren’t getting from the Church right now.”

“Is the Office of Exorcism sort of the wildcard priests?” Verity asks.

Tomás laughs, a little startled. “I guess so. I’m not sure if the Office of Exorcism finds people who are already wildcards or if working for the Office turns people into wildcards. Maybe a bit of both. You have to be a bit wild already to believe in exorcism in the first place.”

“I wouldn’t if I didn’t have to,” Verity says. Tomás nods sadly.

“I know. That’s true of most of the exorcists I’ve met.” He steeples his hands together for a second. “Verity…I wanted to apologize for yesterday. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable by bringing it up again, but I am very sorry for losing my temper like that.”

Her heart gives a little thump as she remembers his face as he took a step forward. “I didn’t think you were going to hurt me,” she tells him. It’s not really a lie. She hadn’t been sure what to think. On the one hand, she had a hard time believing Tomás would do that. But on the other, she’s had way too much evidence of people everyone else thought would never do something like that doing exactly that.

“Regardless, it was wrong,” he says seriously. “I’m sorry. And I’m going to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“Okay,” she says, because she’s not sure what else to say. It matters to her, kind of, that he’s apologizing for it, but she honestly does not have the emotional capacity to deal with this right now. “Um…I’m going to go call my family. Thanks for breakfast.”

“You’re welcome,” he says. “Say hi to everyone.”

“Yeah,” she mutters. She picks up her plate and glances toward the sink, muscles tightening up as she looks at Marcus.

“I’ll get it,” Tomás offers.

“No, it’s fine,” Verity says. “I gotta just deal with it.”

Tomás purses his lips, but he doesn’t argue. Verity hands her plate to Kat. Marcus doesn’t even turn around, but his whole body goes tense. Verity leaves the kitchen as fast as she can.

Rose picks up right away. Verity hopes she wasn’t just sitting by the phone, waiting for a call. It’s only 8:00, so the kids still won’t be up, but Verity suddenly needs to hear from them all right now or she’s going to break down.

“Verity!” Rose says. She’s so happy to hear from Verity that Verity feels tears in her eyes again.

“Hi,” she says, pushing down her emotions. She doesn’t want to cry when she talks to everyone. It would be okay to cry with Rose, but Verity doesn’t want to. Rose opened her home to them and is dealing with being a first-time foster parent on top of witnessing Andy’s possession and apparently a failed romance with him, not to mention Verity and her siblings aren’t the easiest kids to take in even under the best of circumstances. Rose has enough going on.

“How’s everything going?” Rose asks. Verity almost laughs at what a loaded question that is.

“Fine,” she says instead. “Tomás made some Mexican egg breakfast this morning. It was pretty good. Maybe I’ll try making it next time I’m home.”

Rose pauses for a second. “Next time?” she asks. “Instead of coming home…permanently?”

Verity curses herself internally. She didn’t mean to say that. Rose is too perceptive. “Um. Yeah. Well…you know, if I go to college.”

“Verity,” Rose says. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”

This was not how Verity was planning to drop this bomb. “I’m going to learn to be an exorcist,” she says. No point in hiding it anymore.

Rose doesn’t say anything for a long minute. “I’d rather you didn’t,” she finally says delicately.

Verity doesn’t get all dramatic teenager and yell, You’re not my mom! She mostly got all that out with Nikki and Andy, and Rose has never tried to be her mom, anyway. “I’m not asking for permission,” she points out instead.

Rose sighs. “Yeah. You’re 18. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

Verity’s stomach hurts. She doesn’t want Rose to think her opinion doesn’t matter. It does, but Verity’s not going to change her mind. “Rose, I have to do this,” she explains. “I can’t sit back and do nothing knowing I could help other families.”

Rose sighs again. “God,” she says, voice choked. “You’re a good kid, you know that?”

Verity huffs. “You are in a very small club of people who think that.”

“Well, it’s a good club. We’re right,” Rose insists.

“I don’t want you to be mad about this,” Verity says.

“I’m not mad, Verity,” Rose assures her. “I’m worried. And a little scared.”

“Yeah, well, that’s another club you can join,” Verity jokes.

“That’s really why you went out there, huh?” Rose says. “So Marcus and Tomás could teach you.”

“Actually, they’re not teaching me,” Verity says. “They’re retired, I guess. They have a friend who’s going to teach us and Marcus and Tomás are here to make sure we don’t go crazy while we’re learning.”

“Who’s us?” Rose asks. “Are they starting some kind of exorcist school?”

Verity laughs a little. “No. Just me and Kat. Her sister and her mom were possessed.”

“Oh.” Rose is quiet again. “I wish you weren’t doing that,” she says. “Because I worry about you. But I understand why you need to do it. And I support you. And I’m proud of you.”

Verity’s throat feels tight. “Thanks,” she whispers.

“Do you want me to wake everyone up?” Rose asks.

“No,” Verity decides, even though a minute ago she did. “It’s Saturday; let them sleep. I can call back later.”

“Oh, Harper’s up,” Rose says. “Harper, you want to talk to Verity?”

“Yes!” Verity can hear Harper cry in the background. Then her voice comes on the line. “Hi, Verity!”

“Hey, kid,” Verity says, smiling so wide it’s almost painful. “You taking good care of our room?”

“Uh huh,” Harper promises. “Truck tried to leave his dirty socks by your bed yesterday and I didn’t let him.”

Verity cracks up laughing. “Good, the smell would’ve knocked me out when I got back.” She feels a little pang in her heart. When is she going back? She has no idea if that’ll even be possible.

“When we were at the store yesterday there were puppies outside!” Harper tells her. “For free! And Rose said maybe we can get one if they’re still there in a few days.”

Personally, Verity thinks that means Rose is putting it off to make sure they don’t get one, but she doesn’t think it’ll be too long before Rose gives in. They’re all a bit weak when it comes to letting Harper have things that make her happy and help her feel safe.

“Do you have names picked out for a puppy?” Verity asks.

“I want to name a girl puppy Ladybug but Caleb said that’s dumb.”

“Well, tell Caleb I vote for Ladybug, too,” Verity says, even though she actually agrees with him. “He could just call her Bug.”

Harper laughs. “He’ll probably like that.”

“Yeah, probably.” Verity has to take a deep breath to keep from crying. She’s homesick, she realizes. That’s never happened to her. She’s never gone anywhere since she got this family, all these siblings. She misses them so much she almost can’t breathe.

“Are you staying with Father Marcus and Father Tomás?” Harper asks. Verity closes her eyes for a second.

“Marcus isn’t a priest anymore, so you don’t have to call him Father,” she corrects, voice too sharp. Harper doesn’t say anything, and Verity wants to kick herself. It doesn’t matter if Harper calls him Father. Verity shouldn’t have snapped at her like that; she can tell Harper’s shrinking in on herself now. “Sorry,” Verity says. “Yeah, I’m here with them in Chicago,” she adds. “Tomás made breakfast this morning.”

“Was it good?” Harper’s voice is quieter than it was, but at least she’s still talking.

“Yeah, it was pretty good. Did you know he has a nephew about your age? He was sick and his mom had to work so he was hanging out here with us for a few days.”

“What’s his name?” Harper asks, curiosity coming back a little.

“Luis.”

“Does he look like Father Tomás?” Verity holds in a snort. Harper might have a little crush on Tomás. Maybe she’s going to transfer that to age-appropriate Luis instead.

Verity squints, considering. “A little bit. He’s really shy. It took a while to get him to talk, but he’s pretty cool.”

“I’m kind of shy,” Harper says. “’Cause my mom never let me talk to anyone in case they told me I wasn’t possessed by a demon.”

Verity huffs. “Yeah. But you’re getting really good at meeting new people and making friends.”

“Yeah, I am,” Harper agrees in that soft way that means she’s pleased with herself but isn’t sure she’s allowed to be. Verity wants to hug her. “Is Marcus there right now?”

Verity makes a face, since Harper can’t see her. Harper absolutely loves Marcus. She talks about him all the time and sometimes when she’s having nightmares she still screams for him. Verity wonders how much she’d love him if she knew he’s a murderer.

But then Verity actually starts to feel kind of guilty. Yes, she’s mad, and yes, she feels justified in being mad. He chose to kill Andy even though he didn’t have to. He chose Tomás over Andy. But is she really surprised? Of course he did. He hardly knew Andy, and he loves Tomás. But the bigger thing is—Marcus has saved a lot of people. Marcus saved her in the woods, when the demon was trying to kill her, and he and Tomás refused to leave the family in danger, no matter what Andy and Rose said. He was ready to sacrifice himself to give her and the other kids more time to get away. Finding out why Marcus did it doesn’t bring Andy back. Verity hating Marcus doesn’t bring Andy back. Andy was lost the minute the demon inside him killed Harper’s mom. Verity knows all this, and under her anger, she can’t help but kind of love Marcus, too. That’s part of what’s making her so mad—she wants to hate him, but she still trusts him to keep her safe.

And of course Harper loves Marcus. He busted into her house and told her there was nothing wrong with her. He got her away from her mom and kept coming back to save and protect her. He was probably the first person to ever show Harper real love and kindness. He knows too well what it’s like to not have that. And so does Verity.

Verity sighs a little, internally. “You want to talk to him?” she offers.

“Can I?” Harper asks. She sounds excited, but like she’s trying to hold back. She still does that a lot. She doesn’t like to get too enthusiastic. She probably used to get in trouble for it.

“Yeah, let me see if he’s around,” Verity says. Part of her doesn’t want to do it. It’ll make Marcus happy, and she’s mad and petty and has always taken a certain pleasure in making other people squirm. But it’ll make Harper happy, and that’s more important. Harper spent twelve years miserable, being told she was dirty and wrong, scared of her own mind. Verity knows how that feels all too well.

And there’s still that part of her that does want to make Marcus happy. The part of her that loves him and trusts him. The part of her that knows, logically, she shouldn’t be so mad at him, because he tried. The part of her that remembers hiding under her bed, crying and hoping her parents wouldn’t find her, and then pictures a seven-year-old watching his father hit his mom in the head with a hammer and spent the rest of his life being told he was worthless if he didn’t give himself up for everyone else.

Everyone is still in the kitchen. Marcus is washing the pans now, and he’s got music on that he’s sort of shuffle-dancing too. Kat’s laughing at him, and Tomás is watching with his chin on his hand, smiling like this is the best thing he’s ever seen. It makes Verity’s chest hurt with so many warring emotions.

“Marcus,” she says. He whirls around, face freezing, and she hates herself a little bit. “Um, Harper wants to talk to you.”

Marcus’s face lights up. “You sure?” he asks, cautiously hopeful. Verity nods, holding out her phone. Marcus takes it carefully. “Thank you,” he says feelingly as he takes it. He’s smiling before he even starts talking. “Harper, my sunshine, how are you?” Verity can hear Harper chattering away, and Marcus laughs. Verity swallows hard. She sits down at the table, and Tomás is giving her that same look he did when she apologized to Marcus last week, only magnified by about ten this time. His smile is soft and grateful.

“Thank you, Verity,” he says quietly, heartfelt. She just nods, unsure if she can speak or what she would say if she could. She watches Marcus prowl around the kitchen, grinning hard as he speaks, teasing Harper and making her laugh, and a little bit of the spark goes out of her anger. Not all of it, and maybe not even permanently. But right now, knowing she did something good for someone else and knowing how Harper must be absolutely glowing right now, Verity’s chest settles. It’s going to be okay. They’re going to be able to move past this. Kat shoots her a proud smile, and Verity smiles back. Things are going to be alright.

Mass has never been Kat’s favorite thing in the world. They didn’t go very much when she was a kid, so she mostly just remembers being bored and wishing it would end. She’s kind of secretly glad St. Anthony’s is gone. She knows Tomás is really sad about it, and she feels bad for him, but she doesn’t know if she can handle the memories of going there with her family right now when she has to go without them. She’s dreading Mass enough already without adding all that emotional baggage.

They get on the crowded L and someone immediately offers Tomás their seat. “Here, Father,” the guy says, and Kat realizes with a start it’s the first time she’s seen Tomás wearing his collar the whole time she’s been here. Tomás tries to tell the guy no, but the guy’s halfway into a different compartment by the time Tomás even realizes what’s happening. Tomás looks intensely uncomfortable. He looks at Kat and Verity.

“Do you want to sit down?”

Kat looks at Verity. “You can sit,” she says. It’s been a rough couple of days for Verity. And she doesn’t sleep enough, anyway.

“You’re the one in a dress,” Verity points out. Verity’s in jeans, and she’d been ready to come out swinging. Kat’s not sure why she thought Tomás or Marcus would say anything. Marcus is in jeans, too, though his are black and look very slightly dressier than Verity’s with her giant holes in the knees. But everything’s still a bit strained after the big blowup Friday, and Kat thinks Verity was almost hoping for another fight.

Kat takes the seat. It’s better than all of them standing around an empty seat, being weird about it. She’s trying to be the peacemaker now, after everything that happened, but it’s not exactly a role she’s rehearsed for very much. She just tries to remember how Casey used to do it and copies that, but she doesn’t know how well she’s doing. She’s not nearly as naturally kind as Casey.

“This would not happen if they’d kept my bus idea,” Tomás mutters bitterly.

Marcus tips his head. “You had to know it wasn’t really going to happen without you here to put up a fuss.”

“How is Mrs. Henson getting to Mass?” Tomás frets. “She’s ninety-four. She’s supposed to ride the train? She can barely walk. And what about the Martinez family? They have five children and José got laid off last year after he got sick. They can’t afford the train every week.” He shakes his head, looking disgusted. “The Church doesn’t care about faith. Only six-figure donations.”

Marcus rubs Tomás’s shoulder for just a second. “I know. But maybe don’t replace bar fight with church fight, yeah?”

Tomás makes a face. “I’m not in a good mood,” he says crankily, and really unnecessarily because it’s obvious to anyone who can see him. He hasn’t been in a very good mood a lot in the week Kat’s been here, and it’s weird to her. Back before all this happened, the only thing she could picture when her mom talked about Father Tomás was him smiling at everyone.

“Did you sleep at all last night?” Marcus asks quietly. Kat’s pretty sure she’s not supposed to hear this part. She pretends to be really interested in the ads to her right.

Tomás sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know. I had a headache again.” Kat’s not trying to eavesdrop. She really isn’t. But she can’t really help it. She didn’t know Tomás had headaches. She wonders if it’s from the possession.

“You should have woken me up.” Marcus’s fingers twitch, like he’s holding himself back from reaching for Tomás.

Tomás huffs. “But you didn’t sleep two nights ago.” No one did, Kat’s pretty sure. She was up half the night holding Verity as she cried. Not that Kat minds. She minds that Verity was awake and crying, but Kat would sacrifice sleep any time to help.

“Yeah, well, I don’t get cranky like you do without sleep.”

Tomás snorts. “You get weepy.”

“I’m always weepy anyway,” Marcus points out. As far as Kat knows, that’s totally true. She’s seen Marcus cry more in the short time she’s known him than pretty much any other man she’s met in her life.

“What would you have done about it, anyway?” Tomás asks logically. “One of us should be sleeping.”

“I guess.” Marcus doesn’t look very convinced. “Maybe you’ll feel better after Mass. You love Mass.” Kat has to hold back a snort at that. Who the hell loves Mass? Well, she reasons with herself, Tomás is a priest. That actually is pretty logical.

“I doubt it, not here. I can’t promise I won’t fight Father Timothy.”

Kat can see Marcus biting down a smile. “Well, you know I’ll be there to help.”

“I don’t need help to fight him,” Tomás scoffs.

That makes Marcus lose his fight against laughing. “Course you don’t,” he agrees placatingly. Tomás gives him a dirty look.

“I’m going to fight you if you don’t stop. Ask that man in the pharmacy how that feels. And did you forget during Casey’s exorcism? I kicked your ass.” Kat tries not to visibly startle. Every time they mention Casey’s exorcism, the bottom of her stomach drops out.

Marcus is shaking with laughter. “You absolutely didn’t.”

“I’m younger and much stronger than you,” Tomás sniffs, not in such a bad mood anymore as they joke around.

“Yeah, but I’m more ruthless,” Marcus points out. Then his face darkens and his eyes flick over almost to Verity. Kat swallows hard, realizing what thought just went through his head. Marcus has killed people. Two people, she found out. Not just Andy but also his own dad. And yeah, obviously that guy deserved to die—he hit Marcus and his mom all the time, and then he killed Marcus’s mom with a fucking hammer with a little kid standing right there. But still. That effectively puts an end to the jokes about fighting.

When they walk up to the church, Tomás is all annoyed and muttering again, looking at how big the church is and how nice everything is. Kat remembers the way St. Anthony’s had been undergoing some kind of repair for as long as she can remember and can’t really blame him. Bennett’s waiting outside, standing a few feet from Olivia and Luis.

“Hey, guys,” Tomás greets his sister and his nephew.

“Uh oh,” Olivia says with a laugh, looking at his face. “Have you been mad all morning about the wealth inequality for here and St. Anthony’s again?”

“Yes,” Marcus supplies, and they share a fond, exasperated look. She snorts and shakes her head. “Bennett, didn’t know you were coming,” Marcus adds.

“If you would answer your phone,” Bennett says. “You’d know we have a meeting after Mass. For you.”

“For me what?” Marcus asks blankly. “For—” He breaks off, looking stunned. Tomás grabs his arm.

“Today?” Tomás asks. “Who’s doing it?”

“Doing what?” Luis butts in. Kat’s glad he did, because she doesn’t have any idea either but she knows she’s not supposed to ask. Olivia shushes him, but Marcus ruffles his hair.

“You remember I told you I got excommunicated for breaking the rules?” he explains. “Well, they’re letting me back in.”

“Oh,” Luis says. “Cool.” He doesn’t sound very impressed. Marcus laughs, giddy.

“It is cool,” he agrees, face glowing.

Kat’s a little confused, in all honesty. She doesn’t really understand why Marcus cares about the excommunication thing. Like, sure, he’d said it was the only thing he’d ever known. But he still did exorcisms even after he was excommunicated, and he’d sounded pretty bitter about the whole Church anyway. She doesn’t get it. Why would he be this excited about going back to people who bought him like a piece of furniture and then got rid of him as soon as they couldn’t use him anymore? Maybe Kat’s just too petty to understand.

They head in. Verity takes a deep breath when they walk inside. Kat reaches over and grabs her hand without really thinking about it. She just wants Verity to know she’s not alone. She doesn’t know if Verity will take it, though. Sometimes she won’t let Kat comfort her. Today’s not that day, apparently. She holds on tight to Kat’s hand.

“Do we have to sit in the front?” Luis asks, making it pretty clear he doesn’t want to.

“No way,” Verity says quickly. Then she glances at Tomás. “Right?”

“We can sit wherever you want,” Tomás assures her. They find a pew toward the back, by the door, and Verity hangs back so everyone else slides in before her. She wants to sit on the end so she can run away if she needs to, Kat realizes. It makes her stomach hurt a little. More than it already is at being at Mass without her family for the first time in her life, anyway.

“Hey,” Kat whispers. “If you want to leave, tell me and I’ll come with you.”

“I’ll make it through Mass,” Verity insists. “It’s fine.”

“I might not,” Kat says. “It’s so boring.”

Luis giggles next to her and Tomás gives her a dirty look. She wants to point out she's not the one who was threatening to fight the priest on the way here, but she figures that’s not something he wants Luis to know, either.

“Father Timothy is so boring,” Luis tells them. “You’re not as boring when you do Mass, Uncle Tomás.”

Tomás huffs. “Thanks, Luis.”

“I’d say it’s a toss-up, personally,” Olivia says. Tomás elbows her. She elbows him back. Kat has to look away, a lump rising in her throat. She misses Casey. She didn’t expect to get this emotional. She’s been away from her family before. But she hasn’t been away from them since she almost lost them all, and she’s literally never even been inside a church without Casey there to play tic-tac-toe with when it starts dragging on too long.

Mass gets underway. It’s as boring as Kat remembers. Honestly, it’s been an awful long time since she’s been to Mass, and she doesn’t feel like she was missing anything. Luis keeps shifting around, unable to sit still during all the scriptures. On the other side of Kat, though, Verity is motionless as a statue. When it comes time for the homily, she tenses even more.

Kat can tell immediately what Luis means about Father Timothy being boring. He spends the first five solid minutes reading directly from his notes without even looking up. Kat hears Tomás make a little scoffing sound under his breath. She looks over at him around Luis and he rolls his eyes at her very slightly. Olivia nudges him, widening her eyes in reproach. Kat looks down at her knees so she won’t laugh.

Luis sighs. Kat wishes she were twelve so she could sigh, too. Tomás puts his hand on his nephew’s shoulder. Luis shifts around again. Marcus leans around Olivia to hand Luis a piece of gum.

“Thanks,” Luis whispers so loudly it echoes. Verity actually breaks out of her ramrod straight posture to hide a little laugh in her hand. Kat glances over at her, and they both have to look away quickly before they crack up laughing. If Kat starts now, she’ll get caught in one of those endless loops.

“And the Lord tells us if we will abandon our sins, He will begin to love us once more,” Father Timothy drones on. Tomás’s head snaps forward again.

“No,” he mutters, sounding actually offended. “He never stops loving you.” Kat glances over at him. He’s frowning hard. It’s nothing compared to Marcus, though; he’s glaring. Sometimes Kat gets struck by the fact that Marcus actually knows God, kind of. Like, he used to be…what, filled with God? That’s how he described it. So it’s probably really, really annoying when he hears someone trying to speak for God and getting it wrong.

“I know we’ve heard some rumors lately about demons, devils, other supernatural elements,” Father Timothy says. His eyes flick over to their pew. “But it’s important to remember that finding excuses to justify our sin is never a good thing.”

Kat suddenly can’t breathe. He’s talking about Casey. He thinks—what? That Casey just chose to attack that guy on the L and the EMTs and then faked her own possession to cover it up? Kat’s throat is clogging up. It’s not like this stuffy old priest is the first to suggest it; the comment section of every news article about the EMT deaths is full of stuff like that, people calling Casey and Angela crazy. But he’s saying this right here in church, talking about abandoning sin and implying God is mad at Casey or something. Kat squeezes at her thighs to keep her hands from shaking.

Marcus is almost growling. His lip is curling and he’s sitting forward like he’s going to jump up and interrupt any second. And now Kat can see Bennett—she can tell he’s not at all happy, either, and Kat barely even knows the guy.

“We all face demons every day, and it is our duty to be strong enough to reject them,” Father Timothy says. Kat can feel herself starting to tremble. Like Casey just wasn’t strong enough or something. Like a kid is to blame for her own possession. He looks at their pew again, and Kat has no doubt he chose this topic specifically because he knew they’d be here and he knows, or at least suspects, what Tomás has been up to the past year. He thinks he’s sticking it to Tomás or something, making him feel foolish. Kat wishes this guy could have seen what she saw. He’d shut his mouth pretty quickly.

“Kat, Verity,” Tomás whispers urgently over Luis’s head. He shakes his head. “It isn’t true. You know that.”

Kat can feel tears pricking at her eyes. What if Casey and Angela had been here? What if they hadn’t left Chicago, or what if they want to go to Mass somewhere else? Is this the kind of thing most priests think? Are they going to hear that everywhere they go? Verity takes Kat’s hand again.

“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Verity assures her, right in her ear so no one else can hear. “We saw it. We know. It wasn’t them. We know that.”

“But how many people are going to say that kind of thing?” Kat breathes back. “Casey could hear someone say that and she already thinks it about herself.”

Verity purses her lips. “I know,” she murmurs, rubbing her thumb along Kat’s. It helps settle Kat a little. If assholes are going to say shit like this, Kat will just have to make extra sure Casey knows it wasn’t her fault. And when Kat’s an exorcist, she’s definitely going to tell people she saves that, too. She knows Marcus had a talk with Casey about it, and she’s glad. She’s going to do it every time.

When it’s time for communion, Kat hugs her arms close to her chest. She stopped taking communion when she was sixteen because she felt weird about it without fully realizing why. And considering this is the first time she’s set foot in a church since everything with Julia happened, Kat hasn’t had to examine that part of her life in regard to church. It doesn’t bother her much; she’s never been very into religion. She went because her parents wanted her to. She’s pretty sure she wouldn’t be allowed to take communion even if she wanted to, now.

“Are any of you taking communion?” Olivia whispers after a beat where no one moves.

“I am,” Luis says. No one else moves.

“I’m not allowed,” Marcus says, raising his eyebrows.

“I can’t,” Tomás says, looking down at the floor. Marcus is separated from him by Olivia, but he watches Tomás closely. Olivia glances over at Marcus for a second.

“Oh,” she says, eyebrows drawing together the exact same way Tomás’s do. “That’s a big enough sin?”

Tomás huffs. “First of all, I am a priest, so yes, regardless of who it’s with, it’s a big enough sin for me,” he reminds her. “And I’m sure Father Timothy would consider us a grave sin for anyone, for specific reasons. Plus I haven’t confessed it, and…” He shrugs carelessly. “I won’t. Because I don’t feel contrite and I won’t forsake it, so there’s no point.”

Marcus ducks his head, a look on his face Kat can’t read. “If it’s not a sin in the eyes of God you shouldn’t feel guilty to take communion, no matter what the Church says,” he murmurs.

Bennett looks over at them, exasperated. “Could you please keep the heresy contained to when we’re not in the middle of a holy sacrament?”

Luis is still half out of his seat, waiting for his mom. “Are we going or not?”

Olivia looks at Tomás. “Go ahead, baby,” she says.

“I’m not going alone,” Luis hisses.

“Okay,” Olivia says easily. “Then you can sit back down.”

“Olivia,” Tomás says quietly. “You don’t have to—”

“If that counts as a sin even without your vows just because you’re—” She glances around toward Marcus. “You know. Well, then I don’t know if I’m a believer,” Olivia says.

“Olivia,” Tomás says, sharper this time and sounding shocked.

“We’ll talk about it later,” Olivia says.

They sit silently as the line shuffles along. When Kat was little, her mom used to tell her she was supposed to think about Jesus at this part. Kat had usually wondered why Jesus made them do all this, all the standing and sitting and standing in line. As far as she knew from the Bible, Jesus never did all this, so Kat didn’t know why she had to. Then a children’s church teacher had told her she was being sacrilegious when she asked about it. Kat didn’t even know what that meant, but she understood she was supposed to just shut up about it. It was a big reason she didn’t like church.

Today all she can think of is Casey and Angela. Angela never seemed that much into the doctrine even as she was dragging them all to Mass, and now Kat wonders if she took them to church and sent them to catechism in hopes of keeping demons away. But Casey always liked participating. She liked getting praised by her catechist for remembering the most scriptures and going to the youth group to do all those service activities or make each other chastity belts or whatever weird shit they were doing. And now Casey doesn’t even talk about going to church, because she doesn’t feel like she belongs there. It’s bad enough she thinks it, worse that guys like Father Timothy will say it.

When Mass finally ends, Kat kind of wishes she hadn’t gone. It didn’t put her in a very God-loving mood, honestly. And Kat’s a little worried about how she’s going to do exorcisms if she can’t sit through Mass. All this time, she thought she’d be fine because Marcus did exorcisms without being a priest. But he looks completely at home in the church, and more importantly, he talks about God like it’s a guy he’s friends with. Kat feels like she’s waiting for a hidden camera to pop out and tell her she’s being Punked. She and God aren’t really on speaking terms, so now she’s worried He’s not going to show up when she asks Him to.

Father Timothy comes right back to them as soon as Mass ends and Kat’s not sure who’s more likely to deck him, Tomás or Marcus. Olivia might make the shortlist, too, but she’ll have to get in line behind Kat.

“Father Tomás!” Father Timothy simpers. He sets Kat’s teeth on edge. “I’m glad you came. So nice to see you.” Tomás doesn’t even smile. “I hope you don’t mind all the prayers and hymns were in English. Christ never did give pray in Spanish, after all.” Kat hates him. She hopes Tomás does beat him up.

Tomás raises his eyebrows. “Well, I guess my Aramaic must be better than I remember, because I had no trouble understanding anything,” he says with a tight little smile. “And I don’t recall reading about Christ teaching in English, either.”

Verity snorts. Father Timothy, flushing, looks at her. Verity’s not exactly subtle about her sexuality, and now he’s focused on her.

“Nice to see Father Tomás is doing some outreach to the less fortunate,” he says pointedly, disapproving eyes lingering on the holes in Verity’s jeans. “Of course, all are welcome here at St. Bridget’s. Christ invites us all to repent and forsake our sins, no matter how large those sins are.” He’s looking at Verity like she’s something gross on the bottom of his shoe, and Kat loses it. She didn’t have very far to go, honestly.

“Oh, good,” she spits back, not even trying to hold back her anger. At least this is someone she doesn’t have to feel bad about snapping at. “I remember hearing something about pride and Pharisees you might want to go reread and bring your self-righteousness down a few notches.”

Father Timothy looks at her, shocked. She can hear Marcus laughing out loud, and Tomás is nodding along at her. Then Father Timothy looks down the row to Bennett.

“Father Bennett, I didn’t realize you’d be coming with such—outspoken guests,” he says.

“It’s Bishop, now, actually,” Bennett says coldly.

“Well, that’s new,” Marcus remarks.

“Yes, it is,” Bennett answers blithely. “I believe we have a meeting to attend to.”

Father Timothy’s face is almost purple. He looks like his head is going to pop off. Kat would love to see it. “I suppose we do,” he says. He floats off, probably to go scream in his office before Marcus and Bennett get there.

“Are you handling this?” Marcus asks. “You taketh away and giveth as well?”

“Marcus, the heresy again,” Bennett says tiredly. “I don’t think I need to remind you I’m not the Lord.”

“Oh, come on, I know you joke with Mouse more than you do with me. Why do you like her better than me?”

“I am trying to undo your excommunication and you’re not helping.”

Marcus shrugs. “Well, I didn’t deserve it in the first place.”

“You pointed a gun at me,” Bennett reminds him.

“What?” Luis asks, eyes big.

“Come on, honey, let’s go wait outside,” Olivia says quickly.

“My apologies,” Bennett says, actually sounding awkward for once while Marcus laughs. Olivia gives Marcus a dirty look and herds Luis away. “Let’s go then,” Bennett tells Marcus. Marcus looks at Tomás.

“Coming along?” he asks. He keeps his voice light, but his fingers are twitching like he’s nervous. Tomás looks at Bennett.

“Am I allowed?”

Bennett shrugs. “It’s allowed to be public, so I don’t see why not. I’ve all but stopped trying to uphold any kind of rules with you two anyway.”

Tomás nods, apparently unphased by the dig at his obedience. He turns to Kat and Verity. “You can wait outside,” he says. “Or…I guess you could just go home, if you want. Kat, you know the L well enough to get there, don’t you? I’ll give you the key.”

“Yeah, I can handle it,” Kat says. Honestly, she never took the L much, because Henry and Angela both drove everywhere before Henry’s accident, but she’s familiar enough that they can figure it out. Besides, she and Verity both have phones and if they get lost, they can use their maps. She just needs to get out of here before she has a breakdown. Tomás hands Verity his whole keyring—there’s only one key on it, plus a silver crucifix keychain and a picture of Luis in a little bejeweled frame that looks homemade. Verity laughs a little when she looks at it.

“Honestly, this is…exactly what I would expect your keychain to look like,” she says.

Tomás shrugs. “The bottom of the crucifix unscrews,” he tells them in an undertone. “There’s holy water in it. If you need it.”

Kat’s going to shatter if they stay here another second. She can’t think about demons and exorcisms and holy water anymore today. She wants to go home and maybe cry in the shower for a bit, and then she wants to call Casey and tell her she loves her.

Marcus squeezes her shoulder, noticing the way her breath is starting to hitch. “Don’t let what he said get to you,” he whispers. “It isn’t true. It isn’t anyone’s fault if they get possessed. We know that, and we’re going to make sure to spread that. Right?”

Kat bites her lip. She nods, but she can’t talk. She gets what he’s saying. They have a responsibility to make sure assholes like Father Timothy aren’t the loudest voices in the crowd. She takes a deep breath and nods again. Marcus nods back, and then he, Tomás, and Bennett walk away. Marcus squeezes the back of Tomás’s neck, just once, for a second, and Kat suddenly remembers Tomás was possessed two months ago. Father Timothy said all that specifically to hurt Tomás based on rumors he heard, but the truth is his little sermon was more pointed than he even realized.

“Let’s go,” she chokes out. She has to get out of here now. She can’t breathe in here. Verity puts her arm around Kat’s waist and helps guide her through the crowd of happy churchgoers. Kat wants to scream at all of them.

She calms down a bit when they get outside. The sun is shining, and there’s a light breeze. She remembers she can breathe. She’s fine. Olivia comes over to them.

“Are you waiting for Tomás and Marcus?” she asks.

“No, we’re heading back,” Verity answers. “We don’t know how long they’re going to be.”

Olivia nods. “Well, they usually come for dinner on Sundays, and you guys are welcome, too.”

“Thanks,” Kat forces herself to say. Olivia hesitates for a second.

“Hey, um…” She glances around to make sure no one can overhear, least of all Luis. “Do people say that kind of thing a lot? About—after people get possessed?”

Kat doesn’t want to talk about this. But Olivia looks worried. Her brother was possessed, Kat reminds herself, and she has no idea how much Tomás and Marcus have talked to Olivia about it. She didn’t see the possession; she doesn’t know what it looks like. All she knows is something beyond awful happened to her brother. Kat doesn’t know if she’d believe it had all happened if she hadn’t seen it herself, but Olivia does. She has that much faith in Tomás.

“Yeah,” Kat says quietly. “I don’t know if you saw the news when my sister…” She swallows. “Yeah, people say that stuff a lot.”

Olivia’s eyes harden. “Well, that’s wrong.” She takes a deep breath. “I mean, I don’t know much about, um, demons. But I know Tomás. He wouldn’t—that’s not—” She breaks off, looking away for a second. “Well, anyway, that priest is an asshole. And I hope he didn’t make you feel bad.” She looks between Kat and Verity. “You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

For a second, Kat can’t figure out what Olivia’s talking about. Does she think one of them was possessed? Kat thought Tomás told Olivia it was their family members, not them personally.

“Uh,” Verity says. “Uh, no, we—we’re not. Uh.”

Then it clicks. Olivia thinks Kat and Verity are together. Dating. “Oh,” Kat says. “Um, nope.” She shakes her head. “I mean—well, we’re both—we are, but we’re not.” She has no idea what’s coming out of her mouth. She’s also doing an awful lot of hand gesturing that probably isn’t helping much.

“Oh!” Olivia says. “Sorry. I just thought…um, okay.” She looks embarrassed. “Well, anyway, uh, see you later. Maybe. If you want. Okay…bye.”

She practically sprints back to Luis. Verity looks at Kat. They both laugh a little, awkwardly, but Kat’s still upset about Father Timothy and can’t spare much thought to Olivia’s mistake right now. She clears her throat.

“Let’s go home,” she says. Tears prick in her eyes, though, because they won’t be going home. They’re going back to Tomás and Marcus’s house. Casey and Angela and Henry aren’t there. It isn’t home.

Verity puts her arm around Kat’s waist again and Kat doesn’t care if it confuses people. It helps her feel better. “Yeah,” Verity agrees softly. “Let’s go.” She gives Kat a little squeeze, and Kat lets Verity guide her through the crowd.

Chapter Text

Marcus isn’t quite as over-the-moon about not being excommunicated anymore as he would’ve been without Father Timothy’s awful homily. It was bad enough when he implied to the entire congregation that God would stop loving them in their sins, but then to add in the whole business with the demons and implying the possessed weren’t strong enough to resist sent him over the edge.

“Are you going to do something about him?” he demands of Bennett as they leave the church. It had been intensely satisfying to use the bastard’s office to get his excommunication wiped out. Father Timothy so clearly did not approve and Marcus basked in it.

“Yes,” Bennett says. “Of course I will. You know I don’t appreciate that any more than you do.”

Marcus’s stomach drops. Bennett was possessed, too. He forgets that sometimes, wrapped up as he is in Tomás. And Bennett had blood on his hands, literally, when they found him to exorcise him.

“I’m sorry,” Marcus says quietly, clapping a hand on Bennett’s shoulder. “And thank you, by the way. For this.”

Bennett shakes his head. “No need to thank me.”

“But thank you anyway,” Tomás says. Marcus is a bit worried about Tomás. He hadn’t slept last night, and the whole conversation on the train was concerning. But he’s been almost completely silent since Mass ended.

“I haven’t heard back from Mouse,” Bennett says. “I’m not sure if that’s a blanket no on training new exorcists.”

“She might be busy with her exorcism,” Tomás points out dubiously.

“Perhaps,” Bennett says. “I’ll try her again.” He breaks off to head to the parking lot.

“Not good at goodbyes,” Marcus points out. He looks closer at Tomás. “You alright?”

“Of course,” Tomás says, too quickly. “We should be celebrating.”

“Tomás,” Marcus says. “Don’t let all that into your head. You know it isn’t true.”

Tomás’s shoulders slump a bit and Marcus knows he’s hit the mark. “Yes. I know.”

“But?” Marcus asks. Tomás hasn’t stopped walking, so Marcus hasn’t, either, but he wants nothing more than to stop right here and take Tomás into his arms. He figures he should at least wait until they’re out of sight of the church, though. Not caring if anyone finds out is one thing; being needlessly reckless is another.

“But nothing,” Tomás mutters.

“Tomás,” Marcus says again. “Look at me.”

Tomás doesn’t, but instead he says, “Well, he’s right about me, isn’t he? It was my own fault. I wasn’t strong enough.”

Marcus stops. He grabs Tomás’s arm to stop him, too. “No,” he says simply. “No.”

“Marcus, it’s—”

“No,” Marcus repeats, louder. “Tomás, no. I’m not listening to you say that about yourself.”

Tomás exhales loudly. “Marcus, it’s true. I chose to let the demon into my head. I was too proud. I thought I could withstand anything. And I was wrong.”

“Tomás,” Marcus hisses. “You let the demon into your head because you wanted to help people. You thought you had a gift that would save someone, and you used it. It isn’t your fault the demons were speaking to each other, sharing information. They probably strategized how to get to you, did you think about that?” He shakes his head. “You don’t get to say it’s true for everyone else but not for you. You know it doesn’t work that way. How do you think Casey would feel if she heard you saying that?”

Tomás whirls out of Marcus’s grasp and starts walking again. “Well, I’m sorry, but it’s how I feel, Marcus. If you don’t want me to talk about it, I won’t.”

Marcus is completely dumbfounded for a minute. He has to rush to catch up to Tomás. He catches his arm again, slides his hand down to lace his fingers with Tomás and pull him gently to a stop. “Tomás,” he says quietly.

Tomás bows his head, refusing to meet Marcus’s eyes. “I know it isn’t logical. It’s—it’s hypocrisy for me to think that way. It’s a kind of selfishness, almost, to single myself out that way. But I just don’t…I feel it, Marcus. I can’t help it.”

Marcus doesn’t care about anyone seeing them. Bennett already knows, or can easily figure it out, and he’s apparently their boss now. Marcus tugs Tomás in, holds him close, and brushes his lips against Tomás’s temple. “Okay,” he says simply. “That’s how you feel. I’ll do my best to help you see it isn’t true.”

Tomás presses his face into Marcus’s neck. “I’m working on it.”

“Okay,” Marcus repeats. “I’ll help if I can.”

Tomás nods. “Thank you.”

“You never need to thank me,” Marcus says. Tomás pushes back and looks Marcus in the eye.

“Thank you,” he repeats, firmer this time. He always says he thinks Marcus is too flippant with gratitude.

“You’re welcome,” Marcus gives him the response he wants. “Tomás…” Now is probably a good opening to talk about Tomás’s vows. Olivia knows now, or had her suspicions confirmed, anyway, and Tomás just admitted he blames himself for his possession. Marcus just isn’t sure if bringing it up will do more harm than good.

“You’ve had something on your mind for days,” Tomás says. “Are you finally going to tell me?”

Marcus sighs. “I worry you don’t want a parish anymore because you don’t feel worthy.”

Tomás barely reacts. He shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe that’s true.”

Marcus is staggered. “Tomás,” he says sharply. “You can’t let the demons win like that.”

“I’m not hiding in a room somewhere,” Tomás points out. “I’m still helping, aren’t I?”

“What happens when you wake up in five years and realize you’ve thrown away your vows and your whole bloody priesthood for—for something that isn’t worth it.”

Tomás tilts his head. “You’re not talking about a parish and the exorcisms.”

Marcus looks away. “No.”

“You’re talking about yourself.” Tomás is quiet for a minute. When Marcus chances a look at him, he’s shaking his head. He sounds tired. “Marcus, I’m not even going to talk about how hypocritical that is after everything we just talked about. With worthiness and blame. I won’t even talk about how I wish you wouldn’t think things like that about yourself. All I’m going to say is I find it insulting that you do not believe I know my own mind and heart well enough to know what I really want.”

Marcus’s eyes are full of tears. “I’m just worried you’re still reacting to the demon. The possession, and all the visions, and everything that happened.”

“Of course I am,” Tomás says logically. “But that doesn’t make me feel anything I wouldn’t be feeling anyway. All it does is make me realize what is important and what is less important. You are important, Marcus. You make me remember myself. You make me feel safe. Is that a bad thing?”

“No,” Marcus says numbly.

“I don’t think so either. Do I deserve to feel safe after everything that happened?”

“Of course you do,” Marcus says. “But I don’t want you to use me as a way to self-destruct.”

“I’m not going to wake up in five years and regret this.” There’s not a shred of hesitance in his voice. He’s completely sure of every word he’s speaking. “The only thing I will regret is not being with you sooner.”

Marcus covers his face with his hands. “I don’t feel worthy of that.”

“I know you don’t,” Tomás says sadly. “But you are. And do you think I feel worthy of you turning your back on God for me?”

Marcus doesn’t have an answer for that. He can only imagine how that feels. “Guess not,” he says.

“Do you want me to be self-sacrificing and run off because I think I don’t deserve you?” Tomás asks.

“Course not.” Marcus sniffs. “I’d just chase after you anyway.”

Tomás smiles at him. “I know you would. And I would go after you if you try to save me from myself or whatever stupid thing you think you’d be doing. It wouldn’t be saving me to leave me, Marcus. It would ruin me. Okay? I’m not self-destructing with you. I’m putting myself back together. And you’re a part of that. Do you understand?”

“Not really,” Marcus says honestly. “But I’ll try.”

“I’m not going to wake up one day and find you gone with just a goodbye note?” Tomás checks.

Marcus huffs. “I’ll have you know I’m not known for my goodbye notes.”

“Good,” Tomás says. “I don’t want one. If you’re going to leave, don’t bother with a note.”

Marcus shakes his head. “Don’t know if I’d live through leaving you, to be honest.”

Tomás smiles at him, a soft little thing that makes Marcus’s chest hurt. “That’s a little dramatic,” he teases. Marcus laughs through the lump in his throat.

Tomás inclines his head to signal they should keep walking. After a minute, Tomás reaches for Marcus’s hand again. He squeezes it tight for a moment. Marcus squeezes back, not fighting the smile taking over his face. It’s a good day.

When they round the corner to their street, Marcus can see someone sitting on the steps leading to their apartment. It takes about three steps before they’re close enough to see it’s Mouse.

“Mouse,” Tomás says. “Hi.”

“Hello, boys,” she says. She has a butterfly bandage on her jaw. Marcus raises his eyebrows.

“Knife?”

“Nail, actually.” Mouse stands up smoothly.

“Tetanus?” Tomás asks.

“No worries,” Mouse instructs. “Bennett’s gotten me all my shots.”

“Were you waiting for us?” Marcus asks. “You could’ve gone inside. Kat and Verity are in there.”

“I know,” Mouse says. “I’m not a babysitter.” It sounds like a warning.

“They’re both adults,” Tomás points out.

Mouse scoffs. “Barely.”

“Did you meet them?” Marcus asks.

“I saw them.”

“Mouse,” Tomás says. “They’ve both seen exorcisms. They know what they’re getting into.”

Mouse purses her lips. “Is there a reason the two of you can’t teach them yourselves?”

“You know there is,” Marcus says softly.

Mouse looks away for a moment. “I’ve never taught anyone exorcisms,” she admits. “I guess I’ve only had three partners. And you both know how all three turned out.”

Marcus’s stomach clenches. She’s talking about him, Tomás, and Bennett. Two who ended up possessed and the one who let her get possessed herself.

“None of that was your fault,” Tomás reminds her. Marcus would like to make a face at Tomás over that, considering the conversation they just had, but he won’t.

“Still,” Mouse says. “Not a very reliable track record.”

Marcus snorts. “Can any of us claim that?”

Mouse tips her head, conceding. “Bennett did say he’d help. And he said you two get first crack at the basics, before we bring any demons in.”

“He told us we’d be emotional support,” Tomás says. Mouse raises her eyebrows a bit.

“Interesting,” she says, which is probably the nicest thing she could say, given their history.

“Come in,” Marcus says. “Are you staying here or with Bennett?”

“Neither,” Mouse says. “Don’t worry about it.”

“We don’t get to know the details of your plans?” Tomás asks, almost teasing.

Mouse shrugs, unrepentant. “It’s best to keep our details in as few heads as possible.”

“Now this feels like old times,” Tomás jokes. Mouse finally cracks a smile.

“A bit less danger,” she points out.

“You haven’t met Kat yet,” Marcus mutters. Tomás tsks, but he’s laughing. They have to knock, since Tomás gave his keys to Kat and Verity and Marcus never carries his. The only place he ever goes without Tomás is out for a walk, so he’s never needed to bring a key. He’s half-sure he’d lose it. The concept of having a key is still a bit foreign, though he does have to admit he’d stared at that key in some amount of awe for a long time after Tomás handed it to him. Not just his own key, but his key that matches Tomás’s key, to this place where they live together.

Verity opens the door. Her face darkens a bit when she first sees Marcus’s face and his stomach drops. But she schools her features and steps back.

“Kat’s having a rough day,” she says lowly, turning her face toward Tomás.

Tomás sighs. “We went to Mass,” he tells Mouse. “The priest had some things to say about demonic possession, and Kat is very protective of her sister.”

Mouse frowns. “Bennett’s handling that, I expect?”

“Yeah,” Marcus assures her. “Did you tell him you were here, by the way?”

“He knows,” Mouse says.

“This is Mouse,” Tomás tells Verity. “Mouse, this is Verity. You, uh, met her father. Andy.”

“You were at my dad’s exorcism?” Verity asks.

“Briefly,” Mouse says delicately. Marcus hopes the detail of her being the one to bring the gun doesn’t come out soon. They can’t handle any more blowups right now. They’ll probably have to address is eventually, though, or a demon will use it against them both.

“And you came to teach us?” Verity asks. Mouse glances at Marcus. Marcus shrugs at her.

“Maybe,” Mouse says. “We’ll see.”

“What do I have to do to convince you?” Verity asks.

“Verity, why don’t we figure that out later,” Tomás suggests. “Mouse just got here. And we’re celebrating today.”

“Celebrating what?” Mouse asks.

“I’m not excommunicated anymore,” Marcus says. He does what he’s heard called jazz hands. “Ta-da.”

Tomás snorts. “Olivia is baking a cake.”

“Is she?” Marcus is actually genuinely touched by that. It didn’t take long to figure out Olivia shows love through food—a tradition, as far as Marcus can tell, handed down through generations in their family. If she’s baking him a cake, it might be a sign she doesn’t mind him hanging around. Or, at the very least, she knows what it’ll mean to Tomás. Marcus can live with either.

Tomás tugs at the collar around his neck. It’s almost jarring to see him wearing it; he wears it less and less these days. Marcus is trying not to think too hard about that until Tomás says something about it. “Will Kat want to stay here instead of going to Olivia’s?” Tomás asks Verity, concerned. “I can make her something to eat before we go.”

“I don’t know,” Verity says. “She’s on the phone with her family now.”

“That’s good,” Tomás says with a nod. “You should both make sure to call home often.”

“Are you going to come with us, Church Mouse?” Marcus asks. He’s almost positive she won’t. Mouse comes off as overly harsh to most people, but it’s a practiced and disciplined trait. She has a soft heart and she’s learned to protect it by cutting herself off from people before she can get too attached. Marcus mourns his part in teaching her that.

“Please do, Mouse,” Tomás says. “I want you to meet Olivia and Luis.”

There’s that feeling again, like Marcus has missed a step on a staircase. He almost forgot Tomás and Mouse spent months on the road together, just the two of them. Mouse knows all about Olivia and Luis, probably, because Tomás can hardly go half a day without talking about them. Some part of Marcus is almost jealous at the reminder that he’s not Tomás’s only confidante. It’s absolutely ridiculous, because Marcus has never been Tomás’s only confidante. That’s been Olivia’s role far longer than it’s been Marcus’s, and he’s also had Jessica and God knows how many other friends. Marcus shouldn’t be jealous about it. He should be glad Tomás didn’t grow up as lonely as he did. And all this is complicated by his history with Mouse, too. Mouse was his secret for so long, and now Tomás knows it all. Marcus’s worlds didn’t just collide; they went off and had their own adventure without him.

“Maybe I will,” Mouse says, surprising Marcus. Maybe she just can’t say no to Tomás. Marcus knows the feeling. Marcus busies himself with kicking off his shoes until he can get a grip on himself. It is beyond stupid for him to feel left out because Mouse seems to like Tomás better than she likes him. Mouse has ample reason to hate him; the fact that she can stand to be in the same room with him at all is a miracle in itself.

Marcus pulls his shirttails out, ready to strip off his shirt as he walks into the bedroom. He can hear Tomás following behind him and he turns to see Tomás holding his collar in one hand and Marcus’s shoes in the other.

“You took them off and then walked straight in here,” he points out, exasperated. “Why didn’t you just pick them up and bring them with you?”

“I honestly didn’t think about it,” Marcus admits. “Aren’t you just glad I’ve finally learned to take them off before I walk all around everywhere?”

Tomás huffs. “Yes, I’ll celebrate your one tiny baby step into civilization.”

“One small step for man,” Marcus reminds him, making Tomás laugh a little.

“Are you okay?” Tomás asks. “With Mouse here?”

Marcus sighs and tugs his shirt over his head. “Course I am. We knew she’d be coming, didn’t we? Or we thought she might, anyway.”

“You looked a little…” Tomás considers his words. “Shocked.”

“Well, she showed up on our doorstep without warning,” Marcus points out.

“Yeah,” Tomás says. If Marcus needed further proof Tomás isn’t himself today, it’s the fact that he’s letting that lie. Marcus crosses the room to where Tomás is carefully unbuttoning his shirt and puts his arms around Tomás from behind.

“You’ve been different today,” he murmurs, pulling Tomás close into his chest. “Quiet and irritated. Is it just from not sleeping?”

Tomás leans back against him. “I don’t know,” he says. “I’ve still got a little bit of a headache.”

“Did you take anything?” Marcus asks, concerned. He rubs at the spot on Tomás’s temple where his headaches usually live. Tomás hisses, but he doesn’t move away from the touch. “Does that help?”

“I didn’t take anything,” Tomás says. “And yes, a little.”

Marcus bites his lip. “Is it a regular headache?” he ventures. “Or is it…?” Tomás’s headaches have usually been tied to visions. But he did also get hit in the head with a hammer and suffer a fairly serious concussion they never really took care of nearly a year ago, so sometimes a headache is just a headache. Since his possession, they’ve all been just headaches, and Marcus is willing to bet Tomás has some complicated emotions about that he isn’t sharing.

“I don’t know,” Tomás says. His voice is slowing, getting drowsy, and Marcus push-guides him over to the bed. “No,” Tomás tries to argue.

“Just lie down for a bit,” Marcus suggests. “You’ve got more than an hour until we need to leave for Olivia’s.”

“But Mouse is here,” Tomás says, eyes already closed and he hasn’t even lay down yet. “And I was going to make something for Kat.”

“Mouse will understand better than anyone,” Marcus reminds him. “I can entertain her for a bit. And I can make something for Kat.” Marcus sits Tomás on the edge of the bed and finishes getting his shirt off.

“What are you going to make her?” Tomás asks, smiling a little. He still has his eyes closed, which concerns Marcus a little. That probably means the headache is worse than he’s been letting on.

“I’ll give her a bowl and a box of cereal,” Marcus says, working on Tomás’s belt now. “She’s the one who likes to remind us she’s not a child.”

Tomás laughs and shakes his head. “She had a very hard day,” he says. “At least make her a sandwich.”

“Oh, yes, a sandwich,” Marcus says with a snort. “The height of culinary masterpiece.”

Tomás laughs again, leaning back on his elbows and lifting his hips obligingly as Marcus tugs at his pants. “I like sandwiches.”

“I’m well aware.” Undressing Tomás is usually much more enjoyable for Marcus, especially since revealing Tomás’s thighs is one of Marcus’s favorite things in life, but Tomás’s face is starting to screw up in pain. “Getting worse?” Marcus guesses. Either that or Tomás is finally letting himself give into the pain a little.

“Laughing made it hurt worse,” Tomás says, sounding almost betrayed. Marcus helps him shuffle up to the top of the bed to lie down properly with a pillow. He brushes his lips over Tomás’s forehead.

“Take a nap,” he whispers. Tomás grabs his hand as he starts to move away and pulls him in for a proper kiss.

“Thank you, Marcus,” he mumbles, muscles already going slack as he finally lets himself rest. Marcus kisses him again and sweeps the hair off his forehead. He doesn’t have to respond to Tomás’s thanks, because Tomás is already asleep.

He crosses the room to close the blinds, since the light’s obviously hurting Tomás’s eyes but he won’t admit it. He hangs Tomás shirt and pants in the closet, even taking the time to use the special hanger just for pants he’d never known existed until Tomás showed him. He lines up their shoes neatly. He takes out an old t-shirt he found abandoned in a laundromat in Iowa and puts it on. He moves some dirty laundry from the heap he left it in yesterday into the hamper in the bathroom. He notices the toothpaste left on the counter—Tomás’s fault, he notes smugly—and puts it back in the drawer.

He’s stalling. Mouse and Verity are out in the living room, and they’re probably the two people with the most reason to hate him in the world. He’s not sure going out there is going to be very enjoyable for him. He’d stay here with Tomás if he hadn’t promised to handle everything. He gives Tomás’s sleeping face a last look before he leaves in case they team up to murder him.

He rolls his eyes at himself. That’s quite enough of the dramatics. For now, anyway.

Mouse raises her eyebrows when he comes out of the room alone. “Tomás is lying down,” Marcus explains. “He’s got one of his headaches.”

She frowns. “A vision?”

Marcus shrugs. “Not sure. He hasn’t had one since the possession, but he’s still having headaches.”

“What were his visions like?” Verity asks. She’s only looking at Marcus from the corner of her eyes and he’s trying not to let it bother him.

“It depends on the demon, mostly,” Marcus tells her. “Sometimes his visions focus on the possessed person, where they’re hiding out in their mind. Sometimes it’s more focused on the demon and the damage they’ve done.”

“Which one was it with my dad?” Verity asks, voice controlled. She actually looks at him for this question. Marcus hesitates.

“Both, actually,” he says. “It was—that was a bad one. The demon was very old and had been on the island a long, long time. Tomás never told me exactly what he saw with the past victims and what the demon did, but…” He shakes his head, remembering the way Tomás’s eyes had filled with tears as he said this is a curse. “I’ve never seen him like that.”

“And I assume he’s still not sleeping much?” Mouse asks, all too familiar with Tomás’s sleep problems. “That can’t be helping the headaches.”

“Don’t think he slept at all last night,” Marcus admits. “When I woke up at 4 he hadn’t been to sleep yet.”

Verity furrows her eyebrows. “You woke up at 4? What are you, a farmer?”

Marcus snorts. “No, an exorcist.” He swallows hard. “Well. Not anymore.” He clears his throat, not wanting to linger on that moment. “Is Kat still on the phone?”

“I don’t know,” Verity says. She’s giving Marcus a look he can’t read and he can’t look over at Mouse. He rubs his hand over his hair and flees Mouse and Verity again. He knocks lightly on Kat and Verity’s door.

“Kat?” he tries, not sure what to expect. After a beat of nothing, the door opens. Kat’s not on the phone. Her eyes are red and puffy and Marcus’s stomach tightens. “You alright?”

She shrugs. “I’d be better if some dickhead priest didn’t tell a church full of people my sister is weak and disappointed God.”

Marcus blows out a breath. “Yeah, me too.” He feels awkward, especially knowing Mouse and Verity are ten feet away watching all this. “Can I come in?”

Kat shrugs and steps back, out of the doorway. “Your house,” she points out, sitting on the edge of the bed. Marcus notes the extra pillows on the bed and the lack of pillow on the cot. It looks like they’ve been sharing the bed.

“I think you already know that’s not a unique opinion,” he says. “Just wanted to make sure you know it isn’t a correct one.”

Kat sighs. “Yeah, you said that already. I know. It’s just…he’s never seen it, you know? He stands up there and talks all high and mighty like he knows what he’s talking about, but he doesn’t.”

Marcus nods. “I’ve been facing that my whole life,” he tells her.

“I don’t know how you deal with it.” He can tell there’s something else on her mind, though. She keeps opening her mouth and then closing it without saying anything.

“What is it?” he asks. “I promise you can’t ask anything that’ll shock me.”

She draws her knees up to her chest. “How am I going to do exorcisms when I don’t really know anything about church stuff? I mean…I did the whole catechism and confirmation thing when I was younger, but it’s been a while. And I, uh, I don’t know, I never really paid that much attention or felt like I believed it that much and I just—how am I supposed to—I don’t think God’s going to—”

Marcus steps around the cot to put his hands on Kat’s shoulders. “Kat,” he stops her, because she’s starting to sound desperate and he can’t listen to her panic. “God doesn’t care what you have memorized or if you know all the rules of the Church. When you call on Him, He’ll be there.”

“I barely even believe in Him,” she admits, eyes filling with tears. “I know that’s awful, because I saw Tomás exorcise my mom and I heard him praying and everything so—so I should know. But I don’t know if I do. So how’s God going to come if I don’t even believe?”

“He will,” Marcus promises her gently. “He doesn’t want to see His children possessed any more than we do. If you’re strong and you don’t let the fear get in your way, He’ll guide you through it.”

“What if I can’t?” she asks, tears spilling down her cheeks now. “What if someone’s counting on me and I get in there and I just…can’t do it?”

Marcus takes a deep breath. “Then you’ll fail,” he says steadily, thinking of Mother Bernadette’s words in the garden. “It’s a tough pill to swallow,” he admits. “One I still don’t have all the way down. But you won’t be alone, especially when you’re first starting. Mouse will be there to help you.” He smiles faintly. “She knows what she’s doing.”

Kat exhales shakily. “So you’re telling me I just have to get used to the idea that I might fail and leave someone possessed?”

“Maybe,” he says quietly. “Or maybe they die.”

She wipes at her nose with the back of her hand. “So no pressure or anything.”

He manages a little laugh around the lump in his throat. “Yeah, exorcism’s a real low-stakes job.”

She brushes off her tears and sniffs. He watches her straighten her back and push her shoulders back. She’s a dancer, he remembers, or she was, anyway, and with this posture he can see it.

“Okay,” she says. “So I just trust a sort of vague shadow guy in the sky I don’t really know but apparently loves me and hope He shows up?”

Marcus laughs at that description of God. It’s as good as any he’s heard. “Pretty much,” he says. “Remember when we all told our secrets that first time? And Tomás said trust involved some choosing to trust? Faith’s like that, too. It’s not just a thing you have, you get your faith once and you’re good to go forever. Sometimes things don’t make sense and you have to keep trusting for a bit until they do. But,” he amends quickly. “That doesn’t mean you don’t get to ask questions and that doesn’t mean you have to believe everything the Church says. It’s still run by people, remember that.” Kat’s eyes widen and Marcus huffs. “What, a little light heresy still surprises you?”

“No, just—today, at Mass, I was remembering when I asked the lady doing our kid church thing why we had to stand up and sit down so much and she told me I wasn’t supposed to ask questions.”

“Yeah,” Marcus says bitterly. It’s one of his biggest pet peeves. “A lot of them will tell you that, especially when you’re a kid. But we put our faith in God, not necessarily the Church, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she says, wondering. “Yeah, okay.”

He bites his lip for a minute, considering. “Do you want me to make you a list of the parts of the Bible I think are worth your time?”

“You’re telling me parts of the Bible aren’t worth my time?” she asks with a laugh.

“Oh, of course. You should see mine. Tomás was ready to chuck me out into the street the first time he saw it, because I like to cross out the wrong parts.”

Kat laughs, delighted. “This is making me feel so much better.”

Marcus is a little surprised by the warmth he feels at those words. He’s doing something right. He’s helping, and he hasn’t had to strap anyone down or avoid any gnashing teeth. He feels almost lightheaded for a moment.

“Are you up for dinner with Olivia and Luis?” he asks. “Olivia’s making cake, apparently. And Mouse is coming.”

“Mouse is here?” Kat asks frantically. “Wait, are we learning already?”

“Calm down,” Marcus says. “She still hasn’t decided if she’s even going to do it.”

Kat slumps. “Oh, great. She didn’t even meet me yet and she doesn’t want to do it.”

Marcus snorts. “It’s nothing to do with you. Exorcism’s been a solo job for a long time. It takes a lot for us to branch out.”

Kat tips her head. “Well, maybe we’ll start a new trend.”

Marcus can’t help but smile at her. “Yeah,” he says softly, thinking about all those years he spent alone and how tightly he’s clung to the people who came into his life. “I don’t think that’d be so bad.”

“I think I can handle a dinner, especially if there’s cake,” Kat decides. Then she takes him by complete surprise by standing and putting her arms around him. She’s hugging him. “Thanks, Marcus,” she says.

Marcus’s throat is so tight he can’t speak for a moment. Finally, he manages to say, “You’re welcome.” Tomás would be proud; he didn’t even try to play it off. She flounces off to meet Mouse, probably not even noticing how completely floored she’s left him. He stands there for a second, dumbfounded, and then he follows her out.

He told Kat sometimes they fail. It’s something he’s been trying to get used to, the failing. For a long time it felt like failing was all he ever did. But right now, he feels like he’s finally starting to win again.

“Okay, guys,” Olivia says, sly like she’s got a secret. They’ve just finished dinner, everyone bumping elbows around her small table, and she’s come back from the kitchen with a cake. Apparently she thought it was going to be a surprise, so they’ve all been tasked with pretending to be shocked. “We have to celebrate Marcus’s big day!”

Everyone oohs and ahhs appropriately. Marcus ducks his head, his entire face turning bright red, and that’s obviously not an act. Verity is doing her best to be happy for him and not think about anything else. Learning exorcisms is what matters now, and if Mouse has a history with Marcus she might not want to help if Verity’s being a bitch to him.

“Thank you,” he says quietly as Olivia places the cake in front of him. Olivia hugs him and Verity can see all the emotions flit across his face. Verity looks away.

“Yay!” Kat says, clapping and laughing. She’s in a much better mood after whatever she talked about with Marcus, and Verity is trying not to be affected by that, too. Mostly, she’s just glad Kat is feeling better and isn’t so upset anymore. As hard as it was to hear that asshole priest imply people who get possessed are weak, Verity doesn’t have to worry about Andy ever hearing that and internalizing it. Kat has to worry about her sister and her mom. Whatever Marcus said to help Kat, Verity’s grateful.

Or Verity’s working on being grateful, at least.

Verity accepts her piece of cake and even tells Marcus thank you for handing it to her. When he ducks his head and smiles, he almost looks like a little boy. Verity focuses on her cake.

“Are you a priest again?” Luis asks.

“Nope,” Marcus says cheerfully. “Just a regular old Catholic, like you.”

Olivia snorts. “Regular,” she echoes sarcastically. “Sure.”

Marcus shrugs. “Well, now I am,” he points out.

Verity has her doubts about Marcus ever being regular, but she keeps them to herself. That’s probably not a kind thing to say, and she’s not looking to cause a scene here.

“So how do you know Tomás and Marcus?” Olivia asks Mouse. “From—” She glances at Luis for a second. “Uh, work?”

“Yes,” Mouse says. “Marcus and I worked together…a long time ago. And then Tomás and I worked together more recently.”

Olivia nods. “So…are you visiting? Or is there…work…here?” She sounds a little nervous. Verity doesn’t blame her. Even knowing they’re going to look for demons to exorcise them, the thought of demons still makes her stomach drop.

Mouse hesitates. “There might be work here,” she says, but adds quickly, “A different kind of work.” She looks over at Kat and Verity. Recognition crosses Olivia’s face.

“Oh, okay,” she says. “Well, that’s nice.” She turns to Tomás. “Your other friend didn’t want to come? Father Bennett?”

Marcus snorts. “Bennett doesn’t believe in having fun.”

“I had plenty of fun with Bennett,” Mouse counters mildly. “Might just be you.” She raises her eyebrows at Marcus, smiling a little, and Marcus laughs out loud. It’s weird for Verity to think of Mouse as Marcus’s…ex-girlfriend, or something. It’s weird to think of Marcus having an ex-girlfriend. But Verity’s never seen Marcus without Tomás, so that’s probably why she can hardly imagine it.

Dinners with everyone at Olivia’s are getting a little easier. Not entirely less awkward, since Olivia was still embarrassed from her faux pas after Mass, but at least Verity knows Kat better. And Luis isn’t shy with them anymore, though tonight Mouse threw him off. All in all, the night was fine. When Verity wasn’t actively reminding herself not to think about Marcus and Andy, she enjoyed herself.

So she’s not sure why she’s awake and staring at the ceiling. She’s thoroughly sick of this experience. She wonders if her body will adjust and start needing less sleep or if she’s going to be perpetually exhausted forever. Because it sure doesn’t seem like she’s going to get more sleep any time soon.

She’s pretty sure Kat’s awake, too. Something about her breathing or just a feeling in the room makes Verity think that. She wonders if she should say something. Should they talk about Olivia thinking they were together? Will talking about it make it weirder? Is it weird now? They haven’t really been awkward with each other, but they also haven’t really had any time to be awkward. Kat was so upset when they got home, and then Mouse was there, and then they went to Olivia’s, and then Verity called home and talked to all the kids and Kat was in bed when she got back. They’ve shared the bed the past two nights, mostly because Verity’s been a wreck, but Verity felt weird slipping into Kat’s bed without an express invitation, so she’d gone back to the cot.

Maybe Kat’s avoiding her. Maybe Kat thinks it’s weird. Maybe Verity shouldn’t have put her arm around Kat today. But Kat was upset. Verity didn’t like seeing her like that, and in the short time she’s known Kat, she’s gathered that Kat likes holding hands for comfort. But maybe Kat’s embarrassed that Olivia thought they were dating. Kat’s definitely a lot more beautiful than Verity could pull. Her girlfriend was probably just as gorgeous.

Verity’s pulled out of her thoughts by a pained little exhale from the bed. She can barely make out the shape of Kat shifting around in the dark. Verity’s pretty sure Kat’s stretching out her bad leg.

“Hey,” Verity whispers. “You okay?”

“Um, yeah,” Kat says. “I—I haven’t been doing my exercises. And at first I didn’t feel a difference but now…well, I guess maybe that physical therapist knows a thing or two after all.” She laughs a little.

“What kind of exercises do you have to do?” Verity asks. Shelby’s in the middle of his physical therapy right now, and Verity feels bad for missing it.

“Strength stuff. And a lot of squats.” Kat huffs. “It hurt so bad I cried at every session for the first month. But it got easier and I thought I didn’t need it anymore.”

“My brother’s doing physical therapy,” Verity says. “He…broke his leg.” She hesitates. “I mean. The demon broke his leg.”

“God, what’s with demons and legs?” Kat asks, disgusted. It actually makes Verity laugh.

“Well, you better do your exercises,” Verity says, trying to sound teasing and threatening at the same time. “Can’t have you cutting into my beauty sleep.”

Kat laughs. “Not like you need it anyway.”

Verity…can’t think of a response. She is literally speechless. She laughs, a weird sort of high-pitched thing that she hopes doesn’t sound as stupid as she feels. Finally, she manages to say, “Look who’s talking.”

Kat snorts. “Of course I don’t need beauty sleep,” she says. “Eye bags are totally hot right now, didn’t you hear?”

That puts Verity back on solid ground again. Kat wasn’t being serious. “Then I guess the four of us could put on a mad fashion show,” Verity says.

“Seriously,” Kat agrees. “Not that Tomás is ugly now or anything, but I swear he’s aged like ten years since I saw him last.”

“Oh, good,” Verity jokes. “Love seeing my future.”

“It’s kind of the beard,” Kat says, sounding thoughtful. “It hides his baby face a little.”

“Too bad I can’t do that,” Verity says. She’s had more than one person tell her she looks like she’s twelve. It’s not her favorite thing to hear.

“Even if you could, you shouldn’t grow a beard,” Kat says definitively. “You have a good jawline.”

Verity shakes her head at the ceiling. What the hell is going on? “Are you saying Tomás doesn’t?” She tries weakly.

“He does,” Kat admits, completely unaffected by their conversation. “But obviously Marcus likes the beard. Haven’t you seen him rub his fingers all over it? It’s kind of gross.”

“I think most things about men are kind of gross,” Verity says.

Kat laughs out loud, then covers her mouth apologetically and glances toward the door, as if Tomás or Marcus would come barging in to tell them to shut up. “Good point,” she says. “Oh, by the way.” She rolls over and props herself up on one elbow. “Marcus was telling me that he’ll show us the Bible verses that are good for exorcisms. And maybe just good in general? Apparently he doesn’t like all of the Bible. Isn’t that crazy? He was a priest, and he just straight-up told me parts of the Bible are wrong.”

“I mean…” Verity shrugs, even though Kat probably can’t see it. “He doesn’t exactly strike me as a very traditional guy, you know? Obviously doesn’t follow the rules.” She’s proud of how little bitterness slips into her voice at that.

“Right,” Kat agrees quickly. “But I just—I don’t know. He told me we’re allowed to question things. And we’re allowed to say the Church is wrong. That’s part of why I stopped going to church in the first place, you know?”

Verity tries not to think of all the times her parents told her to stop asking questions. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She’s intimately aware with how wrong the Church can be. “Yeah, I know.”

“Oh, shit, sorry,” Kat says quickly. “Yeah. Of course you know.”

“It’s okay,” Verity assures her.

“Are exorcisms going to be…bad for you?” Kat asks. “Will they bring up bad memories or anything?”

“I don’t know,” Verity whispers honestly. “I mean, no one ever tried to exorcise me, not really. They just told me I was evil and horrible.”

“If I ever run into any of those people who did that to you, I’ll show them what happens when you mess with my friends.” Kat sounds mad. She sounds like she means it, for real, and Verity can picture the way her eyes are flashing and mouth is turning down.

“We’re friends?” It pops out of Verity’s mouth without her meaning it to.

Kat snorts. “Of course we are,” she says, like it’s nothing. “You’re pretty great, you know.”

Horrifyingly, tears start pricking at Verity’s eyes. It’s not like no one’s ever said that to her. Andy and Nikki told her all the time, and Rose does it now. Verity knows her siblings think so, too, and Shelby makes a point to tell her that every once in a while. But for the most part, people her own age don’t really like Verity. She’s too harsh, too blunt. At school, she was the weird girl with the nose ring who was mad all the time. And then she was the sad girl with a dead foster mom, and then the even sadder girl with the dead foster dad. She was the girl older than everyone else because she’d missed a year of school with all the conversion therapy and custody hearings and foster home changes. She’s never had many friends.

And it’s ridiculously uncool to cry about having a friend, which probably doesn’t bode well for her prospects of future friends. But here’s Kat, saying Verity’s great. Kat’s just older enough to come off cool without being inaccessible. She’s beautiful and strong and funny. She’s probably had tons of friends her whole life—she just had to have been one of those pretty, popular girls in high school who never had to worry about sitting alone at lunch because her brothers had chickenpox and weren’t there to sit with her. She never had anyone write slurs on her locker or avoid her in the hallway.

“Well, you don’t really have anyone to compare me to right now,” Verity points out, choked up.

“Yeah,” Kat says sarcastically. “Because I’ve never met anyone else and also I don’t have object permanence to remember other people.” She scoffs. “Take the compliment, Verity. What did I just say about messing with my friends?”

Verity laughs a little. “What are you going to do, hobble after me on your bum knee?” Verity jokes.

Kat fake-gasps. “Oh my God, how dare you bring my bad knee into this!” She’s cracking up, and Verity should not be crying. She’s being such a freak right now. She’s glad it’s dark so Kat can’t see. Something soft hits Verity in the face and she realizes Kat just threw a pillow at her.

“Hey!” she protests, making Kat laugh harder.

“You left it up here,” Kat points out. “I didn’t know I was going to get the whole bed to myself again.”

“I didn’t want to bug you,” Verity confesses. She wouldn’t normally be admitting all this, but it’s easier in the dark. She doesn’t have to see Kat roll her eyes or make a face if Verity says anything weird. Not that Kat’s done that so far; Verity’s just seen plenty of other people do it.

“You take up, like, no space,” Kat points out. “And I don’t believe you when you say that cot is comfortable. Come on.”

“But you just threw the pillow down here at me,” Verity points out, heart starting to pound a little. She really needs to learn to be normal.

“So? You have hands. Bring it with you.”

“It really isn’t that bad,” Verity tries to protest.

Kat leans over the bed, reaching for the pillow. “I’m gonna fall,” she warns. “You better get up here and hold onto my legs so I don’t.”

Verity can’t help but laugh at that, a little confused. “That’s the weirdest solution I can imagine to this situation. Why wouldn’t you tell me to get up there and bring the pillow myself so you aren’t leaning over and you don’t need me to hold your legs at all?”

“I don’t know,” Kat says, teasingly exasperated. “It’s the middle of the night, Verity, so excuse me for not making total sense!”

They’re both laughing, trying hard to stay quiet and not doing a very good job of it. Kat ends up snorting and they both fall to pieces. Verity can’t move because she’s laughing too hard, and Kat whisper-screams as she really does start to fall off the bed. Verity has tears streaming down her cheeks, but they’re good tears this time. Tears from laughing so hard. Her throat hurts from the force of trying to be quiet.

“Verity!” Kat insists between snorts of laughter. “Come save me!”

Verity isn’t used to having friends. She isn’t used to having people rely on her. At most, she’s had her brothers and, more recently, Harper, but no one else. She isn’t used to sleepovers and laughing in the middle of the night. Most of the time when she’s had to share a room, someone was crying in their sleep and everyone else was ignoring it. She isn’t used to whispering secrets to someone she met barely a week and a half ago. She isn’t used to any of this.

But she isn’t used to knowing demons exist, either. She isn’t used to being on the other side of the country. She isn’t used to being someone who would be friends with someone like Kat. She’s doing a lot of things she isn’t used to, these days, and it’s not entirely awful all the time.

So Verity throws the pillow onto the bed. And then she climbs up and pulls at Kat’s legs. They collapse back onto the pillows, laughing breathlessly and elbowing each other, and Verity thinks, I can get used to this.

Chapter Text

“Mouse is coming over later tonight,” Tomás tells Kat and Verity the next morning. Apparently, he cooked for them the first week and is over it now. He’d pointed them toward the cereal and milk this morning and even snagged the last banana literally as Kat was reaching for it. Verity thinks this might be better. She doesn’t really like being waited on, and she kind of loves the idea of Tomás ditching his politeness and being a bit of a shit to them the way she’s seen him be with his sister and Marcus.

“To start teaching us?” Kat asks, handing Verity a spoon.

“I don’t know,” Tomás says with a shrug. “Probably. But she’ll pretend she’s not teaching you the whole time and keep saying she isn’t going to do it.”

“And she’ll probably pull out a knife at some point,” Marcus adds, coming out of the bedroom.

“Wonder who she learned that from,” Tomás mutters.

Marcus rolls his eyes. “I didn’t start carrying a gun until after Mouse.”

“Well, there’s a really comforting sentence,” Kat says casually. Verity snickers into her Lucky Charms. Tomás hands Marcus the banana he stole from Kat and earns himself a truly offended look.

“You stole my banana for him? He should have to be awake to get dibs!”

“He needs the potassium,” Tomás tells her unapologetically. “He’s lived on gas station chips for forty years.”

“What’s potassium?” Marcus deadpans, peeling his pilfered banana.

“Mouse is looking for possible possession cases nearby so you can get started,” Tomás explains. “But before you can face a real demon, we need to do a lot of scripture-based work.” He looks right at Verity. “Is that going to be a problem?”

“No,” she promises. “I knew this was coming.”

“Not all of it’s scripture-based,” Marcus says. “But it all relies on God.”

“Yeah,” Verity breathes. She sighs. “Working on it.”

“Work fast,” Tomás advises. “Demonic possession isn’t a problem we can put off.”

“How long is this whole training thing going to last?” Kat asks. Tomás and Marcus look at each other and shrug.

“Until Mouse finds a possession, I guess,” Marcus says.

“Uh…what?” Kat asks. “We’re just going to go?”

“There isn’t much training you can do without a demon,” Tomás says. “We’ll do as much as we can from here, but it doesn’t really matter how much we do beforehand. Nothing prepares you for the demon anyway.”

Verity exchanges a slightly panicked look with Kat. So Tomás is saying nothing they do will actually help? Marcus laughs at them a little.

“Tomás, I thought being ominously pessimistic was my job.”

Tomás shrugs. “I’m not being pessimistic. It’s true. I thought I was pretty well prepared.”

“You did one Google search and read the official Church exorcism guide,” Marcus says skeptically.

“I skimmed the official Church exorcism guide,” Tomás corrects sheepishly. “I didn’t finish it.”

Marcus is laughing out loud now. “We’ll try to do a little better this time, yeah? At least they already know demons exist. They’ve got the jump on you there.”

“True,” Tomás agrees. “I just want to make sure they know it’s okay to be scared the first time they meet a demon.” He turns to Kat and Verity. “It doesn’t mean you’re not prepared and it doesn’t mean you’re not cut out for exorcisms.”

“Probably just means you’ve got a healthy sense of self-preservation,” Marcus adds.

“But why should we even prepare if it’s not worth anything?” Verity asks. “If nothing we can do can really get us ready, why not just go find a demon right now?”

Marcus groans. “Why are all of you so keen to destroy yourselves? We prepare because the power comes from the ritual. You need to know the words to speak. You’ll be afraid the first time, probably a lot of times for a while. But if you have nothing in mind to fall back on, how are going to get through the fear to do the work?”

“Muscle memory, kind of,” Kat says, nodding. “Okay.”

“Exactly,” Marcus says, gesturing at Kat with half his banana. “When the demon’s got you backed into a corner and your mind goes blank, the words can take over on their own. But they can’t if you don’t know the words in the first place. Tomás, at least, knew plenty of God’s word to try. He could skim the guide because it referenced scripture he already had memorized. Either of you have much memorized?”

“I know the Lord’s prayer,” Kat says sheepishly.

“I’ve blocked most of it from my memory,” Verity admits quietly. Marcus looks at her for a minute, concern written across his face.

“I’m a bit worried about you,” he says plainly, and Verity has to swallow down her annoyance. He’s been meek around her for days, slinking around and letting her choose any interactions between them, but exorcisms are his element. He’s not hiding out now. “The demons will have so much ammunition with you.”

“What am I supposed to do about it?” she asks.

Marcus and Tomás exchange a look. “Demons prey on shame and fear,” Tomás says. “So…what you’re ashamed of, or afraid of, or bad memories you’re hiding will be what they look for first. The best thing you can do is not be ashamed or afraid.”

“Oh, is that all?” Verity says sarcastically, stomach twisting. She’s not ashamed of being a lesbian. Not much, anyway, not really. Not how she was when she was younger. But fear and bad memories…it’s not like she can just erase those overnight.

“You have to be secure in knowing God loves you and trusts you with His power,” Tomás says carefully.

“Can you do that?” Marcus asks bluntly.

“I don’t know,” Verity says, feeling cornered. “How am I supposed to—what, like there’s a switch I can just flip?”

“There’s not,” Marcus says. He’s being gentler now and it’s worse. Verity would rather he just yell at her. Heartfelt concern is much harder to fight back against.

“Well,” Tomás cuts in. “Maybe it doesn’t have to be God’s love you focus on. You have your family. You have Andy. Nicole. Rose. You’re secure in their love for you.”

Marcus nods. “Let that mirror God’s love.”

“Not even that,” Tomás explains. “When Pazuzu was in my head at the Rance house, I thought of God, of course. But it wasn’t just God’s love that helped me wake up. It was Olivia and Luis. You. Even Jessica. Any love can drown out the demon.”

Verity swallows and looks down at the table. “But won’t the demon…say stuff about that, too?”

“Yes,” Marcus says. “You remember with Andy.”

“You know that isn’t true, though,” Tomás points out. “The demon can say it, but it doesn’t have to have any effect on you.”

Verity nods. But that’s what she’s afraid of. She’s not sure how well she can handle a demon taunting her about Andy and Nikki. It’s one thing to tell her she’s alone and her siblings hate her when she can talk to them and remember it isn’t true. It’s harder when she has only her memories of Andy and Nikki.

But no. That shouldn’t be hard at all, given the memories she has of them. Verity knows they loved her. They took her in when no one else wanted her. They always treated her like she was important, no matter what. They never gave up on her. They always told her they loved her, they always showed her they loved her. Even with the demon in him trying to hurt her and make her feel small, Andy fought back to tell her to run away. He left his kids with a final message, through Tomás, about how much he loved them. He made sure she knew she could do anything she put her mind to. He’d meant going to college, becoming an engineer, but this doesn’t have to be any different. He would’ve been worried about her, would’ve feared for her safety, but he would’ve told her she’d be the best exorcist there is. She can picture his face, the way he’d smile at her and squeeze her shoulder to tell her he’s proud of her. He doesn’t have to be here for everything he said before to be true. Verity squares her shoulders and takes a deep breath.

“Okay,” she says. “You’re right. I do have love to hold onto.” She nods definitively. She may still be a bit unsure about God, but she never has to be unsure about her father. No demon can take that away, no matter how hard they try. “Teach me the words.”

There’s a part of Tomás that looks at Kat and Verity, brows furrowed as they pore over the Bibles and the Church’s exorcist guide he and Marcus presented them with, and wants to shut all this down. He wants to flip their Bibles to the gentler passages, to the Psalms and Christ’s teachings of eternal love. He wants to rip out the pages about sacrifice and glorying in suffering. He wants to hide the exorcism guide, maybe even burn it. He wants to enroll them both in college, send them to live in the dorms and make new friends. He wants to send them home to their families.

But they both already know plenty of sacrifice and suffering. They both already were with their families and felt the pull to come here. They’re both hardheaded and determined and won’t be deterred by scare tactics. They’re going to find a way to hunt demons, no matter what Tomás says or does. So the best he can do is prepare them. Make sure they’re ready, as ready as they can be, anyway, and pray for their safety.

“This is not the Bible study I’m used to leading,” he tries to joke, hoping to dispel his own worries through humor. Marcus sees right through him, of course. He squeezes Tomás’s leg and gives him a sad smile.

“At least you know everyone here is willing,” he points out.

Tomás sighs. “Okay,” he says. “I…well, I like to prepare for exorcisms by thinking of Ephesians.”

“Armor of God,” Marcus says.

“Yes.” Tomás feels a little embarrassed of it now that he’s saying it out loud. He isn’t used to having to share his preparation methods. Marcus has his own, and Mouse has hers. Every exorcist probably does something different. Tomás just likes to imagine himself putting on armor so the demon can’t pierce it. He’s not going to say that part out loud, though. That’s a little silly, especially considering how quickly so many demons have pierced him. And how quick he’s been to cast aside whatever protection he had to invite them in.

“Hang on, hang on,” Kat says. “Ephesians…” She’s scanning down the table of contents at the front of the Bible, tongue poking out in concentration.

“New Testament,” Marcus guides helpfully.

“Ephesians, ha!” Kat cries triumphantly. “Got it.”

“Ephesians 6,” Tomás says. He’s kind of charmed by Kat’s enthusiasm. Verity’s being much quieter about it, and Tomás can understand why. She’d swallowed hard before she took the Bible from him, looking wary like she was afraid it was going to spit at her. He’s already got a few verses lined up to slip in about God’s love and protection for children that he hopes will help her.

“Oh, wait, I flipped past it,” Kat says. “It’s one of those short ones.”

“Most of it’s worth skipping past,” Marcus mutters.

“It’s not as bad as other parts,” Tomás says. “At least it tells husbands to love their wives.”

Marcus snorts, because he’s well aware of the other part of those verses. But Kat’s finally found Ephesians 6, so Tomás focuses on that again.

“Children, obey your parents,” Verity reads. She makes a face. Tomás laughs.

“First of all, it’s obey your parents in the Lord,” he points out. “Meaning you obey your parents when they’re being righteous, not when they’re treating you badly.” She ducks her head a little. “But that’s not the verse I’m talking about. Start at verse 10.”

They spend the afternoon going through verses about the Lord’s strength and teaching Kat and Verity the prayers they use during exorcisms. It’s a strange feeling, sitting here in the sunny living room and hearing them repeat, Fallen angel, you are loved with no one to direct their words at.

“None of that’s in here,” Verity says, flipping pages in the Church’s official guide.

“No,” Marcus agrees. “I didn’t learn to do exorcisms this way until…” He glances at Kat. “Well, with Casey.”

Kat takes a deep breath. “But if you’re saying she’s forgiven, doesn’t that imply she did something wrong? I thought you said it wasn’t her fault. Why would she need to be forgiven? This isn’t—I thought she was—”

“No,” Marcus says quickly. “You’re not saying that to the possessed soul. That’s to the demon itself.”

Verity looks up sharply. “I’m supposed to tell some demon they’re forgiven and loved? After seeing what they do to people?”

Marcus hesitates. Tomás tries to jump in. “A demon is a fallen angel,” he reminds her. “And we’re using love to fight back.”

“Sure, my love for people,” Verity says. “Not love for a demon.”

Tomás isn’t sure what to say to that. He understands her point, but he’s not sure how to make her see his.

“You don’t have to love the demon,” Marcus says. “You’re telling it God does.”

Verity scoffs. “Oh, sure, of course He does. People use Him to treat me like trash and I have to tell a demon He loves it.”

“Verity—” Tomás starts.

“I thought exorcisms were about killing the demons. Fighting them and sending them back to hell.”

“They’re His children, too,” Marcus says quietly. “If we want to preach that He loves us no matter what, we have to remember that here, too. It doesn’t mean He welcomes them back with open arms.”

“But I have to say it’s forgiven,” Verity says flatly. “I can’t do that.”

“Does it matter who we mean it for?” Kat breaks in. “I mean…okay, look, I know Casey didn’t do anything wrong to get possessed. But she thinks she did. Sometimes, at least. So can’t I be talking to the person who’s possessed, telling them they’re forgiven and loved? Or do I have to mean it for the demon?”

Marcus looks at Tomás. Tomás isn’t sure why; Marcus knows far better than Tomás could. “I don’t know,” Tomás admits. He shrugs. “I think intent probably matters, but maybe not that specifically. Your intent is good and pure, to exorcise the demon and save the soul of the possessed. God will know your intent either way.”

“Won’t know until you try, really,” Marcus says, mirroring Tomás’s shrug.

Kat blinks. “What, just try a new thing and hope it works?”

“What do you think exorcism is?” Marcus says. “We’re just asking God to do the work for us. Sometimes we have to get creative with how we ask. I’d never appealed to the Virgin Mary so much in an exorcism before Casey’s, and I’d never talked about the love and redemption. Turned out to be pretty effective, I’d say. I wish I could’ve used it in Mexico City.”

“I think it’s a bit easier on the victim, as well,” Tomás says. He hopes that doesn’t make Marcus feel guilty. Marcus had no way of knowing what would happen to Gabriel.

“Seems to be,” Marcus agrees quietly. No one says anything for a minute.

Kat sighs and drops her exorcism guide. “I was hoping it would be more…you know, steps. Here are the steps, learn them and memorize them and do them, yay, you exorcised the demon.”

Tomás can’t help but smile a little. “That’s what I wanted too,” he says. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.”

Verity tips her head to the side. “So does everyone exorcise differently?”

“Yes, a bit,” Tomás says. “I’ve never seen anyone cry as much as Marcus does.” He’d originally planned to say it teasingly, but it ends up coming out fond and loving. Marcus just cares so much. He walks into a room to exorcise someone he’s never met and he loves that person in a minute flat.

Marcus shrugs, unembarrassed. “I’ve learned to embrace my tears. Tomás yells quite a lot.”

Tomás laughs out loud. “I have to yell to be heard over the demon.”

“They seem to hear me fine when I’m not shouting.”

“That’s because you stand an inch away and whisper in their ear.”

“I’ve never had any complaints.”

They’re both laughing, leaning closer into each other, and Verity makes a little sound. “Can you like…cool it?” she requests. “Sorry to rain on your parade or whatever, but I don’t think exorcism is a sexy topic you should use for your love connection.” It doesn’t escape Tomás that most of her ire is aimed at Marcus. He’d like to say something about it, but he bites his tongue. Now isn’t the time, probably. He meets Marcus’s eyes and can see Marcus shrinking a little under her anger. That makes Tomás more likely to tell her to knock it off, but Marcus speaks first.

“The point is, yeah, you’ll find your own style,” Marcus says. “That doesn’t mean you can just ignore everything we’re trying to teach you now. Learn it by the book first, see how you do with it, and then you can branch out.”

“What if Mouse comes back with an exorcism tonight?” Kat asks apprehensively. “Will we go right away?”

Tomás hesitates. He looks at Marcus. He knows Marcus doesn’t want them facing a demon already anymore than Tomás does. But they won’t know when the next chance for an exorcism will be anywhere nearby, so their timetable is mostly hinging on finding a demonic possession case.

“Maybe,” Tomás finally says noncommittally. It might be mostly up to Mouse. Maybe they’ll let her and Bennett make that call.

“Maybe you could just watch Mouse do it,” Marcus suggests. “Hold the holy water for her.”

“I’ve seen an exorcism,” Kat points out quietly. “I was there when Tomás exorcised my mom.”

Tomás winces a little. “You shouldn’t use that as an example,” he says. He’d nearly killed himself first, and he certainly doesn’t want either of them following that path.

“Even just watching an exorcism will take a big toll on your emotions,” Marcus says. “Try to keep that in mind, yeah? It takes a while to recover, especially after your first one.”

“Did you get any time to recover after your first exorcism?” Kat asks skeptically.

Marcus shrugs. “We didn’t have another demon for almost a month.”

“But you didn’t get to sleep as late as you wanted the next day like I did,” Tomás concludes. He shakes his head. Someday, after he dies, he’d like to have a talk with anyone and everyone involved in Marcus’s childhood. He’s not sure he’ll be able to get into a fistfight in heaven, assuming he goes there, but he’d be willing to give it a try.

“That’s not important,” Marcus says firmly. “What’s important is now. We’ll make sure you two take time to recover, as long as you need, whenever we finally get around to an exorcism. Got it? I just want to make sure you know it’s going to take a lot out of you. Try to start sleeping more.”

Kat and Verity exchange a look. “That’s not really our choice,” Verity says, looking down at her hands. Tomás sighs a little and rubs his temples. He can feel the start of another headache budding. He usually has more time between them, but lately it feels like he’s at some level of pain all day every day.

“I know,” Marcus admits. “But you’ve got to try your best. If you’re tired, you’re more vulnerable to the demons breaking into your head.”

“That’s never a good thing,” Tomás mutters. “Trust me.”

Marcus gives Tomás a questioning look. Something in Tomás’s face or voice must be off. His pain must be showing more than he thought. He shakes his head slightly, unable to completely avoid a wince when the movement sharpens the pain. Marcus frowns.

“Let’s break for now,” Marcus suggests, eyes not leaving Tomás. “When Mouse gets here we’ll figure out what to do next.”

Kat and Verity are agreeable enough to that. Tomás dodges Marcus’s eyes, though he knows it’s futile. Marcus knows him too well and can tell he’s in pain, and Marcus has never been able to let that lie.

“Headache?” Marcus asks quietly after Kat and Verity have slipped off to their room. Tomás sighs.

“Just starting,” he admits. Marcus stares at him for a minute, assessing.

“Maybe you should…” He trails off, purses his lips, and starts again. “Have you thought about seeing a doctor?”

“And saying what?” Tomás asks skeptically. “I can’t exactly say, I used to get these headaches when I had visions of demons, but since I was possessed and exorcised now they’re just headaches.”

“No,” Marcus agrees. “But you could get checked out.”

“Do you think there’s a prescription for demon aftermath?” Tomás is getting snappish. He knows Marcus is concerned and only trying to help, but this isn’t helping. He can’t go to a doctor. End of story. He’s surprised Marcus, of all people, would suggest it.

“I’m worried about you,” Marcus says bluntly. “You never sleep, your head is always hurting, you’re cranky more often than not—”

Tomás cuts in hotly. “Well excuse me for getting cranky after—”

“I didn’t say you didn’t have good reason,” Marcus interrupts him softly. “I’m just saying I’m worried.”

Tomás sags, anger burning out as quickly as it came and leaving exhaustion in its wake. “You know I can’t go to a doctor.”

Marcus sighs. He gets to his feet and then drops onto the couch beside Tomás, leaning into his side and pulling Tomás’s head over to rest against his. Tomás’s eyes slide closed reflexively, his body already used to the comfort of Marcus’s after just a few months of this closeness.

“I can’t stand to see you in pain,” Marcus murmurs. It makes tears threaten to well up in Tomás’s eyes. Marcus caring for him brings up all kinds of tender feelings in him, and his emotions are always closer to the surface these days—good and bad.

“A doctor won’t help,” he points out. “I think this is just my—”

“If you say penance,” Marcus breaks in warningly.

“Well,” Tomás says uselessly, because it’s exactly what he’d been about to say. He’d invited the demons into his head. He’d thought he’d known better than God. And this is what it got him.

“Sometimes consequences are just consequences,” Marcus says slowly. “Just the result of what happened. Doesn’t mean it’s a punishment.”

Tomás huffs a little. “Sure.”

“Tomás,” Marcus says. He turns his head and kisses Tomás’s temple. “If I thought God was punishing you, I’d fight Him myself.”

It makes Tomás laugh out loud, though a little wetly. “Marcus,” he admonishes. “That’s very sacrilegious.”

“When has that ever stopped me?” Marcus points out. Tomás sniffs and drops his head to rest on Marcus’s shoulder.

“Do you think they can do it?” he whispers, a non-sequitur if not for the exorcism guides still at their feet. Marcus sighs and laces his fingers through Tomás’s.

“Don’t know,” he admits. “I used to think there had to be some innate quality in an exorcist. Something you were born with. It was how I explained the way I could do it and the other boys couldn’t. But after everything I’ve seen…” He sighs again. “I think the only reason I was special was because I’d already been hurt more than the other boys. I think that’s all that really matters.”

Tomás can’t help the wounded little noise he makes. He pulls Marcus closer to him and buries his face in Marcus’s neck. “You are special,” he says fervently. “Just because you are you. And you will always be special to me.”

“That so?” Marcus asks, a smile and tears both in his voice. Tomás still has his eyes closed against the afternoon light streaming into the room, but he knows Marcus’s voice well enough to tell.

“Yes,” Tomás says. “And I’m an invalid, so you can’t argue with me.”

Marcus snorts. “So you get to just make up rules, do you?”

“I think that’s a law, actually,” Tomás jokes. “You don’t know because you’re not from this country.”

Marcus gives Tomás the tiniest, gentlest shove. “I’ve lived in this country longer than you have.”

Tomás is laughing now, just a little. Laughing too hard jars at his head. “So what?”

Marcus rests his cheek against the top of Tomás’s head. “They’ll be alright,” he says, returning to Tomás’s question. He says it like a prayer. “Mouse will be with them, and maybe Bennett, too. They’ll be fine.”

“They’ll be fine,” Tomás echoes. Maybe Marcus is onto something, making it a prayer. Tomás pictures Kat and Verity, imagines them in the kind of pain he’s feeling now, the pain Marcus has been through. “They’ll be fine,” he says again. He’ll make it into a prayer. And he’ll repeat it as many times as he needs to until it comes true.

Chapter Text

“I’ve put feelers out for possessions,” Mouse says when they’re all gathered in the living room again. Tomás is wearing sunglasses in the house, but no one’s commented on it. Kat figures he must be in a lot of pain to be willing to look like such a douchebag. Or maybe he doesn’t realize wearing sunglasses indoors makes him look like a douchebag. Honestly, he almost kind of pulls it off. “But so far I haven’t heard back anything promising. It might take a while to find something close.”

“Does that mean you found something not very close?” Verity asks, concerned.

Marcus shrugs. “There’s always something somewhere.” He almost sounds bitter. Kat wonders if he really does want to be retired or if he feels obligated. He did this for so long, twice Kat’s lifetime. It can’t be easy to just sit on the bench after that. Kat only danced for a fraction of that time, but leaving it behind leaves her aching more days than not.

“Things have quieted down,” Mouse says.

“That’s what I told them when they said they wanted to be trained,” Bennett tells her. “But they’ve found refuge with these two, so you can imagine how well telling them anything went.”

Kat looks at Marcus, who’s smirking a little. He likes his rebel reputation, she can tell. And Kat kind of likes the idea that she and Verity are taking up that mantle.

“They want to help,” Tomás says. “And we need it.” It’s kind of funny that he’s defending them when it took so long to convince him and Marcus this was a good idea. Kat’s pretty sure they’re still not convinced of that, actually.

“We do,” Kat agrees.

“I don’t know how we train them without a demon,” Mouse admits. “I’ve never been much for the theoretical.”

“I thought you used to be a nun,” Verity points out. “Isn’t a lot of that God stuff theoretical?”

“And I’m not a nun anymore,” Mouse shoots right back.

“Right,” Verity mutters.

“We’ve gone over some scripture to use,” Tomás says. He sounds tired. Marcus keeps inching closer to him on the couch. He’s going to end up in Tomás’s lap soon.

“Alright,” Mouse says. “I’ll come back when I’ve got something.” Just like that, she gets up and heads for the door. Kat jumps.

“Wait!” she cries. “That’s it? We’re just supposed to sit here and…I don’t know, read the Bible? And wait?”

Mouse shrugs. “There isn’t much else we can do.”

“But who knows how long it’ll take to find a demon?” Verity asks.

Mouse raises her eyebrows. “Well, we don’t have to wait. I’ve got one I could go take care of. But it’s not in Chicago.”

“So take us with you,” Verity says.

“No,” Marcus bites out. “We agreed you’d train here.”

“Who’s exorcising it if you’re here?” Kat asks.

“Another exorcist,” Bennett supplies. At Marcus’s raised eyebrows, he adds, “Father Wyatt.”

“Wyatt,” Marcus spits scornfully. “Must be an easy job.”

“Wouldn’t an easy job be perfect for training?” Verity points out. Kat nods vigorously.

“And you obviously don’t trust this Wyatt guy. We could just go watch. We wouldn’t say a word.”

“They could easily do the litany of the saints,” Mouse says. Kat thinks she should probably know what that is. The saint listing thing, she’s pretty sure. She knows she read it in the exorcism guide this afternoon. Anyway, it seems like a good sign that Mouse is on their side.

“No,” Marcus says firmly.

“Marcus, be reasonable,” Mouse says, sounding impatient.

“One day of Bible verses and you want to throw them in?” Marcus demands. “That’s reasonable to you?”

“We’re not throwing them in,” Mouse fights back.

“Neither of them have even cracked a Bible in years,” Marcus says. “They haven’t learned the scripture yet.”

“So you’re going to let Wyatt handle it?” Mouse says. Marcus purses his lips.

“Where is it?” Tomás says quietly. Kat shoots Verity a triumphant look. It sounds like Tomás is on their side. Marcus is breathing hard, eyes flitting around the room. That dampens her smugness a bit.

“Just outside Baltimore,” Mouse says. “If it’s easy enough for Wyatt, I’m sure I could do it in a few hours. Go and be back in two days if we have to.”

“Marcus has done that trip in one day,” Bennett adds. Marcus doesn’t say anything. He’s shaking his head, hands on his thighs starting to tremble. Tomás presses their shoulders together tighter.

“Marcus,” Kat says. She doesn’t want to upset him. That’s become one of her top priorities sometime in the last two weeks, kind of without her realizing it. But she wants to go. She wants him to give them his blessing. “Marcus, please,” Kat says. “I know we’re not ready to do it ourselves. But we need to learn. Let us just go watch. I promise we—well, I promise I’ll leave if it’s too…I don’t know, scary or whatever you think it’s going to be. I won’t try to do anything.” She holds up her hand. “Girl Scout’s honor.”

“Suppose you’ll go whether I give the okay or not?” Marcus asks quietly.

“Yes,” Verity says defiantly.

“No,” Kat counters. She shoots Verity a look. “We asked you to train us. So we’ll trust you. If you say no, fine. We won’t go. But I think it’d be good experience for us. I think seeing an exorcism without being afraid for our family will be a good part of training. But we’ll let you decide.” Her heart’s kind of pounding after she finishes her little speech. She wants Marcus to say yes. But she’s also a little afraid of Marcus saying yes.

After a beat, Verity says, a lot less enthusiastically, “Yeah.”

Marcus presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. “So either way it’s my responsibility,” he says, voice choked. “Whatever happens to you is on me.”

“You would’ve seen it that way anyway,” Bennett says.

“What do you think?” Mouse asks Tomás. Tomás takes off his sunglasses. The circles under his eyes are almost painful to look at. He’s a little sweaty, the kind of sweat that obviously comes from being sick. It’s making the hair around his ears curl more. It’s kind of scary, actually. It doesn’t seem completely impossible that Kat could get possessed if she’s an exorcist. Is this going to happen to her? Tomás pinches the bridge of his nose.

“I trust Marcus,” he says. “No one else knows exorcisms like you do. I am worried about them being part of an exorcism, but I’m not sure that worry will ever go away. Either way, I agree with whatever Marcus thinks is best.”

“Cop out,” Marcus jokes weakly. He shakes his head. He has tears in his eyes. “Fine,” he says. “Fine, go. But the second you feel the demon poking around your head, you run. Do you hear me? Don’t stop to figure out what it is, don’t think you can reason with it. You get out.”

“We will,” Kat promises. She can’t stop herself from running over to Marcus and throwing her arms around him. She knows it kind of startled him when she hugged him the other day in her room, but a good kind of startled. He looks like he needs all the hugs he can get, and she’s kind of surprised to realize she really wants to help give those hugs to him. She may or may not need more hugs than she realized, too, and it doesn’t feel like the kind of thing she can just ask for. “Thank you, Marcus,” she says fervently.

“Don’t thank me,” he cautions. “You won’t later, I guarantee.”

“Alright,” Mouse says briskly. “We’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

Now that it’s real, Kat’s getting butterflies in her stomach like she always does before the curtain opens. Did. That’s past tense now. And an exorcism is a hell of a lot scarier than choreography she’s learned and practiced for months.

“What do we—I mean, how do we pack for an exorcism?” Kat wonders aloud. It’s not like they can wear priest clothes like Tomás and Marcus do.

“Don’t take anything you mind getting vomit on,” Tomás advises.

“This won’t be intense,” Bennett promises.

“Famous last words,” Marcus mutters darkly.

“Well, if it goes sideways you’re welcome to tell me I told you so,” Bennett says as Marcus shoulders past them all and slams the door to their bedroom. “I need to call Wyatt off.”

“Are you coming with us, Bennett?” Mouse asks. “It’ll ease Marcus’s mind.”

“You know it isn’t a knock on you, Mouse,” Tomás soothes. “It’s because he worries about you, too.”

“I know,” Mouse says simply. A look passes between her and Tomás and Bennett that Kat can’t understand. Mouse turns to Kat and Verity. “Pack light. Be ready to trudge around in the woods if need be, but don’t wear anything out of place if we need to blend into a crowd, either. Get as much rest as you can tonight. You’re not going to do anything during the exorcism but maybe repeat what I tell you to, but if it’s smart it’ll try to get at you to distract me.”

“Okay,” Kat says nervously. Her legs are starting to feel rubbery, and she’s pretty sure they’re just going to sit in a car all day tomorrow. How the hell is she going to walk into a room with a demon in it? But she thinks of Casey’s face as she said he made me watch. She remembers hearing Angela’s screams in the middle of the night, her nightmares keeping them all up. She’s doing this for her family and for all the other families who have had to go through that.

Verity’s quiet as they had into their room to pack. Neither of them brought much with them in the first place, so packing light will be easy. Kat doesn’t know what kinds of clothes she’d need to run around the woods. It’s not exactly something she’s done a lot of in her life.

“Sorry I, uh, made the decision for us,” Kat says, suddenly realizing that could be why Verity’s quiet. Maybe she’s mad at Kat for saying Marcus got to decide. “I just thought, you know. Marcus has done a lot of exorcisms. It feels like a bad omen to go without his blessing.”

“It’s fine,” Verity says. “You’re right. We asked them to train us, so we should do what they say.”

“Okay,” Kat says. Verity doesn’t sound mad. Then again, Kat’s only known her for two weeks. Maybe she’s one of those people who’s really good at hiding her anger and then strangles you in your sleep.

At least she wouldn’t have to worry about the exorcism stuff.

“It’s just—” Verity takes a deep breath. “Demons. You know?”

Kat laughs a little. “Yeah.”

Neither of them sleep much. They’re lying back to back, both wide awake but trying to sleep and trying not to wake the other. Kat finally rolls over and pokes Verity until she rolls over too.

“I’m scared,” Kat whispers.

“Me too,” Verity says right away. “But we’re just watching.”

“Yeah, that didn’t help me much with Casey or my mom.”

“Maybe it won’t be as bad when we don’t know the person,” Verity says logically.

“Maybe.” They both know it’s still going to be bad. It’s a demon. “It freaks me out how scared Marcus is,” Kat admits.

“Mouse and Bennett didn’t seem that scared,” Verity points out. “I think it’s just Marcus’s whole…I don’t know. PTSD, probably.”

“Probably,” Kat agrees. “Still.”

“I know,” Verity says. “He’s been doing this for so long, and it hasn’t made him less scared. It’s made him more scared. That’s freaky.”

“Super freaky.” Kat lets out a shaky breath. “But Mouse and Bennett will be there. And they both know what they’re doing. And we won’t be that far from Chicago.”

“Right,” Verity says. “Were you really a Girl Scout?” she asks. “You gave Girl Scout’s honor.”

“Oh,” Kat says. “No, I always had dance instead. But, you know. Whatever.”

Verity snorts. “Yeah, whatever.”

They’re silent for a while. Kat keeps thinking about how they need to sleep, but it’s making her more anxious and keeping her from sleeping even more. She keeps seeing that sneer on Casey’s face when the demon talked through her. She feels like she’s going to throw up.

“We’ll take care of each other,” Verity says. Her sudden whisper in the dark makes Kat jump.

“What?”

“With the demon,” Verity clarifies. “We have to have each other’s backs. Mouse and Bennett have done it already, and I think they’ve worked together. So they know how to watch out for each other. But we’re partners, right? So we have to look out for each other.”

“Right,” Kat says, realizing what Verity’s talking about. Mouse and Bennett are going to protect them, of course, but they’re going to be busy. Verity’s making a pact, sort of. They’re going to be responsible for each other. Kat holds out her hand to Verity. “Partners.”

Verity smiles, a little tremulously. “Partners,” she echoes. She takes Kat’s hand and they shake. They keep their hands together, clinging to each other, and then they go to sleep.

Marcus didn’t sleep at all last night. Tomás barely did, either, and Marcus is starting to consider dosing his food with some kind of sleep medication. A bit hypocritical, maybe, but Tomás’s headaches are worse when he doesn’t sleep, and Marcus wasn’t exaggerating about how worried he’s getting. The headaches can’t be a sign of anything good.

“Please let us know when you get there,” Tomás says. He’s as edgy as Marcus is. His fingers are twitching restlessly, the way he gets when he’s agitated and cagey.

“We will,” Mouse promises. “We’ll be back in two days.”

“You can spread it to three,” Tomás points out. “I know you won’t let anyone else drive.”

“Bennett can drive,” Mouse muses. “It’s just you we don’t let drive.”

Tomás would normally laugh at that, joke around about everyone’s lack of faith in his driving abilities. Instead he just nods. Marcus is willing to bet he hardly heard Mouse at all. Mouse shoots Marcus a look behind Tomás’s back. He nods back at her grimly. He’s paying attention. She doesn’t need to worry about that.

“Remember you promised to leave if you feel the demon coming for you,” Tomás says to Kat and Verity. They both look pale and small, shouldering their bags and huddling close together. “You might not recognize the feeling at first. It’s like you’re starting to remember something that happened a long time ago or…or looking at something from the corner of your eye, kind of. And the hair on your arms and the back of your neck will stand up. If you feel that, just run. Okay? You promise?”

“We promise,” Kat assures him. “Trust me, I am not trying to be a hero here.”

“Observation only,” Verity agrees.

Tomás nods, face serious and grim. “Be careful,” he says. “Watch out for each other. Watch out for Mouse and Bennett, too, as much as you can. They know what they’re doing and they’ll take the lead, but when demons are involved everyone needs someone on their side.”

Mouse takes Kat’s bag from her and tosses it into the boot of her car. The truck is gone, replaced by a sturdy-looking sedan. Marcus has no idea where she got it. He doesn’t plan to ask. Kat looks even more afraid without her bag to clutch at. Mouse takes Verity’s bag and Verity and Kat huddle closer together. Marcus is going to vomit. They’re too young for this. They shouldn’t have to do this. This is his fault. If he hadn’t retired, he could take care of this himself. They wouldn’t need two new exorcists.

Marcus can’t bear the thought of seeing another demon ever again. The memory of the gun in his hand, Andy’s brain matter on the wall, makes bile rise in his throat. The memory of Bennett, panting and bleeding as his skin tore open in front of Marcus’s eyes, and the sound of Tomás’s voice spitting curses at Marcus and telling him how worthless he’s always been and always will be, almost sends Marcus staggering. He can still hear the sound of Gabriel’s neck snapping. Even still, he’s done it before. Hundreds of times, even. He knows how demons think. He knows what to expect. He can guard himself far better than two young women who’ve already faced enough evil in their lives. He’s about to open his mouth to call this off, say he’ll handle it himself, when he notices Tomás grimace in the corner of his eye. Tomás isn’t going to let Marcus go back out there himself, no matter the pain he’s in. If Marcus goes back out to do exorcisms, Tomás will be right there with him.

And none of Marcus’s fears about exorcisms compare to the actual terror he feels clawing at his chest when he thinks of Tomás staring down another demon. Tomás’s eyes going blank and white while the demon roves around in his brain. Tomás sweating and vomiting his way through a vision. Tomás killing himself, thinking he’s nothing more than a game piece for God to move around at His will with no regard for Tomás’s safety.

Marcus swallows hard. “You can call us if you need us,” he says instead. “We’ll come right away if we need to.”

“Yes,” Tomás says. He doesn’t nod his head. He’s in pain.

Kat and Verity exchange a look. “Okay,” Kat says. Her voice comes out small. She looks so young. Marcus fights down the urge to push her behind his back and keep her safe. Neither of these two will stand back and let him protect them, not the kind of protection that comes from him hiding them away. They know the evil’s out there and they’re all too ready to chase it down. There’s nothing he can do about that.

“We’ll be off,” Mouse says. “We’re picking up Bennett along the way.”

“Watch yourself,” Marcus tells her. “Could be they’re pretending it’s an easy one to try to get the jump on you.”

“They don’t seem to be communicating anymore,” Mouse says. “Not from what I can tell.”

“That’s good,” Tomás says. “No more world domination plots.”

“For now, anyway,” Mouse points out. She raises her eyebrows at Marcus, almost playfully, and gets in the car. Marcus blows out a breath.

“Guard your minds,” he says. “As best you can. When it comes down to it, any scripture you can remember will work.”

“I still remember the Lord’s Prayer,” Kat says. “I guess it’ll be my go-to.”

“You might have to teach it to me,” Verity mutters.

“Well, we’ve got like ten hours in the car,” Kat points out.

“Do you have your exorcism guides?” Tomás checks. “You can study on the way.”

They both nod. Then the four of them stand there, a touch awkwardly. “Okay,” Kat says. “Um, see you in a few days, I guess.”

“Did either of you tell your families anything?” Tomás asks.

“I said we were going to Baltimore,” Kat says. “I didn’t say why, but I’m sure they figured it out.”

“I didn’t tell them anything,” Verity admits. She bites her lip. “If, um. If something happens—”

“It won’t,” Tomás says fiercely. “Mouse and Bennett will not let anything happen to either of you.”

“They’ll give themselves up first,” Marcus agrees. It sends another wave of anxiety rolling through his stomach. He doesn’t want to think about that. He can’t think about the world without Mouse and Bennett.

“Okay,” Verity says slowly. “But, like. If they give themselves up, and then there’s nothing between me and a demon, the demon’s probably going to win that showdown. I’m just saying, if something happens, will you tell them—just tell them I love them.”

“We will,” Tomás promises.

“Me too,” Kat requests shakily. Marcus nods at her. No one moves or speaks for a beat. Then Kat darts forward and hugs Marcus, then Tomás.

“Don’t have sex in our room,” she whispers in Marcus’s ear. It actually does work to make him laugh. He didn’t think it was possible this morning. She grins, proud of herself, and dashes off to the car. Mouse already has the motor running.

“Be careful,” Tomás tells Verity.

Verity nods. “Alright. Bye.” She takes a step toward the car. Her shoulders tighten. Then she turns around and runs back to give Tomás a short hug. All these sudden movements can’t be good for his headache, but there’s no world where Tomás is going to deny these two hugs.

And then Verity turns and hugs Marcus, too. He’s speechless. He can’t even breathe.

“Bye,” she whispers.

“Be strong,” he manages to say. She doesn’t look back again as she gets in the car. Mouse meets Marcus’s eyes and nods again. She’ll take care of them. Marcus knows that. Then he and Tomás stand there, silent, and watch the car drive off.

Tomás sags when the car rounds the corner, out of sight. Marcus slips an arm around Tomás’s waist and supports as much of his weight as Tomás will let him.

“Come on,” Marcus says. “Let’s go back to bed for a bit.”

“You know we won’t sleep,” Tomás points out. “Even if we weren’t worried about them, we wouldn’t sleep.”

Marcus shrugs, leading Tomás up the steps. “We can try.”

“It won’t work,” Tomás says, closing the door behind them.

“Then we can go to bed and do something else,” Marcus suggests, raising his eyebrows as he guides Tomás back to their bedroom.

Tomás forces a rueful little smile. “I don’t know if I can do that right now,” he admits, dodging Marcus’s eyes.

Marcus stops him, right there in the hallway, and presses their foreheads together. “You know I’ve never cared about that.”

“Never?” Tomás asks with a little smirk that Marcus adores so much it almost hurts. Marcus laughs.

“You know what I mean. It’s enough to wake up beside you every morning. If we can’t sleep, I can read you some scripture this time.”

Tomás’s smile is real this time, and sweet. He nudges Marcus back into walking into their room. “Do I get to pick what we read?”

Marcus rolls his eyes and makes a face to get Tomás to laugh. It works. “Fine,” Marcus says. “I’ll even do my best not to editorialize too much while I read.”

Tomás laughs out loud. “Wow,” he says teasingly, gingerly climbing back into bed while Marcus pulls Tomás’s English Bible from the desk. If he’s going to read without editorializing, his own Bible won’t be the best choice. Some sections are completely impossible to read beneath his drawings. “You must really love me.”

Tomás’s voice is light, despite the tightness around his eyes Marcus knows is coming mainly from the pain of his headache. He’s joking about it, relaxed, the way he does about things he’s secure in. Sure of. Marcus’s heart soars for just a minute. He leaves the Bible on his bedside table and slips into bed, crowding close to Tomás and pressing kisses to his hair and his temple.

“I do,” he says. “I really love you.”

Tomás smiles, warm and gentle and loving. “I know you do,” he murmurs. “And I really love you, too.” He leans in and kisses Marcus.

Marcus is antsy and worried about Mouse and Bennett and Kat and Verity. He’s nervous the easy exorcism will have some kind of hidden complication, something that makes it all go pear-shaped. He’s afraid for how Kat and Verity will handle their first full exorcism, not being herded out of the room or shielded this time. He can’t stop wondering about how the demon will hurt them, what ammunition it will use against them. And he’s guilty, still, that others are picking up his slack. He should be doing it himself, really. He should be stronger.

But right now, he’s with Tomás. They’re together, and they’re safe. They’re in the bed they share every night in the apartment they picked together. They’re going to lie here as long as they want and Marcus is going to run his fingers through Tomás’s hair and try to pet him into sleep. They will kiss whenever it strikes their fancy.

Right here, right now, with Tomás beside him and smiling that way, even Marcus has a hard time being pessimistic. It’s hard to remember all the awful things that keep him up at night when Tomás has love shining out of his eyes that way. So Marcus kisses Tomás, and they lie down together, and Marcus lets himself be happy, just for now.

They’re at loose ends all day. It’s only been two weeks, but the apartment suddenly seems huge without Kat and Verity. It feels a little like the first hour after Luis leaves when he’s stayed with them, but it’s worse because there are two of them. Marcus keeps walking into the living room or the kitchen expecting to see them there, bent over one of their phones as they laugh over something on that picture app. Kat keeps threatening to make him one and she got Olivia and Luis on her side. Tomás knows what it is but is staunchly opposed, apparently, which Verity claims is very “hipster” of him. Or something. Marcus feels his age quite a lot when they’re all hovering over their phones and using slang, and then thinking about how their slang makes him feel old makes him feel even older.

“It’s quiet without them,” Tomás comments as they make dinner. Marcus has made too many noodles, and Tomás just made a stack of garlic bread the two of them shouldn’t finish but probably will because neither of them ever learned to let food go to waste.

“Yeah,” Marcus agrees. “And they’re not even that loud.”

“I wonder if they’re really studying in the car,” Tomás says, opening the jar of pasta sauce. If they’re feeling fancy, they’ll heat it up before dumping it onto their noodles. That almost never happens. “I hope they don’t get car sick. An exorcism when you’re throwing up is even worse than a regular exorcism.”

Marcus frowns. “When did you ever do an exorcism while you were sick?” He doesn’t remember that.

“I wasn’t sick,” Tomás says. “I just had such a bad headache it made me throw up.” Catching Marcus’s confused look, he adds, “It was after you—it was with Mouse.”

After Marcus left. Right. He nods. “When I wasn’t there to bully you into sleeping and taking pain medicine and Mouse slacked on the job.”

Tomás rolls his eyes. “I am a grown man,” he points out mildly.

“Oh, I’m well aware,” Marcus says, quirking an eyebrow. Tomás snorts.

“Anyway, they should be getting there soon. Don’t you think? Mouse only stops for gas. She wouldn’t even stop to use the bathroom once after we left the island.”

“So what did she do?” Marcus asks.

“Nothing. I was the one who needed it,” Tomás admits sheepishly. “She made me hold it all the way through Oregon because their speed limit is lower and she said we were already losing time.”

Marcus roars with laughter. He can picture it easily: Tomás’s embarrassment at being a human with bodily functions, Mouse’s impatience, and Tomás’s growing discomfort. When they first left Chicago, Tomás was still hydrating the way he had when he was a parish priest with a well-followed fitness regime. He’d had to pee every hour, Marcus would swear.

“They probably won’t do anything tonight,” Marcus reminds Tomás. “They’ll get there and get settled in, but if the possessed is out in the suburbs showing up late would attract attention.”

Tomás nods. They lapse into silence, looking at Tomás’s phone in the middle of the table. “Where’s yours?” Tomás asks. “Maybe Mouse will call you.”

“Here,” Marcus says. He puts his phone beside Tomás’s. “A watched pot never boils,” he murmurs.

“We’re not watching them,” Tomás rationalizes. “We’re eating dinner and they’re just…sitting there.”

Proving God is on Tomás’s side more than Marcus’s, both their phones light up just then. Marcus’s is a phone call from Mouse, and Tomás gets a text.

“You alright?” Marcus asks immediately, foregoing any other greeting.

“We’re here in Baltimore,” Mouse confirms. “We’re going to talk to the local parish priest, but the family lives in one of those gated communities and we’ll stick out going now. It’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”

“That’s probably best,” Marcus points out. They can get a full night’s rest, or as much of a night’s rest as they can get when anticipating an exorcism in the morning.

Mouse hesitates for a second. “It’s a child, Marcus,” she murmurs. “Well, a teenager. But still.”

Marcus’s stomach lurches. Possessed children have always been harder than adults. For him, at least, and he knows Mouse agrees. Plus, he thinks that’s going to be an awful lot for Kat and Verity to take in for their first one. Seeing someone close to their own age might be a bit of a shock. Kat saw Casey, of course, but someone close to her own age she doesn’t know won’t be easy.

Marcus sighs. “What’s the story?”

“I don’t know it all yet,” Mouse says. “We’ll know more after we talk to the priest. But from what the visiting priest told Bennett on the phone…” She blows out a breath. “Sounds to me like the demon only had to promise the boy he’d stop the abuse at home.”

Marcus squeezes his eyes closed. Those are the worst of all, and that’s going to be incredibly hard on Verity. He wonders what she would have done, had a demon offered to save her from the abuse she suffered before Andy. With everything she went through, demonic possession would probably have felt like a breeze.

“Keep a close eye on Verity,” he tells her. “She’ll be ripe for that demon.”

Mouse doesn’t respond for a moment. “No one told me she’d been through that.”

“Her story, not mine,” Marcus reminds her. “Probably should’ve let her tell you herself, but she doesn’t exactly open up easily and I don’t want any of you blindsided.”

“Alright,” Mouse says tiredly. Marcus can tell she’s shaking her head a bit. “Hopefully this will be as easy as Bennett thought it would be.”

“With you and Bennett both there, I can’t imagine it’ll be too bad,” Marcus says. “And if it’s going after abused children it can’t be all that strong.”

“A rich family, though,” Mouse points out. “Could be biding its time.” She sighs. “Alright. We’re off to check in with the local priest.”

“Okay,” Marcus says, heart thudding. “Be safe.”

“You know me,” Mouse says wryly. “Always safe as houses.”

Marcus snorts and Mouse laughs a little as she hangs up on him. He sighs. “Abused teenager,” he reports to Tomás. Tomás winces.

“That will make it harder on the girls,” he says. “Especially Verity.”

“Mouse will keep an eye out.”

Tomás nods. He drums his fingers on the tabletop for a minute. “Kat says they got their safely and Verity has the Lord’s prayer memorized now, so at least there’s that.”

Marcus scrubs his hands down his face. “I can’t believe we let them do this.”

Tomás raises his eyebrows. “You say that like we had a choice. They’re going to be exorcists, Marcus. At least this way, they’re listening to us. We’re keeping them as safe as we can. They’re with Mouse and Bennett.”

“Yeah.” Marcus swallows hard. “I feel guilty.”

Tomás doesn’t rush to tell him it’s unwarranted. Instead, he nods. “Me, too.”

“I never made a retirement plan,” Marcus adds. “Never thought I’d live that long.”

That makes Tomás look sad. He holds his hand out across the table, palm up. Marcus takes it right away. “I didn’t know retiring would be so hard,” Tomás says. “But we’re doing it together. That helps, doesn’t it?”

Marcus looks at him, at the way he looks a little better after almost dozing for an hour or two and eating, looks at the way he’s starting to put weight back on he’d lost during his possession, looks at the plant in the windowsill and the mismatched chairs that look completely at home in their kitchen now.

“Yeah,” Marcus says softly, giving Tomás’s hand a squeeze. “It makes it all worth it, Tomás.”

Tomás huffs, but he’s smiling. He doesn’t take his hand back, and they eat their now-cold spaghetti one-handed so they can keep holding onto each other.

Chapter Text

When Mouse said they were going to talk to the local parish priest, Verity thought that meant the parish priest knew about the possession and was on board. But it turns out Bennett got his intel from someone else, some visiting priest who knew to keep an eye out, and Father James is pretty clueless.

“The Hanson family?” he asks, blinking at them. “They’re one of our most devout families. Is something the matter?”

“No,” Bennett says smoothly. “I’m just in from Rome and I’d like to get to know some of the local parishioners.”

Father James’s face clears and he smiles. “Of course. The Hansons will be a lovely representation of our congregation.”

Mouse makes a little noise in the back of her throat. She hasn’t told them much about the possession, but Verity can tell there’s something bothering her about this case in particular. Judging by her face, she doesn’t think the family is all that great. Father James notices, too, and looks apprehensive.

“Who did you say you are, again?” he asks.

“My colleague, Melissa,” Bennett cuts in before Mouse can use her name. Is her name actually Melissa? Verity can’t imagine that. “And these are some of our youth outreach volunteers.”

Kat smiles winningly and Father James relaxes a bit. Verity feels small and stupid. She doesn’t look at all like the type of person who’d be participating in religious youth outreach. Maybe she should clean up her image a bit if she’s going to keep doing this. Grow out her hair, take out her nose ring. Look as cute as she can to be nonthreatening. The idea makes her want to puke.

“The Hansons come to Mass every week,” Father James says. “Four sons, all altar boys. The youngest, Aaron, is the only one left at home. He’s hit…a bit of a rough patch.”

Aaron’s the possessed one. Verity has to hold back a little laugh. A rough patch doesn’t even begin to explain it.

“Problems with his health?” Mouse asks blandly.

“Not quite.” Father James does not want to tell them what’s up. Verity can feel her hackles rising. In her experience, adults who act embarrassed of what kids are doing are never very good. “There have been some, uh, rumors,” Father James finally says reluctantly. “Drugs.”

“Oh, dear,” Mouse says, very insincerely.

“Have you spoken with him?” Bennett asks.

Father James shakes his head. “Unfortunately, he hasn’t been to Mass or confession in a while. His mother’s told me his grades are suffering, too, and he’s started to say he won’t be going off to college next year after all.”

“Has something happened?” Bennett asks carefully. “Trouble with other students at school, perhaps?”

“I’m not sure,” Father James says. He looks unhappy, like he really does want to help the kid. Verity tells herself to cool it. It’s not really fair of her to be on guard with every clergyman she ever meets. Marcus and Tomás turned out to be good.

Well. Mostly. She pushes Andy’s face out of her mind.

“I…” Father James hesitates. He purses his lips. “I did see Aaron,” he says. “I was at the school for a basketball game—my niece is on the team. He didn’t look well. He had some kind of burn on his hand, and he didn’t want to talk to me at all. Well, you know how people can get when they haven’t been to confession in a while and see you out and about, they get a bit embarrassed. He seemed…angry.” Father James frowns. “I was thinking of referring his parents to one of the Church’s addiction support groups. That could help him, maybe.”

“Maybe,” Mouse echoes, face getting darker by the moment.

“None of the other boys had any troubles, you mentioned?” Bennett asks. “Must be quite a stressful time for the parents.”

Father James nods sadly. “There was a bit of trouble when the third boy chose Berkeley for college,” he admits. “His parents didn’t want him so far away, of course. It’s all the way across the country, and he got into UMD right here! But of course they worked through it in the end, and he’s stayed close to home.”

Verity bites her lip. Maybe the kid just wanted to move to California. Maybe he didn’t want to get as far from his parents as possible. Maybe that’s innocent and not a warning sign. But she sees Bennett and Mouse exchange a quick, meaningful look, and her heart sinks a bit. She’s got an idea, now, what Mouse was keeping from them.

“Would it be possible for us to visit with them tomorrow?” Bennett asks. “We’d love to see if Aaron might respond to our youth outreach volunteers, Kat and Verity.”

Father James looks at them again. He nods. “I think he might,” he says. He winks at Kat. “What young man wouldn’t, right?”

Kat forces a smile that’s halfway to a grimace and barks out an awkward laugh. “Sure.” Verity snorts and ducks her head. Kat shoots her a dirty look.

They leave pretty quickly after that. Father James promises to let the Hansons know they’ll drop by in the late morning. Bennett and Mouse don’t say a word until they’re all in the car.

“This may take longer than we anticipated,” Bennett says.

“Yes,” Mouse agrees.

“Wait, what?” Kat asks. “Why? It’s obviously a demon.”

“Oh, is it?” Mouse asks, a little biting.

“Well…” Kat falters a little. But she’s Kat, so she sits up straight again and forges forward. “The burn on his hand, and not wanting to be around the priest. Those are both signs of possession.”

“They can be,” Bennett corrects. He’s not harsh about it, but he’s not gentle, either. “We can’t be sure until we meet him. And it doesn’t sound like the family will be very open to us.”

“Do you think—” Verity has to pause for a second. She takes a deep breath. “Do you think they’re abusing him?”

“I do,” Mouse says grimly. “The visiting priest met them and he had his suspicions. We’ll know more tomorrow when we’re at the house.”

Kat reaches over and takes Verity’s hand across the seat. “So he probably wasn’t very hard for a demon to get to,” she says darkly, squeezing Verity’s fingers.

“If he’s possessed,” Bennett says. He sounds tired. “Abuse does make it easier for demons to work their way in. But many of the signs we look for in demonic possession can be garden variety human abuse, as well.”

Verity blows out a breath and thinks about how she acted when she was still with her parents and the first few foster homes she blew through. Yeah, an over-eager exorcist would have had a field day with her.

“But if it’s just abuse we can still help him,” she says. “Like Marcus did with Harper.”

“We’ll certainly do everything we can,” Mouse says.

“What does that mean?” Kat pipes up. “That sounds evasive.” Verity thought so, too, but she wasn’t sure she could call them out. Kat doesn’t seem to worry about that.

“From what Tomás told me of that situation, Harper already had social workers looking after her. I don’t believe this family does. It may be the best we can do is call the social workers and get them to look into the case.”

“If we figure out he’s being abused, I’m not leaving him there.” Verity’s voice is shaking a little. Kat squeezes her hand tighter and Verity squeezes right back.

“Would you have us kidnap him?” Bennett asks. He doesn’t even sound like it’s outside of the realm of possibilities. He’s genuinely asking if that’s what she wants to do. It makes Verity falter a bit.

“Well…”

“Yes,” Kat says angrily. “If his parents are abusing him, we’ll kidnap the fuck out of him.”

Mouse huffs. “No wonder Marcus loves you.”

Verity swallows down a ball of emotion in her chest. She can’t even identify all the emotions in the ball. She just knows they’re there and she doesn’t have time to think about them now. Her feelings about Marcus are complicated enough without adding a demon and another abuse victim to the mix.

“We don’t have to make a plan or anything,” Verity says. “Right? I mean, if he’s possessed, the plan is to exorcise him. And if he isn’t and he’s being abused, the plan is to help him. We can figure out details later.”

“And that’s why Tomás loves you,” Mouse mutters. “Running in without so much as an idea of what you’re going to do, hoping God takes over.” She shakes her head. “Unfortunately, you’re right. We can’t make plans until we know what we’re facing. So. Tonight we rest. Tomorrow we meet the family as early as we can manage. Demons who target abused children are not typically very strong, so an exorcism shouldn’t take long.”

“Shouldn’t,” Kat echoes.

“You can never be sure with demons,” Bennett points out.

Verity sighs and rests her head against the back of the seat. She wishes she could go back in time. She could get Andy and Nicole to move them off the island. Then they’d be safe and happy and alive somewhere else. She wouldn’t know about demons, she wouldn’t be here contemplating kidnapping someone with abusive parents if he isn’t possessed. Everything would be better.

But would it really? Just because she wouldn’t know about demons wouldn’t mean they don’t exist. She definitely wouldn’t be carrying around a crucifix, and none of her siblings would be, either. They’d have no idea what to watch out for. She sighs again. It seems like a lose-lose situation all around.

Kat squeezes Verity’s hand again. “Hey,” she whispers. “We’re going to figure it out. Okay? We’ll deal with it, whatever it is, together.”

Verity smiles at her. “Yeah,” she agrees. She wouldn’t know Kat without all of this. And yeah, having Andy and Nicole alive is probably worth not knowing Kat. But still. At least there’s something good out of all this.

They just got one double room, so Kat and Verity are bunking up together. Verity’s secretly very glad. She’s scared for tomorrow. She’s glad to have Kat here. It’s only been two weeks, but Kat’s comforting. They sleep back to back, and Verity doesn’t even have nightmares. She sleeps deeply, soundly, and feels better in the morning.

The Hansons live in a giant house. Behind a gate and everything, in what feels like an endless subdivision of identical giant houses. Mouse sighs. “Well, we know what it’s after.”

“You mean money?” Verity asks.

“Wealth and power,” Bennett says. “Demons can never resist.”

Verity thinks that over. “But Andy didn’t have either of those,” she says slowly.

“There is a great deal of power in destruction,” Mouse tells her gently.

Verity swallows hard. Destruction is definitely what they got. “So how do you push the demon to come out?” she asks, wanting to stop thinking about the fractures in her family.

“Provocation,” Bennett says. “Sometimes you can present something it wants.”

“And sometimes you just have to needle the damn thing until it snaps,” Mouse adds.

“That’s why Marcus is as good as he is,” Bennett mutters, making Mouse laugh.

Mouse puts a hand on Verity’s arm and one on Kat’s and looks toward a tree in the yard, directing them to look, too. There’s a huge spiderweb up there, and Verity gulps. She thinks of Andy pressing the web over her face, the way her lungs burned and all her muscles tried to fight back. That looks like the same kind of spiderweb. There’s some kind of black moss or mold looking stuff on one of the windows of the house, too, out of place when everything else looks so cookie-cutter.

“Ew,” Kat mumbles.

Verity picks up a vibe the second the parents open the door. She doesn’t know if she could explain it to anyone else—their smiles are too fixed, the house is too perfect. She isn’t sure what the problem is. She just knows there is one.

Mrs. Hanson welcomes them into a sitting room with a tray of cookies and cupcakes. Perfect cookies, perfect cupcakes. All the hairs on the back of Verity’s neck are standing up.

“We were told Father James would speak to you,” Bennett starts. “About our youth outreach volunteers.” He gestures toward Kat and Verity. Mrs. Hanson’s eyes snag on the hole in Verity’s jeans and Verity tries not to fidget.

“Well, Aaron’s not much for socializing these days,” Mrs. Hanson says, glancing toward the staircase. “Father James told you he’s been having a hard time?”

“He mentioned it,” Mouse says. “Do you think he’d be okay with the girls going up to see him?”

Verity has to work not to let her eyes widen. Why on Earth would Mouse send them up there by themselves? They don’t know how to tell if the kid has a demon in him. Tomás and Marcus told them the signs, of course, but Verity doesn’t know how to put that into practice.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Mrs. Hanson says with a little laugh. “We don’t let our boys have girls in their rooms.” She stands up. “Let me get him.”

They wait there, listening to the ticking clock. Verity glances at Mouse and Bennett, who both just look normal and maybe kind of bored, and she looks over at Kat. Kat makes a face and Verity ducks her head, hiding a laugh.

Mrs. Hanson comes back down, trailed by a boy a little younger than Verity. Aaron. Verity looks, but she doesn’t see any burns or anything like that. Andy’s started on his chest, apparently, so maybe they’re hidden.

“Hello,” Mouse says. “Aaron, isn’t it?” She’s using this bright, kind voice Verity hasn’t heard from her in the days since they’ve met. This must be her charming voice, Verity thinks, and she has to fight a hysterical giggle at the idea of Mouse practicing in the mirror.

“Yeah,” Aaron says, looking suspiciously at them all.

“We’ve just been visiting some parishioners here in your community,” Bennett says. “We wanted to get to know some of the youth, as well.”

“Okay,” Aaron says. “Well, good luck with that.”

Verity snorts. “I know,” she says. “It’s weird.”

Aaron looks at her. “How did you end up doing this?”

Verity decides that isn’t an insult. She’s not sure if he meant it to be, but she’s not going to take it that way. “Community service,” she throws out. Aaron barks a surprised laugh.

Verity can tell Mouse and Bennett are kind of surprised at her being able to talk to him. But if there’s one thing Verity knows, it’s troubled kids putting on a front. But even with their surprise, they’re both sitting back and letting her take the lead. It makes her feel kind of powerful. But it’s also a little scary.

“I don’t want to come to some youth group,” Aaron says, sounding bored.

“We don’t do youth group,” Kat says. Aaron does take a second to look her over, and Kat lets out the tiniest sigh Verity’s ever heard, so quiet Verity thinks she’s probably the only one who heard it.

She’s never considered if it’s annoying to be pretty like Kat is. It’s probably really annoying for Kat, getting guys hanging all over her when she doesn’t want them. And it must happen a lot, since Kat’s so gorgeous. But Aaron doesn’t seem like he’s looking to make a move on her or anything like that.

“Did something happen to your arm?” Mouse cuts in. Verity looks at his arm and sees a burn. Her stomach drops.

Aaron yanks his sleeve down to cover it. “No,” he says shortly. He stands up. “Can I go back upstairs?”

“Aaron,” Mrs. Hanson says. The way she says it, a warning under the words, makes Verity’s stomach clench. Aaron sits back down, not looking at anyone.

“Would it be alright if we prayed?” Bennett asks. “I know it may not seem cool, but some people take great comfort in prayer.”

Bennett saying the word cool sounds so out of place Verity almost laughs. But then Aaron stands up again, abruptly. “I said I don’t want any of this!” he says. “I don’t care about this God bullshit.”

“Aaron,” Mrs. Hanson snaps.

Mouse says something in another language, and Aaron’s head snaps over to look at her, eyes wide. Then he runs out of the room and up the stairs. Verity can feel Kat’s leg starting to shake a little next to hers, and Verity can’t blame her. It seems like Aaron recognized whatever language that was Mouse just spoke in. That’s probably a demon.

“My apologies,” Mouse says.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Mrs. Hanson says. “He’s been…” She sighs.

“Has something changed recently?” Bennett asks. “Could this be school stress?”

“I don’t know,” Mrs. Hanson frets. “I mean, he’s always been stressed about school. But after his brother left for school, he started to get…withdrawn.”

“I see,” Mouse says.

“We thought it was drugs,” Mrs. Hanson says, voice hushed. “But we looked everywhere and couldn’t find any.”

“You looked in his room?” Verity asks. She feels her hackles rising and takes a deep breath to try to steady herself. Kat presses her leg against Verity’s.

“Of course we did,” Mrs. Hanson says. “If it was drugs, he could hurt himself!”

There isn’t much to say after that. They make awkward small talk with Mrs. Hanson for a few more minutes, and then make their excuses and leave. No one says anything in the car until they get back to the hotel they stayed in last night.

Mouse turns off the car, but nobody gets out. “I can’t tell you about any demons,” Verity says, “but I got abusive vibes at that house.”

“There is a definite presence in that house,” Bennett says. “I could feel it.”

“Uh, what?” Kat asks. “Marcus didn’t tell us about feeling something like that.”

“The spiderweb?” Verity asks.

“That’s part of it,” Mouse says.

“We didn’t really have spiderwebs,” Kat says, thinking. “But there were a lot of gross bugs in the house.”

“That’s common,” Bennett says. “I…” He hesitates for a beat. “I was possessed. And since my possession, I have been able to…feel demons, somewhat.”

“Oh, my God,” Kat says, sounding scared. “Does every exorcist get possessed?”

“I was possessed before I was an exorcist,” Mouse says.

“You were possessed too?” Kat cries.

“Is it just inevitable?” Verity asks. “It’s going to happen sooner or later?”

“No,” Bennett says. “Most haven’t. In recent years, there was an, ah, increase in demonic activity.”

“Because of the whole Pope thing?” Verity asks.

“Yes,” Bennett says. “The whole Pope thing.”

“But you guys exorcised all those demons, right?” Kat asks. “So it’s not as bad now.”

Mouse and Bennett exchange a look. “It is the usual level,” Bennett says. That does not make Verity feel better.

“This is why Marcus doesn’t pick up his phone when you call,” Mouse scolds. “Yes, it is better now than it was in the last two years. But there are still plenty of demons hanging about. Guard your minds and be watchful. That’s all you can do.”

“Well, if being possessed gives you some kind of demon spidey sense, wouldn’t it make sense to get possessed and then you can—”

“You do not know what you are saying,” Bennett cuts Kat off before she can finish her question. Kat shrinks back a little. “Being possessed is not some inoculation you can get over with a plaster and a lollipop. I would have thought the two of you would understand that better than most.”

“Sorry,” Kat says meekly.

Bennett’s nostrils flare as he breathes out. He seems so completely put together, so impossible to fluster, but possession is apparently his limit. He doesn’t acknowledge Kat’s apology or offer any of his own. “We will need to return to that house tomorrow,” he says. “For the rest of today, we will prepare.”

“Prepare how?” Verity asks.

“We need to buy saline, salt, extra water to bless, perhaps some more of those handy zip-ties,” Mouse lists off. “Confession, if that’s your thing.”

“Pass,” Verity says instantly.

“Yeah, pass,” Kat says.

“That’s fine,” Bennett says. “But be aware that any shame you’re holding onto can present a problem.”

Verity ducks her head. “Not like confessing anything ever made me feel less ashamed,” she mutters. Kat grabs her hand.

“You might call your families,” Mouse suggests. “You sound close with them. That can give you strength.”

“Yeah,” Kat says. “Remember why I’m doing this.”

Bennett and Mouse both leave from the parking lot, not even going back up to the hotel room. Kat and Verity go up. Verity sighs. “So I guess tomorrow we’re doing an exorcism,” she says, trying to keep her voice casual.

“Do you think I hurt his feelings?” Kat worries. “I do know better. It was stupid to say that.”

Verity shrugs. “I don’t know. Marcus kind of…doesn’t have great manners, right? So if they’ve stayed friends for a long time he’s probably used to it.”

Kat snorts. “Thanks.”

“Are you going to call your family?” Verity asks.

“Yeah,” Kat says. “You?”

Verity nods. Kat wants to go outside, because she says she likes hearing her mom’s voice in the sunshine. Verity flops back on the bed. She doesn’t call Rose first. She calls Shelby.

“Hey, V,” he answers. “How’s exorcism school?”

Verity laughs, chest tightening at the sound of his voice. God, being homesick is such a strange feeling. “We’re on a field trip,” she says. “Or…I don’t know what you’d call it. We’re doing an exorcism tomorrow.”

“Whoa,” he says. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Verity says. “You should be the one learning exorcisms, God boy.” She thinks of Shelby with his Bible and his ram’s blood and his faith and her stomach aches. Shelby would be so much better at this.

Shelby laughs. “Oh, no thank you. My one brush with demons was more than enough.”

“Yeah,” Verity says quietly, and they sit there and breathe through that together for a second.

“Are you going to be safe?” Shelby asks.

“I don’t know,” Verity admits.

“V…”

“I’ll try,” Verity says.

“You remember praying?” Shelby asks. Verity had prayed a little, after Andy. On the ferry, just an hour after Andy—the demon—almost suffocated her with that nasty spiderweb. She’d been so terrified; she’d just needed something. There were a few times after, in the weeks they all had to be separated before Rose could get her house up and running, where Verity had prayed mostly just to feel close to Shelby.

She hasn’t in a long time, though. “I remember,” she says. “I’ll do it again if I need to.”

“Good,” he says. “And I’ll be doing it here. I know you think it’s dumb, but—”

“It’s not dumb,” she cuts him off. “I know I’ve been kind of a bitch about it.”

Shelby huffs. “You deserve to.”

Now Verity laughs. “Thanks. But I’m glad you have something to believe in. I’m glad it gives you…peace.”

After a second, Shelby asks, “Verity, you sure you’re okay?”

She’s thinking about Andy, about the fact that none of the other kids or Rose know what she knows, that Marcus chose to kill Andy to save Tomás. For a second, she wonders if she should tell him. He deserves to know, doesn’t he?

But she decides against it. It won’t change anything. She knows part of her is hoping he’ll hate Marcus, like she’s been trying to, so she’ll feel better about it. But she also knows Shelby. He won’t hate Marcus for that. Shelby’s the kind of religious person who actually lives it, like Tomás. And like Marcus, she can’t deny.

“I’m okay,” she promises softly. “I’m just scared.”

“I’m scared for you,” he says. “But I know you can do it, V. You’re the bravest person I know.”

Verity sniffles. This whole family thing is pretty nice, all things considered. The good family thing, anyway. Her other family wasn’t.

Kat was right about this helping remind Verity what she’s fighting for. She’s gotten swept up in her own feelings about Andy and Marcus, having a little pity party in her own head. But this is what’s important: protecting her family. Trying to stop anyone else from going through what they did.

Verity can’t stop the demons. But she can send them back to hell where they belong.

Kat barely sleeps. The idea of seeing a demon in the morning is making her feel sick with nerves. She knows Verity isn’t really sleeping, either, but they can’t talk with Mouse and Bennett a bed away. Neither of them seem to be having any problem sleeping.

She called home, but she still didn’t tell them what’s going on. She knows she should, and she knows they’re all going to be pissed at her when they find out what she’s keeping from them, but she doesn’t care. She’s not mentioning demons to her family until it’s absolutely necessary.

When it’s time to get up and get ready to head out, Kat feels like she’s going to throw up. Verity looks pale and shaky, too. Sharing a bed was nice last night—at least it was something familiar, in the midst of all this. They’d gone from back to back to facing each other, Verity’s head almost touching Kat’s shoulder, and Kat had thought for a second about pulling Verity closer.

Kat’s not an idiot. She knows what this is, what these feelings are. It makes her feel guilty. She and Julia were inseparable for years before Kat even started to notice she was falling for her. They never actually went there; as soon as Julia was brave enough to bring it up, she died. And now, what? Two weeks with Verity and Kat’s already got feelings? It doesn’t feel like that’s fair to Julia.

But Kat can’t think about any of this now. They’re up and getting ready for an exorcism. It’s still dark out; they have no idea how long the exorcism’s going to take, and they still have to provoke a response before they can start. It’s going to be a long day. Probably a long string of long days.

“You okay?” Kat asks Verity while they brush their teeth. It feels a little silly to worry about dental health before they head into an exorcism, but Mouse told them to do it while they can. No telling how long it’ll be until you have time again, she’d said, like that’s fine and normal.

“Uh, no,” Verity says, and she has such a duh in her voice it makes Kat laugh and spray toothpaste on the mirror. Verity snorts and wipes it off with a piece of wet toilet paper.

“How do you even get ready for this?” Kat wonders aloud. She and Verity come out of the bathroom and Bennett says,

“Some of us pray.”

Kat’s not so sure about the whole praying business. Marcus basically said exorcism is praying, but it feels different when there’s a demon in front of her. She did it when Tomás was exorcising her mom. Having Casey and her dad there definitely helped.

“You could call Marcus and Tomás,” Mouse suggests. “They’re both working themselves into a state, I can tell you that.”

“They’ll also tell you to pray,” Bennett points out.

“Yeah, well, I don’t know if I should listen to them when they use prayer as, like, foreplay,” Kat says. “Like they’re having a threesome with God.”

Bennett gives her a dirty look. “You have spent far too much time with Marcus.”

“I’ve only spent two weeks with Marcus,” Kat says.

“That’s longer than anyone besides Tomás and Mouse,” Bennett says.

“And you,” Mouse points out.

“And somehow I’m the only one who escaped without him trying to kiss me,” Bennett says. “Perhaps I should be insulted.”

Mouse cackles. Kat isn’t sure she understands the relationships between any of these people. She shares a look with Verity and they both have to hide their giggles. If Kat starts now, she’s afraid she’s going to end up getting hysterical.

But calling Marcus and Tomás sounds like a good idea. She knows Bennett’s right and they will say to pray, but she also thinks it’ll make her feel braver. They both have a way of talking that makes her feel more confident.

She and Verity go outside so they don’t bother Mouse and Bennett and whatever their pre-exorcism rituals are. Kat calls Tomás, because she just knows Marcus has no idea where his phone is again. Tomás answers after the second ring.

“Hello?” he says. “Katherine? Verity? Are you alright?”

“We’re okay,” Kat says. She has him on speaker. “Um, we’re…getting ready to leave. For the—to see if we can get the d—” Kat breaks off, looking around.

“Yeah, we get it,” Marcus promises. They must be on speaker, too.

“How are you doing?” Tomás asks.

Kat and Verity look at each other. Neither of them says anything and they hear Marcus snort on the other end of the line. “Sounds about right.”

“What if we can’t get it to, uh, you know, show itself?” Kat asks. “And then we think it’s not here and we leave but then…”

“Mouse and Bennett know what they’re doing,” Marcus reminds her.

“Bennett said he could feel it,” Kat says. “Is that—can everyone feel it? After they’ve been…?” She can’t seem to finish a whole sentence.

“I don’t know,” Tomás says. “As far as I know, I haven’t been around anyone since mine.”

“Dunno if it’s about the possession, really,” Marcus says. “I can usually feel it, and I’ve never been possessed.” He doesn’t seem to care who hears.

“With experience, you learn these things,” Tomás says.

“What if it is there and we can’t do anything?” Verity asks. Her voice is coming out so, so small. It makes Kat’s stomach hurt. “And what if he—”

Kat knows she must be thinking about her dad. She rubs Verity’s back with the hand not holding the phone.

“That happens sometimes,” Tomás says. His voice is even and steady. “But it would not be your fault.”

Kat snorts. “That seems hypocritical.” There’s no way Tomás and Marcus don’t blame themselves. They know Marcus obviously does for Verity’s dad.

“Yeah, well, we’re trying to teach you from our mistakes, yeah?” Marcus shoots back.

“I’m scared,” Kat admits.

“That’s okay,” Tomás says.

“That’s good, really,” Marcus says. “Be more afraid than you think you should. If you think the demon’s going toward your head, you run.”

They already promised him that, but Kat and Verity both promise again. Kat remembers that morning when Marcus woke up while Tomás was gone, how completely panicked Marcus was. She knows he won’t be as scared for them, because they’re not Tomás, but he’s probably at least a little scared.

“Any other last advice?” Verity asks.

“Pray,” Tomás says, and Kat and Verity look at each other and then away before they can start laughing. Kat’s not sure she even would start laughing right now. Or she’ll start laughing and never stop and have to face down a demon while she has hiccups.

“You have to remember this isn’t about you,” Marcus says. “It’s not what you’re doing. It’s not your power. You’re doing all of this through Him. And remember why. It’s not about what you think you can do for the world. Look at that one person and see what they need.”

It’s quiet for a beat. “That’s really good advice,” Kat murmurs. She hasn’t exactly been good at the whole selfless thing for most of her life. She gave up her knee when it came to protecting Casey and her dad, but they’re family. Maybe she’ll just have to imagine it’s Casey. Aaron’s around the same age.

Kat and Verity sit close together in the car as they go back to the house, huddled over a Bible. They’re reading the part Tomás said he likes to read before an exorcism, about putting on armor or whatever.

Mouse notices what they’re reading and smiles a little. “Tomás’s advice, I gather?” To Bennett, she says, “Armor of God.”

“Yes, well, for someone who loves the armor of God, Tomás has a tendency to forget the helmet,” Bennett mutters.

When they get to the house, something feels off. One of the windows is broken, and it sounds like there’s a fight going on inside. “Are they hurting him?” Verity asks, sounding panicked.

“Or the demon’s manifested in a big way,” Mouse says grimly. Kat thinks of Casey on the L and her stomach lurches.

“Let’s go!”

“Stop,” Bennett says. “Are you prepared? Do you have your crucifixes and holy water? Do not run in blindly and make a volatile situation worse.”

They hear what sounds like someone getting thrown against a wall. Bennett’s lips flatten in a thin line and he grabs his bag from the floor by Mouse’s feet. They all jump out of the car and run toward the house. The door is locked, but Bennett kicks it and it breaks open. It’s very badass, and Kat wants to learn to do that.

“In the name of God the Father, I command you to stop!” Bennett yells at Aaron. Except…

Aaron’s hiding under the table, hands over his face. His mother is trying to pull him out by his ankle. She screams something in another language and all the hair on the back of Kat’s neck stands up.

“It’s her,” Mouse says. “Get her.”

It takes all four of them, but they manage to grab Mrs. Hanson’s arms and legs and shove her to the ground. “The power of Christ compels you,” Bennett says, pressing the crucifix against her head. She hisses as it burns against her skin.

“Let’s get her up the stairs,” Mouse says. She wraps rosaries around Mrs. Hanson’s arms and legs and that seems to make her fight them less.

“Hey, you okay?” Verity asks Aaron.

“I don’t know what’s happening,” he says shakily.

“Your mother’s been possessed by a demon,” Bennett says. “We’re here to help.”

Aaron doesn’t really have an answer to that. Kat can’t blame him. She didn’t believe with Casey at first, either. But at least he doesn’t stop them from dragging his mom up the stairs. Bennett has straight-up chains in his bag. Two years ago, Kat would never have expected to be chaining a woman her mom’s age to a bed while avoiding her teeth, but here she is.

Mouse and Bennett don’t hesitate. They’re obviously well-practiced, not just at exorcisms but at doing exorcisms together. “And Jesus rebuked him,” Bennett starts.

“Saying, hold thy peace, come out of him,” Mouse joins in.

Kat swallows hard. She can’t stop seeing Casey, chained and bleeding in her room. Mouse throws some holy water on Mrs. Hanson and it makes her scream, but then she laughs and looks straight at Kat.

“It’s your fault, you know,” the demon purrs. “That whore you loved.”

Kat loses her breath for a second. But she shakes her head and snaps back, “I’ve already heard that one. Try again.” The demon in Casey already went there. It’s easier to know that’s a lie, because Casey never would’ve said it.

“Those men in the ambulance,” the demon adds, and that one’s harder. “Your sister, crying every night when she thinks of them. Her hands around their necks. She ripped one’s throat out with her teeth, did she tell you that?”

Kat grits her teeth. That wasn’t Casey, she reminds herself, but she hears Casey’s choked voice saying he made me watch and her breath stutters. “You have no authority but that what is given,” Kat says, trying to clear her mind.

“You trust Father Marcus now, do you?” the demon asks, sneering the father part. “Didn’t trust him with your sister. Got those men killed. Got your mother’s back broken. You were the one who let your little pig sister get away.”

Kat’s throat feels tight. “Fight back, now,” Mouse says. “You know this is untrue.”

But does she? That is Kat’s fault. She called the police. She didn’t trust Marcus or Tomás. Those paramedics never would’ve been in the ambulance with Casey if not for her. And maybe Tomás and Marcus would’ve been able to finish the exorcism at home and her mom wouldn’t have had to take the demon herself.

This demon’s right. It’s Kat’s fault. She feels like she can’t breathe. How can she ever look at her mom again, knowing it’s her fault?

Verity grabs her hand. “Be…be strong in the Lord,” Verity says, voice shaking a little. “And in the power of his might.”

“That’s it,” Mouse praises.

“Put on the whole armor of God,” Kat remembers, following Verity’s lead. She can breathe again. She thinks of Marcus telling her wish I’d had a big sister like you growing up. He hadn’t been mad at her. He’d understood why she called for help.

This fucking demon doesn’t get to call the shots and make Kat feel guilty. Her family doesn’t blame her. Marcus and Tomás don’t blame her. She’s not going to waste time right now letting a demon get into her head.

Mouse and Bennett pick up the armor of God stuff, which is good because Kat can’t remember any more. She squeezes Verity’s hand and smiles over at her. Verity nods. They let go of each other so they can open their Bibles. They’re here to help. They’re not just going to stand her meekly and take this demon’s shit.

Chapter Text

Marcus’s eyes snap open. He’d been having a nightmare, not that that’s new. He can’t even remember what the nightmare was now, but it’s left his heart pounding. He looks over at Tomás and sees that he’s awake, too.

Kat and Verity called earlier, before they headed out with Mouse and Bennett. Marcus is shocked he fell back to sleep, but not shocked Tomás didn’t. He rolls closer to Tomás and frowns when Tomás winces. It’s slight, so slight Marcus wouldn’t have noticed if he didn’t know to look, but it’s clear his headache still hasn’t cleared. He’s almost positive he heard Tomás get up to be sick at some point, though Marcus can't remember if it was before the girls called or after.

But in true Tomás fashion, he won’t give Marcus an opening to ask about it. “We should go back to that community center,” he says. “The street outreach program.”

They usually spend most of their Saturdays helping out with homeless outreach. It’s mostly little things like handing out sanitary kits and food, but they’ve also helped with a job fair. Tomás still has a lot of contacts from his Homeless to Houses project at St. Anthony’s.

They haven’t been doing it lately, with Kat and Verity here, but they should go back. They should take Kat and Verity with them, too. There’s a cynical part of Marcus that knows the value in this kind of work to help guard against demons. The more in need a person is, the easier it is for a demon to offer them things, not to mention the way the demons were using poor people who wouldn’t be missed during their plot to take over the Vatican.

But of course that isn’t why Tomás does it. He doesn’t think about the demons or how it makes him look or the PR arm of the Church. Tomás does these things because he sees people in need. It makes Marcus pull him close and press his face into Tomás’s hair.

“We should,” Marcus agrees, resting a hand on Tomás’s chest to feel his heartbeat. It’s not racing like it does when he’s having a nightmare, but it’s faster than it should be for lying here in bed.

“I’ll see if Olivia and Luis want to come,” Tomás adds absently.

“Teaching Luis young,” Marcus says fondly while Tomás texts his sister.

Tomás laughs. “He’s lucky,” he says. “My abuela made me volunteer every week since I was nine.”

“Did she really?” Marcus asks.

“She had the faith they talk about in the Bible,” Tomás says, setting his phone aside. “Faith to move a mountain. She was the reason I became a priest. Not the Papa Mexicano story, you know that wasn’t real.”

“Right,” Marcus says, because he remembers the demon taunting Tomás with that.

“But she believed so much. And I just wanted to make her proud.”

“She must be,” Marcus says. “How many of the abuelas in Heaven get to say their grandson saved the Holy Father?”

Tomás laughs, but Marcus catches the way he closes his eyes now. His headache must be getting worse. “Abuela would love you,” Tomás says. Marcus feels a bit shy about that, absurd as it sounds. He hides his face in Tomás’s neck.

“Would she?”

“Oh, yes,” Tomás promises. “For one thing, you eat anything people give you. She would feed you so much.”

Marcus laughs. “I think she and I would’ve gotten on just fine.”

“That’s what abuelas do,” Tomás says. “They tell you you’re too skinny and they feed you, and then when you gain weight they poke your stomach and say ay, gordo!”

Marcus is cracking up at Tomás’s impression of a grandmother voice. Tomás is laughing, too, though he still has his eyes closed. “Think it’d take a good bit to make me gain weight,” Marcus says.

“I know, you are so skinny,” Tomás says. “I need to do a better job feeding you.”

“So you’re the abuela here, is what you’re saying?” Marcus asks.

Tomás laughs. “No, but that’s what you’re supposed to do,” he says. He gives Marcus a squeeze and says in a silly voice, “For your man.”

“Where are these rules coming from?” Marcus asks, laughing helplessly. He gets a mental image of Tomás poring over some kind of dating advice advert and laughs anew.

“From generations of family,” Tomás says. “I’m going to have to start cooking for you so you won’t go look for someone else.”

Marcus knows Tomás is just being silly right now, but he doesn’t like even a joking implication that he’d ever leave. He moves so he can lie carefully on top of Tomás. “I would starve with you before I’d ever take food off someone else,” he murmurs, close in Tomás’s ear.

Tomás smiles, a slow smile that takes over his whole face. “I know,” he says.

“Good,” Marcus says. After a minute, he adds, “Since I’ve just been awfully romantic, can I ask about your headache now and the fact you got up to throw up last night?”

Tomás sighs, smile disappearing. Marcus mourns it. “I can’t go to a doctor.”

“You did get knocked in the head with a hammer,” Marcus reminds him. The memory of that day, of seeing Harper’s mother holding that hammer covered in blood, still sends a chill down his spine. He’d thought no, not again, the memory of his mother’s pooling blood flashing into his mind.

Tomás must know where Marcus’s head is. He settles his hands comfortingly on the small of Marcus’s back. “I’m okay,” he soothes. “I went to the hospital after that, remember?”

He had, since they’d gone with Harper. The nurses certainly weren’t going to let him just sit there, blood caked in his hair and all down his shirt. “They said it might take a while for symptoms to show up.”

“I don’t think they meant it would be a year,” Tomás says. “This is…” He sighs. “I know you don’t want me to say my penance—”

“Don’t even start,” Marcus says.

“Marcus,” Tomás says. His voice is as serious as possible with his eyes screwed up in pain. “I was prideful. I refused to listen. I thought I knew better than you and God. I think I deserve some penance.”

“If you deserved it, you’ve already done it,” Marcus insists. “Think how many people you’ve saved with your exorcisms, Tomás.”

Tomás sighs. “Well, I don’t know how to settle this disagreement.”

“We settle it with you agreeing with me,” Marcus says, trying to make his voice lighter than he feels. “And taking some pain medicine.”

“I can at least do the second one,” Tomás says.

Marcus feels his eyebrows shoot up. “You’re agreeing to medicine?” He must feel even worse than Marcus realized.

“I don’t want to be useless at the community center,” Tomás points out. Marcus curses internally. He forgot they’d just decided to do that. And with Olivia and Luis too—Tomás will have to be half-dead to back out now.

Marcus knows it’s no use arguing. So instead he presses a soft kiss to the corner of Tomás’s mouth and says, “I’ll go get you something.”

His hands are shaking a bit as he rifles through their medicine cabinet, worried as he is over Tomás. Everything in here is terribly mundane; antiacids, children’s cold medicine, an antihistamine for when Tomás starts sneezing in the spring.

It’s a level of domesticity Marcus has never had until now, this assortment of things they might need only occasionally. He’s used to traveling with the essentials, things he’s needed every day, the bare minimum to get by. He’s never held onto a half-empty bottle of cold medicine for whenever he gets sick next. He’s never had a medicine cabinet to fill.

He doesn’t know why this is hitting him now, but getting the extra-strength headache medicine for Tomás has him almost in tears. This medicine he bought for Tomás, the medicine here in the home they share.

He blinks all this away and gets Tomás a glass of water to go with it, grabbing a bag of frozen vegetables for good measure. When he comes back to the bedroom, Tomás has an arm thrown over his eyes to block out the light, so Marcus turns it off. He helps Tomás sit up so he can take the medicine, and then helps Tomás slump back down.

“Here, try this,” Marcus says. He puts the vegetables under Tomás’s left ear, the spot Harper’s mother hit him with the hammer. Tomás makes a little noise of surprise at the cold. He hadn’t even opened his eyes to see what Marcus was doing, just trusted him and let Marcus move him.

It threatens to overwhelm Marcus again. That level of trust in him feels too much. He wants to ask Tomás what on Earth he’s thinking, putting his faith in Marcus. But he pushes that feeling down. Tomás puts his faith in Marcus because Marcus will do anything for him. He’s proven that more than once by now.

Tomás sighs. “That is very cold.”

“Yeah, s’posed to be,” Marcus says, stroking Tomás’s cheek. “Hoping it’ll help you feel better.”

“Thank you,” Tomás says. He feels around blindly for a moment before finding Marcus’s hand and squeezing it. “You take good care of me, mi alma.”

Marcus is a little caught off guard by the pet name. Endearments are new, regardless of language. Before they moved from partners to, well, partners, the closest they came was brother, hermano, maybe a my friend here or there.

Marcus hasn’t really considered whether he likes pet names. He can’t think of anyone ever using them on him before, not like this. Never anything more than someone who didn’t know his name calling him love as he was passing through. But he likes this, coming from Tomás. Mi alma. My soul. That feels fitting.

Tomás cracks one eye the tiniest bit. “Was that too much?”

Marcus settles back down into the bed with him. Tomás will probably lie here for another half an hour before he feels he needs to get up and “be productive.” Hopefully the medicine will have started working by then. Marcus will lie here with him as long as possible.

“No,” Marcus murmurs. “Feels pretty perfect to me.”

Tomás smiles and kisses the side of Marcus’s head. “Good.”

“Good,” Marcus echoes.

The headache medicine doesn’t seem to have made any difference whatsoever. When Tomás forces himself out of bed, he’s moving gingerly, like he’s sore or ill. His eyes are barely open, just enough to keep him from bumping into anything as he makes his way into the shower.

Marcus gets in the shower with him, not out of any sense of lust but out of fear that Tomás is going to fall down. The fact that Tomás neither makes a lewd joke nor complains that Marcus is babying him is a bad sign, too.

Marcus knows Tomás doesn’t want him to bring this up, but he has to. “Are you sure today is a good day to go out and do anything?”

Tomás doesn’t snap back at him, the way Marcus thought he would. He sighs. “I don’t want to just lie there and do nothing.”

“Seems like you need to,” Marcus pushes gently.

“Marcus,” Tomás says wearily.

Before they can debate any further, there’s a knock at the door and then Olivia and Luis are coming in. “Hi!” Olivia calls. “We brought some breakfast.”

“I made it!” Luis adds.

Tomás holds onto the wall to help him go out to meet them. Marcus follows along helplessly, wanting to grab onto Tomás but knowing Tomás doesn’t want him to draw attention. Olivia’s eyes widen a little when she sees Tomás. He does look pale, Marcus notes. He’s just looked like this for days, so Marcus kind of forgot.

“Tomás?” Olivia asks.

“Hey,” Tomás says. “What did you make, buddy?”

“Huevos ahogados,” Luis says proudly.

“Oh, great,” Tomás says, but as the smell of garlic hits them, his body is wracked with a shudder that Marcus is pretty sure is him trying to hold back a gag. It's never a good sign when his headache makes him sick, as well.

“Why don’t we take that into the kitchen?” Marcus suggests.

“Yeah,” Olivia says, narrowing her eyes at Tomás. “Luis, show Tomás your art project you did.”

“I can’t wait to see that,” Tomás says. His voice only sounds a little strangled.

Olivia waits until they’re in the kitchen and can hear Luis talking enthusiastically. “What’s wrong?” she whispers.

Marcus shakes his head. “He’s had an awful headache for days now,” he says. “I’m worried it’s some kind of—dunno, brain damage? From when he got hit in the head with that hammer. But he doesn’t think that’s it.”

“He got in the head with a hammer?” Olivia echoes in what Marcus could only describe as a whisper-scream.

Marcus winces. “Sorry, forgot you didn’t know that. He got checked out after that, but…well, what if they missed something?”

“What does Tomás think it is?” Olivia asks, too shrewd for Marcus’s good.

Marcus purses his lips for a second. “Well…”

“Marcus,” Olivia says warningly. She has a very fierce protective sister voice that works on Marcus every time. He doesn’t know why. He can withstand nuns. It may just be that she’s Tomás’s sister, and Marcus has no idea which of them has more claim to know Tomás’s secrets. Marcus knows more of Tomás’s secrets, of course, but he’s not sure he should. He doesn’t know what kind of hierarchy is allowed here. He’s never had to worry about it before.

“Tomás used to have…” He’s not sure she’ll believe him. Then again, she believes them about demons and possessions and exorcisms, so this doesn’t seem like much of a leap. “He used to have visions,” he says. “About possessions and demons. Real visions, you know, of things that ended up coming true.”

“Visions,” Olivia says, eyes wide.

“They would lead us to people who needed us sometimes,” Marcus says. “And—well, and he could, uh, he could go into a possessed person’s head. With them and the demon. And get information about them or the demon.”

“Oh, my God,” Olivia mumbles.

“But since we exorcised him, he hasn’t had any visions. And as far as I know, he hasn’t tried his little trick to go into anyone’s head. But he’s still been getting these headaches. The headaches used to come with a vision. Now it seems they just come instead of them.”

“What if it’s—I don’t know, a brain tumor or something?” Olivia whispers furiously. “I’ve heard those can make you go kind of crazy.”

“He’s never been crazy,” Marcus says quietly. “All of his visions ended up being true.”

Olivia puts her hands over her face. “What the hell does that mean for him?”

Marcus wishes he knew. Before he can come up with any kind of answer, they hear a crash out in the living room.

“Uncle Tomás!” Luis cries, and Marcus and Olivia both run out. Tomás is on the ground, seizing. “Help!” Luis adds.

“Tomás!” Olivia screams.

Marcus drops to his knees at Tomás’s side, hands fluttering. This is worse than when he had the visions. The visions made him blank, almost asleep, pliable. “Tomás,” Marcus says. He’s already crying. “Tomás, please.”

Tomás’s body is jerking the way Marcus has seen demons do to people. The back of his head is hitting the ground again and again, so Marcus tugs off his jumper and puts it under Tomás’s head. It’s the gray one, the jail one, that Tomás hates, and Marcus promises God he’ll never wear it again if that’s what it takes.

Tomás stills. Marcus’s eyes go wide. Surely the jumper wasn’t bothering God that badly. But then Tomás’s eyes fly open. “Marcus!”

“I’m here,” Marcus promises. “I’m here, I’ve got you.”

“We have to go,” Tomás says.

“Yeah, we have to go,” Marcus agrees, getting one of Tomás’s arms over his shoulders. “We have to go to the bloody hospital.”

“Marcus, the whole family is possessed,” Tomás gasps. Marcus’s stomach drops. It was a vision after all.

“What?” Marcus asks.

“The other brothers, and the parents,” Tomás says, his legs rickety as he tries to stand. “They are trying to get the youngest boy.”

“Mouse and Bennett and the girls,” Marcus breathes, realizing what Tomás means.

“We have to go,” Tomás urges.

“Uncle Tomás, are you okay?” Luis asks. He’s got tears all down his face and Marcus can feel Tomás freeze.

“Luis, Tomás and I have to go,” Marcus says. “Our friends need our help.”

“Because of a demon?” Luis asks. When all the adults look at him, shocked, he says, “I can hear when you guys talk about it, you know.”

“Oh, chaparro,” Tomás says, sounding pained. “I will explain anything you want to know when we get back.”

“Okay,” Luis says.

“Be safe,” Olivia says, her eyes shining with tears. “Tomás, oh, God, be safe.”

“I’ll do everything I can,” Tomás promises. It’s probably not the most reassuring promise, but at least he’s being honest.

And then Marcus and Tomás are off running. Well, Marcus is running. Tomás isn’t moving terribly fast, but he is moving. “Are the bags still in the closet?” Marcus asks.

“Behind the fake wall,” Tomás reminds him. “Do you want your Bible or should we just take my English one?”

“Let’s take mine and your good one,” Marcus says. “That many demons, we’ll need all the help we can get.”

He may or may not be superstitious about their Bibles. Tomás’s English Bible isn’t terribly special; he got it in seminary because his classes were all in English and he keeps it around because he didn’t want to mistranslate anything for his homilies at St. Anthony’s.

But his Spanish Bible was a gift from his grandmother on his fifteenth birthday. It had been his grandfather’s first, with notes and highlights from the man Tomás had never met. He takes loving care of it, and Marcus thinks there’s extra faith in that kind of book.

Marcus’s Bible, of course, is the one he got for his first-ever exorcism, twelve years old and trembling. He’d been holding that Bible when he saw God. If ever there were power in an object, he thinks it’s this one, even with all his redactions.

They get their things and are in the car in under twenty minutes. They’d had to ditch the truck long ago, but the little sedan they got is almost as old. They’d decided they didn’t need a truck anymore. They’re not planning to do any roadside exorcisms.

It’s a long drive to Baltimore. Tomás tries calling Mouse and then Bennett and then Kat and Verity in turn, but none of them answer. Fear clenches in Marcus’s stomach.

“We never pay attention to our phones in an exorcism,” Tomás reminds him quietly. “It may not be a bad sign.”

Marcus can tell even as Tomás is saying it that he doesn’t believe it any more than Marcus does. But it’s something to hold onto, at least. Marcus nods. “Yeah, you’re right,” he says, even though they both know he isn’t.

Tomás leans his head back in the seat and closes his eyes. But he scoots a bit on the bench seat, closer to Marcus, and rests his hand on Marcus’s leg. Marcus takes a deep breath and lets Tomás’s touch bring him peace and strength.

The exorcism seems like it’s taking forever. Kat knows Tomás and Marcus spent days on Casey even before she got away and they got her to the convent, but it feels so much longer while she’s in the room the whole time.

Mrs. Hanson has a nosebleed. Mouse is holding a tissue to her nose and asks, “Would you like some water, Mrs. Hanson?”

“As if I’d trust you,” Mrs. Hanson says. The demon, Kat reminds herself. “You’d give me holy water.”

“Why not leave this body and save us all the time?” Mouse suggests. Mrs. Hanson responds by sinking her teeth into Mouse’s shoulder. Mouse barely even reacts. Kat wonders if getting bitten a lot gets you used to it, like a vaccine. Maybe her skin will get tougher, literally and metaphorically.

Bennett comes closer and draws a cross on Mrs. Hanson’s forehead with ash. It sizzles like the holy water and Mrs. Hanson grunts in pain.

That’s pretty much how it goes for most of the morning. But Mrs. Hanson—the demon—catches on that Mouse and Bennett are pretty solid. Nothing it’s saying affects them. Instead, it starts to focus on Kat and Verity.

Kat knows it’s trying to distract Mouse and Bennett. She knows they shouldn’t react. But it’s a lot easier to think don’t react than to not react.

“Ready to go home yet?” Mrs. Hanson asks. She laughs. “What made you think you were cut out to be an exorcist? You couldn’t even make it through dance school.”

“Thou shalt not steal,” Kat says, because it’s the first Bible thing that pops into her head. “That means bodies, too.” Mouse laughs a little, and Kat grins. Okay. She’s got this.

“Kat.” It’s Julia’s voice now, and Kat can’t stop herself from gasping. “Kat, we can be together, you know.”

“No,” Kat says. She holds up the Bible like it’ll shield her from the demon.

“You really gave up your whole career for this?” Julia’s voice asks. “You had real talent, Kat. Now look at you. Look at your hair. All that beauty wasted.”

“I gave up dancing for Casey,” Kat says. Casey had already seen her hands and her body carry out violence she didn’t choose and couldn’t stop. Kat wasn’t going to make her add to her nightmares, the guilt she couldn’t shake.

“You gave up me,” Julia says. “And now what? You’re with that consolation prize?”

“Don’t talk to her,” Kat snaps. She knows it’s the demon messing with her head and she shouldn’t react, but hearing Julia talk about Verity is messing with her head, especially after her thoughts this morning when she woke up.

Mrs. Hanson laughs. “Ooh, did I hit a nerve, Kit Kat?”

“Get thee hence, Satan,” Bennett says, flicking more holy water on Mrs. Hanson.

“You dirty, disgusting girl,” Mrs. Hanson says. It’s a different woman’s voice, and Verity freezes instantly. Her eyes are wide with fear. “How could you think such filth? We raised you better.”

Verity shakes her head, eyes squeezed shut. “Stop.”

“We’ll teach you how you’re supposed to live,” the woman’s voice goes on. “Don’t you ever let me see you trying to kiss her again.”

That must be Verity’s birth mom’s voice, Kat realizes. The woman who sent Verity to get tortured to try to change her. Kat moves closer and presses her crucifix against Mrs. Hanson’s face, making her scream.

“Back, now,” Mouse says. “St. Agnes.”

“Pray for us,” Kat remembers to say, in time to join Verity and Bennett.

Mrs. Hanson’s voice switches to a man now. “Hey, kiddo.”

Verity shudders. “Don’t!” she cries.

“That is not your father,” Mouse says.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t see you graduate,” the man’s voice says. “You know me and Nicole are so damn proud of you.”

Verity’s crying now. “Andy is proud of me, and you’re not him.”

Andy. Verity’s dad who took her in, the one who got possessed and Marcus shot. Shit. Kat’s stomach drops. Of course the demon would go there. That’s probably the thing Verity’s most sensitive about.

“A little disappointed that you ran off to stay with the guy who killed me,” Andy’s voice says.

“St. Anthony,” Mouse says.

“Pray for us.” This time Bennett’s the only one who says it.

“Ah, Mouse, good to see you again,” Andy’s voice says. Mrs. Hanson looks at Verity. “You know she’s the one who brought the gun.”

“What?” Verity asks, shocked.

“Out, ye unclean spirit,” Bennett says. “The power of Christ compels you.”

“You brought the gun?” Verity demands.

“Of course I did,” Mouse says. Her voice is brusque, but Kat can see in her eyes that she didn’t want Verity to hear this. “I take a gun to all my exorcisms. It’s a mercy, when they’re that far gone.”

“A mercy?” Verity echoes, voice choked. “My dad is dead.”

“Well, not your real dad,” Andy’s voice contributes. “The one who got paid to be your dad.”

“The blood of Christ absolves you,” Bennett says.

“The…the mercy of Christ redeems you,” Kat remembers. Bennett nods at her. Kat grabs Verity’s hand. Verity’s in danger of unraveling. That won’t be good for the exorcism, and it won’t be good for Verity. “Verity,” Kat says lowly. “Come on. Stay on track.”

“How can I stay on track?” Verity asks.

Kat pulls her closer and hugs her. “Look at the person and see what they need,” she says. It was what Marcus told them earlier. Somehow, that was just hours ago. It feels like weeks ago.

Verity lets out a shaky breath. Kat can feel tremors going through her. But then Verity pushes back and nods. “Right,” she says. “Right.” She looks at Mrs. Hanson for a second and raises her chin. “The power of Christ compels you.”

Kat’s so proud of Verity she could cry. Before anyone can say or do anything else, the house shakes with the force of a slamming door. They hear someone running up the stairs. There’s an older guy, Mr. Hanson, from what Kat could tell from the pictures on the wall, and the three older sons.

“Get away from her!” Mr. Hanson yells.

“Your wife is in great danger,” Bennett says. Mr. Hanson winds up to punch him and Bennett dodges it. “We are attempting to save her. If you stop us, she could die.”

“You’re going to die!” one of the boys says.

“No, they’re helping!” Aaron says, coming in behind his dad and brothers. “She—she’s been acting crazy and speaking some other language, and she said there was a d-demon that wants me!”

“She said that?” Mouse asks. “Was she trying to get you to stay yes?”

Aaron nods. “That’s why she kept burning me and hitting me.”

“It’s not your mom,” Kat tells him. “Your mom isn’t the one doing it.”

Aaron looks away, and Verity says, voice angry and hurt, “His mom was already doing it.”

A trashcan flies across the room and almost hits Bennett. Mouse pulls him sideways to avoid it. And then suddenly Mr. Hanson and the three older boys are laughing, Mrs. Hanson is laughing, and demon voices fill the room. While they were focused on the trashcan, Mr. Hanson was cutting Mrs. Hanson loose.

“Five on four, and those two don’t even count,” Mr. Hanson says, nodding at Kat and Verity. “Who do you think will win?”

Mouse bites off a curse. “It’s all of them!”

“Why choose a whole family?” Bennett wonders. “They can’t get to Rome now.”

“We don’t care about that anymore,” Mrs. Hanson says. “We live for now. Do you know how much a nice, rich family can get away with?”

Bennett rushes at Mr. Hanson and manages to shove him out of the room. They can hear the two of them struggling. The three boys go after them, and then Mrs. Hanson runs, too.

“Stay here with him,” Mouse says. “We’ll draw the others away.”

“Wait,” Kat says. “Are you going to be safe?”

Mouse laughs a little. “That’s always the question.” She cocks her gun. “We do what we can. And if we can’t…” She shakes her head. “We leave it to God.” She runs out after all the demons.

”Oh, my God,” Kat says. Her heart is pounding so hard it hurts. She thinks she may have peed her pants. She can’t even tell. She’s drenched in sweat.

“Shouldn’t we help them?” Aaron asks.

“We have to stay here,” Kat says. “They told us to stay here.” She doesn’t love following orders or anything like that, but she’s definitely learned the power of doing as she’s told during an exorcism.

There’s screaming from the other room, and then, outside, they hear a gunshot. “Oh, no,” Verity breathes. They all run to the window, but wherever the action is, it’s farther away.

There’s more screaming outside, the demonic kind this time, and then another gunshot.

“Stop!” Aaron pleads. He’s looking at a spot behind Kat and her stomach drops. A demon’s talking to him right now.

“Aaron, don’t listen,” she says.

“I can’t do this anymore,” he says.

“Yes, you can, Aaron!” Verity says. She grabs his shoulders, but it doesn’t matter.

“Fine,” he sobs. “Fine, take me, leave them alone.”

“No!” Kat yells at him, but there’s nothing they can do. The room shakes, like a hurricane’s passing by, and then the rushing sound fills up her ears. The dust gathers and slams into him, and Kat knows he’s possessed now.

He rolls his shoulders and neck a few times and then turns a horrible grin on Kat and Verity. “Well, now,” he says, voice demonic. “Let’s have some fun.”

Verity has no idea what they’re supposed to do. She and Kat weren’t supposed to be here on their own, but here they are, in a room alone with a demon. He’s not even strapped down or anything. Maybe Verity should run. She got Andy to follow her; Aaron might, too, so at least Kat would be safe. Even if the demon caught Verity, she’d be glad if Kat stayed safe.

But Kat stands up straighter, shoulders back, and Verity has the wild thought that Kat’s going to start dancing. She doesn’t, of course. Instead, she holds her crucifix aloft and says, “You have no authority but that which is given.”

“You heard him,” Aaron says, grinning. “He invited me in. No point in an exorcism now.”

“Yeah, well, I guess I’m stubborn,” Kat says. “Suffer the little children to come unto me.”

“Boring,” Aaron says, though he flinched when Kat started.

“Whoso shall cause one of these little ones who believe in me to fall, it were better for him that a millstone were hung about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea,” Kat says.

Kat’s being so brave. She’s doing it. She’s doing the exorcism herself. Verity feels numb, but she manages to add, “Our Father, who art in heaven—”

“Ugh,” Aaron says. “It’s so cute when the kids try to play grownup.”

Kat’s suddenly thrown through the air. She hits the wall with a thud that makes Verity cry out, but then Kat just stays there, stuck. Her legs are dangling and kicking out at nothing, and then she starts choking.

“Verity!” Kat screams. Verity’s frozen in place. Not from the demon, from the fear. Mouse is outside somewhere, she can hear Bennett thrashing around in the other room with Mr. Hanson, and it’s just Verity here with a demon squeezing the life out of Kat.

The demon laughs. “Did you think she would save you?” he asks Kat. He makes an exaggerated frown. “Poor little freak girl. No one’s ever wanted her. She’s never had a friend in her life. So sorry I have to take the one you found.”

“No,” Verity says, lips numb.

“We took your mommy, we took your daddy, and now we’ll take your…” The demon smiles, cruel and sharp. “Well, she’s your friend, isn’t she? Your partner. Oh, little girl, what do you wish that meant?” Verity can’t breathe. God, she doesn’t want some demon telling Kat that. Verity’s not even sure—she’s barely even thought—

Kat’s head hits the wall again. “Help,” Kat gasps.

“She can’t help,” the demon says. “She only knows how to save herself.”

Verity’s knees feel weak. It’s true. She left the other kids at the camp behind and only focused on herself. She left Andy to die.

“Verity,” Kat chokes out. “No. Harper.”

Harper. Verity helped Harper. “No, you didn’t,” the demon says. “Marcus saved Harper.”

“Yeah,” Verity remembers. That’s true. Marcus saved Harper twice.

“You got your dumb oaf brother sent to kiddie prison, didn’t you?”

Verity’s chest is heaving, like she’s taking in extra breaths for what Kat can’t get. “Don’t call him that.”

“Promised and cried about how much you loved them, my brothers, and you just ran off alone.”

“No,” Verity says. “That’s…that’s not what happened.”

“That’s not what you’ve told yourself,” the demon says. “But it is what happened.”

Didn’t Verity run to distract the demon in the woods and get Andy to follow her? That’s what she remembers. She wanted the other kids to get out safe. But what if she’s wrong? What if she made that up to convince herself?

“Hail Mary, full of—” Kat chokes again.

“Exorcist Barbie’s getting old,” the demon says. “We should get rid of her.”

“Hail Mary, full of grace,” Verity says. That’s what Kat’s trying to say. That’s what they’re doing.

Verity shakes her head, feeling stronger now. She did protect her brothers in the woods. She’s held Harper through nightmares. Truck got to come back. Rose kept them all together, because they’re a family.

“A family without a father,” the demon reminds her. “And then you ran straight to the man who killed him.”

It puts a lump in Verity’s throat, too big to go on with the Hail Mary. He’s right, just like the demon in Mrs. Hanson earlier. Verity knows the whole truth of what Marcus did and she stayed with him. If she really loved Andy, wouldn’t she have left? She’s slept under the same roof as the man who murdered the only father who’s ever loved her. Verity couldn’t love him back enough to give this up.

“That’s because you can’t,” the demon says. “You can’t love. Never learned it, did you? Now you’re too broken.”

“No,” Kat says. Her face is red with the strain of trying to breathe, trying to move.

“No,” Verity agrees. This demon is wrong.

She can love. She loved Nikki and Andy. She loves Rose and Shelby and Caleb and Truck and Harper. She even loves Marcus and Tomás. And she loves Kat. She’s not going to just stand here and let a demon kill Kat. She’s not going through that again.

Verity brandishes the crucifix, making the demon hiss. She opens the Bible and reads whatever’s highlighted on the page. “Love is from God,” Verity recites. “Whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love!” It almost makes her laugh. Of course that’s what Marcus would highlight for them. The Bible opening there, with what the demon was trying to make Verity think, feels like a sign.

“Not your kind of love,” the demon spits.

“Yes!” Verity counters. “My kind of love!” She thinks of her family, all clinging together after tragedy. She thinks of Tomás and Marcus smiling at each other, taking in these two broken girls and feeling their way through blindly together. She thinks of Kat’s hand in hers, Kat who loved her family so much she took a hammer to her own knee to save them. Verity throws the holy water on the demon and winces at the sizzle. “Unclean thing, you are loved.”

Kat drops from the wall, gasping for air, but she’s up on her feet again admirably fast. They’re standing back to back and Verity’s feeling incredible—she feels strong, she feels powerful, she feels like an exorcist.

The demon laughs.

“Well, look at you go,” he sneers, and then she and Kat are both screaming in pain. It’s like a high-pitched sound, the way her ears would ring after her dad would hit her, but it’s filling up her head and her whole body.

Kat’s hand finds Verity’s and clutches on. “God,” Kat gasps. “God, help us, please.”

The door flies open behind her. Verity gasps, terrified Mr. Hanson got away from Bennett and is coming in. Instead, she sees Tomás and Marcus bursting in, and Verity thinks maybe I do believe in angels.

“Release this servant of God!” Marcus yells.

“Out, ye unclean spirit, in the name of the Lord!” Tomás adds.

There’s a loud clap of thunder outside, so strong it shakes the whole house. The windows burst and Verity tries to cover Kat’s head, because glass is flying everywhere. There’s a horrible screeching that sounds animal, inhuman. Verity can’t get a full breath.

Then everything stops. Aaron falls to his hands and knees, gasping. “I think it’s gone,” he whispers. They can see him trembling.

“I guess you can still be an exorcist after all,” Kat says breathlessly. As if on cue, Tomás’s eyes roll back in his head and he collapses.

Chapter Text

Tomás wakes up with a gasp. He’s on the floor somewhere, head in Marcus’s lap. “¿Qué pasó?” Tomás asks.

“It’s alright,” Marcus says, brushing his hair back. “You fainted.”

“Fainted,” Tomás echoes. He remembers now. They’d only just come into the room when the demon left. The pain in his head had overwhelmed him. He’s just glad he didn’t throw up—it smells like this room has seen enough of that.

Kat and Verity are standing in the corner, holding onto each other. They’re both pale and shaking, tears streaming down their faces, and there’s a teenage boy on the ground.

“Marcus,” Tomás murmurs. “Go.” Marcus hesitates, but Tomás knows Marcus knows he needs to. He needs to help that boy, first and foremost. He’d just been possessed. It won’t be as scary for Kat and Verity if Tomás crawls over to them, he thinks. At least they know who he is.

Marcus bends down and kisses Tomás’s forehead. Then he raises Tomás’s head slightly so he can get out from under him. Tomás can hold himself up. He actually feels much better now. His headache is dulling, less a jackhammer against his temple and now more a slight throb.

Marcus goes to the boy and helps him up, speaking softly and gently. Tomás manages to climb to his feet and goes over to Kat and Verity. “Are you alright?” he asks them.

“Are you?” Kat counters.

“I’m doing better now,” Tomás promises.

“Yeah, same,” Kat says. She sniffs and swipes at the tears on her face. “So. I guess we proved you right. We weren’t ready.”

“Are you joking?” Marcus asks. He’s helped the boy into a sitting position now. “That was a powerful demon. We didn’t do much. You must’ve already worked on it.”

Verity makes a face. “That kind of feels like when I can’t get a jar open and Andy used to tell me I loosened it up after he opens it.”

Tomás huffs. “No, he’s serious,” he says. “You did a good job. On your own. Where is Mouse or Bennett?”

“Here,” Bennett says from the doorway. He’s limping and his nose looks broken. “That was very intense.”

“We—we weren’t doing a very good job,” Verity says in a small voice. “The demon was, um, I don’t know, there was this really high pitched sound hurting my ears.”

“It felt like it was drilling into my head,” Kat agrees.

“And then Marcus and Tomás came in and…” Verity shakes her head.

“It was scared,” the boy speaks up. His voice is hoarse. “It screamed when you came in. I heard it in my head. And then when you started talking, it just…died.”

Tomás blinks. He looks at Marcus, who looks as surprised as he feels. “That’s new,” Marcus says.

Maybe it’s a gift from God. He knew Marcus and Tomás wouldn’t be able to withstand a whole exorcism, so He ended it quickly. Or maybe it was all the work Mouse and Bennett and Kat and Verity had already done. Tomás doesn’t think it was some kind of innate power in him. In Marcus, maybe. He could believe that.

“Bennett, I assume you and Mouse were working on exorcising the others,” Tomás says.

“Yes,” Mouse says, coming into the room now, too. “I’d gotten one bloody brother tied to a tree and was halfway through the litany of the saints. I felt your power coming from the house.”

“I think it must have been all of us at the same time,” Tomás reasons. “Like at the Vatican.”

The mass exorcism at the Vatican had been, in Tomás’s mind, the absolute definition of awe-inspiring. The four of them had met up with some other exorcists they’d known were still free from possession. Some were nuns, some were priests, some weren’t even Catholic. There had been about fourteen of them, and they’d stood in a line and exorcised the demons together.

Tomás has never known such power. Everyone calling for their power, their God, at the same time. They’d been facing down dozens of demons, but Tomás had practically felt God in the air with them. He’d still been half out of his mind from his visions and his own possession, but he’d felt it. Three different fires had started spontaneously, and the exodus of demons had caused a small earthquake.

That must be what happened here. Tomás and Marcus, Kat and Verity, and Mouse and Bennett had all been calling upon God at the same time. God had certainly heeded their call.

“Where is the rest of the family?” Tomás asks.

“Ah, I may have harmed the father,” Bennett says. He doesn’t sound very apologetic. Tomás thinks that’s a little strange until he looks at Aaron and says, “We can get you out of here.”

Tomás’s chest aches as he remembers that Bennett’s contact thought the family was already abusing the boy. “I don’t have anywhere to go,” the boy says. His lower lip is trembling.

“We will not leave until we know you’re safe,” Tomás promises. He wants to wrap this boy in his arms and carry him from this place, a home where he’s known both human and demonic evil. They can take him home with them if they need to.

“We know people,” Mouse says gently. “People who will help.”

Verity moves out of Kat’s arms and goes to the boy. “Aaron,” she says. “I know it’s scary. But you don’t have to live like this.” Aaron’s eyes are darting around, and Verity adds, softer, “They’re safe. You can trust everyone here.”

“We won’t let anyone hurt you anymore,” Kat says.

Marcus is still holding the boy’s elbow. He says, “You’ve been very brave, I hear. Let us take care of the rest of it.”

That seems to break any of Aaron’s last resolve. He starts to cry. Marcus pulls him into his chest and holds him, and Tomás can see tears in Marcus’s eyes, too. Tomás loves him so fiercely it hurts. And it hurts to think that Marcus understands perfectly. It hurts to know that no one ever gave Marcus this kind of safety.

No one until now, Tomás corrects himself internally. Anyone who wants to get to Marcus now has to go through him first.

They leave the room looking like a bomb went off in it, one more in a long string of rooms across the world that have been used to hold and cast out demons. Marcus wraps his arm around Tomás’s waist, though Tomás doesn’t need the help anymore, and Mouse supports Bennett’s weight. He may have broken his ankle.

The rest of the family is outside, blinking worriedly in the sunshine. Tomás puts his hand on Marcus’s shoulder to stop him. “The demons are gone now,” Tomás says. They may not be good people, but they did not deserve to be possessed, and he can’t leave them without giving them at least some peace of mind.

“How did a demon get in my head?” the mother sobs.

“They wanted your wealth,” Mouse says.

“Aaron, what did you do?” the father, ashen and bleeding, asks accusingly. “You did this, didn’t you?”

“He didn’t do a bloody thing wrong,” Marcus growls. “And he’s coming with us. You’re going to sign anything that needs signing and pay for whatever schooling he chooses, do you hear me?”

“We know what you did to him,” Verity says. Her eyes are shining with tears. “We’re getting him out of here.”

Aaron’s family doesn’t have many more protests. Aaron looks at his brothers, but none of them look back at him. His face crumples and he lets Verity and Kat each take one of his arms to lead him to the car.

“They might just need time,” Verity says. “Sometimes it takes a while to admit to yourself that it was abuse. And once you get away, it might make them realize some things.”

Tomás feels his heart swell with pride. He doesn’t think he deserves to be proud of her; this is Verity herself and Andy and Nicole’s influence far more than anything Tomás did. But he can’t help it. She held her own in the face of a demon, and now she’s reassuring an abused child. Tomás offers up a quick, silent prayer of thanks that Andy came into Verity’s life and saved her like she’s going to go on to save others.

Mouse and Bennett take Aaron to someone they know in the area. Kat and Verity go with them, since Aaron seems to trust them more. Tomás and Marcus get to the car and realize they have no idea where to go next. But then Tomás’s phone buzzes. Kat sent him an address—the motel. They’ll get their own room instead of driving all the way home now.

The motel, when Tomás and Marcus get there, isn’t one Tomás has ever been to, but it’s still so familiar a sight it makes Tomás’s stomach hurt for a moment. They have been to hundreds of rooms just like this. Two beds, an ancient coffeemaker, carpet that smells a bit dusty. Tomás thinks he could close his eyes and he’d go back in time to him and Marcus, alone on the road.

“Did you miss these kinds of places?” Marcus teases.

Tomás pulls him close. “In a way,” he says. He presses his face into Marcus’s neck. “I miss them because I fell in love with you in them.”

Marcus turns his head slightly so he can kiss Tomás’s hair. “Yeah,” he breathes. “I spent forty-odd years in places like this, but the last year was the one I liked most.” He strokes Tomás’s back, and then says, “Tomás—”

“I know,” Tomás cuts him off. “You are worried about me.”

“Of course I am,” Marcus says. His voice shakes. “You had a seizure, and a vision, and then you fainted.”

Tomás sighs. “I think it was all related to the vision.”

“Probably,” Marcus agrees. “But I don’t know what we do about that. It can’t be good for this to keep happening.”

“My head feels good now,” Tomás says. “The best in a long time.”

Marcus pulls back to look at him. He cups Tomás’s face in his hands. It’s very comforting when he does that. When Tomás first started to feel he was losing himself, Marcus would do that to get his attention. It always felt like Marcus was holding him together.

“Well, I’m glad for that, at least,” Marcus says. “S’pose this is one of those things we’ll have to leave in God’s hands.”

Tomás smiles at him. “I can already feel your prayers.”

Marcus manages to laugh, at least. It’s a bit strange to putter around a motel room with nothing to do. They’re just waiting for everyone else to get back. They didn’t even bring overnight bags—the only bags they grabbed were their exorcist bags, full of rope, holy water, and rosaries.

Tomás pulls Marcus down onto one of the beds. Marcus quirks an eyebrow at him, but Tomás says, “I thought we could use some rest.”

Marcus’s smile is soft and beautiful and makes Tomás smile instantly in return. “Rest,” Marcus says. “With you? Sounds lovely.”

Neither of them fully nap, but they doze for about an hour before Mouse texts to say they’re back. Marcus groans as he pulls himself to his feet and Tomás laughs at him. “Your poor old bones,” he says. Marcus swats at Tomás’s ass in retaliation and Tomás laughs.

They have to go down one floor to the other room. Kat still looks pale when she lets them in. “Did you eat anything?” Marcus checks. “You both need to eat something. As big a meal as you can handle. You’re a bit in shock.”

“We haven’t,” Mouse says.

“Is this a debrief?” Tomás asks.

Bennett shrugs. “If you want to call it that.”

“Can I start?” Tomás asks.

“What do you even have to debrief?” Kat mutters. It’s a fair point, Tomás has to admit, since he and Marcus had showed up at the end and Tomás had passed out.

“I wanted to say how proud I am,” he says, and Kat makes an apologetic face at him. It’s a face he knows well from her, and it makes him smile. “That was not the situation we thought you would be walking into. And you did such a good job.”

“You did,” Mouse agrees. “That demon tried to shake you and failed.”

“I wouldn’t say totally failed,” Kat says meekly.

“That’s alright,” Marcus says. “It happens to us all at one time or another. Always expected at your first.”

“And Verity, you were quite good at getting Aaron to speak with us,” Bennett praises. Verity ducks her head a little.

“His mom didn’t want to talk to me, though,” she says.

“Uh, yeah, but his mom was a demon,” Kat points out. Verity snorts.

“But still. Maybe I need to clean up my image,” Verity says, picking at a thread in the hole at her knee. “Stand out less.”

“I don’t think so,” Mouse says, brisk as ever but no less feeling for it. “I’d dare say we’ve got enough conventional exorcists out there. About bloody time someone interesting came along.”

Tomás makes an offended little noise, holding up a hand to say excuse me?, and Mouse laughs at him. “Verity, I think your image is just fine,” Tomás says. “You and Kat make a good balance.”

They both blush a little at that. Tomás fights the urge to raise his eyebrows. Oh. Well. He didn’t see that coming. Good for them if they can figure it out without either of them being possessed. He and Marcus took the long route there.

Bennett and Mouse are going to set off for another exorcism in the morning, out in Maine. “Keep your phone ready this time,” Marcus grouses. “Then if Tomás has another vision he can just call.”

“Marcus Keane telling me to answer my phone,” Bennett says. “The hypocrisy is blinding.”

Tomás doesn’t mention this, but he thinks he’s done with visions. He can’t explain how he knows; it’s like this last one, so painful it wracked his whole body, shook him loose. His head feels clearer than it has since Angela’s exorcism.

Kat and Verity don’t even try to argue to go with Mouse and Bennett. They seem ready for a long rest. They’re shell-shocked, to put it lightly. Marcus and Mouse take them to find food, but Bennett says he wants to talk to Tomás.

Tomás almost wants to beg Marcus to stay. It isn’t that he has a problem with Bennett, but it’s a little awkward. Bennett is really Marcus’s friend, even if friend isn’t exactly a fitting word. They’ve known each other a long time, are sometimes allies and sometimes enemies, but either way, Tomás mostly only knows Bennett through Marcus. Sitting here with him, just the two of them, reminds Tomás of when Olivia would drag him out to parties when he first came back to Chicago. She’d abandon him in gaggles of girls to go dance, hoping someone would tempt him away from his determination to take his vows.

Tomás doesn’t really know Bennett. Except that he does know Bennett, and feels all the more awkward for it. He exorcised Bennett and loved him through it. An exorcism teaches you about a person in the wrong order. You learn their deepest hurts, their most closely-guarded secrets, their secret desires, all before you know what kinds of movies they like.

He knows about Bennett’s sister who died. He knows that Bennett grew up protecting her, going hungry to feed her, trying desperately to find a way to get them both out. And he knows Bennett’s guilt, how he feels he left her behind and isn’t sure he can ever forgive himself.

It feels strange to know these things when he and Bennett have never really had a conversation that wasn’t about exorcisms or the fate of the Church and the world at large. They’re past the point of small talk, but they were never at the point of small talk.

“Well,” Bennett says. “I’d say your experiment’s working out well.”

“I don’t think I had much to do with it,” Tomás admits.

“Tomás, they were reciting the armor of God,” Bennett says. That gives Tomás a little rush of pride. Not pride in himself, like he’s spent so long trying to tamp down. Pride in them. A bit of pride in his teaching. That feels better than just pride in himself in general.

But even still, he thinks Kat and Verity deserve the bulk of the credit. “I can teach anyone some scriptures,” he points out with a shrug.

“Well, I’d like you to,” Bennett says. “And not just the exorcism training. The other things you did. The…” He makes a face. “Feelings.”

Tomás snorts. “I know feelings are not any of our favorite thing, but we have to be in control of them for the exorcisms.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” Bennett says. “Draw me up your plan.”

“Okay,” Tomás says. “Thank you, Bennett.”

“You’re welcome,” Bennett says. He raises his eyebrows. “Is there something you want to ask me?”

Tomás bites his lip. He’s been thinking about this for a long time, even before his possession, but he knows it makes Marcus uncomfortable and worried. “I think I…”

He looks down at his hands for a moment. He has a scar that wasn’t there a year ago, a bite mark from a possessed woman in Tulsa. He broke three fingers while he was possessed and they’ve healed knotted. His hands have blessed babies and given absolution and handed out communion and written sermons. His hands have held crucifixes and thrown holy water and chained someone to a bed. And now, most recently, his hands have held Marcus’s. This last thought makes him smile.

He's at peace, thinking of this now. He’s been troubled by this decision, going back and forth, but he knows now this is the right thing to do. He’s had the hands of a priest, and the hands of an exorcist, and now most of all he wants the hands of a lover.

“I would like to be laicized,” Tomás says.

Bennett isn’t surprised. “I thought this was coming.” He sighs. “I assume you’ve spoken with Marcus about it?”

“A bit,” Tomás says. “He didn’t ask me to do this.”

“No, he wouldn’t do that,” Bennett says. He sighs again. “I know you haven’t come to this decision lightly.”

“No,” Tomás agrees.

“But you believe it’s what God would want?” Bennett asks.

Tomás can’t help but smile. “God sent me to Marcus,” he says. “And God sent Marcus to me. I think God has made His opinion clear.”

Bennett huffs. “You and Marcus are so fond of your sacrilege.” It almost sounds fond. Bennett nods. “Alright, then,” he says. “I’ll grant you this. But you’ll still be under the Office of Exorcism.”

“Thank you,” Tomás says. “Bennett, thank you for…” He shakes his head. “Everything.”

Bennett gave them intel while the Vatican was literally breathing down his neck. He found ways to get them money and contacts. He kept them as safe as he could for as long as he could. And now he’s giving them a way to help, to save souls, without having to do exorcisms themselves. Tomás has no idea where they’d be if not for Bennett.

“Yes, alright,” Bennett says. Tomás laughs a little, and he even sees Bennett smiling.

Tomás feels invigorated now. He still has a purpose. He will still be doing good, still working for God. He’ll be filling a need that no one was taking care of before. And he’ll do it all with Marcus at his side, neither of them worrying about vows.

It’s more than Tomás could’ve hoped for. It’s more than he’d even know to hope for. But he remembers a feeling he had all the way at the beginning of this. He has his path. It’s time to get out of the boat and start walking.

Marcus and Mouse take Kat and Verity to some small, kind of grimy diner that Marcus looks around at with a smile. “I like places like this,” he says.

“I think it’s best we get the food to go,” Mouse says. “Sorry to rain on your party.”

“Did you get that from Tomás, or are you making up your own sayings now?” Marcus asks, laughing. Mouse doesn’t dignify it with a response.

Verity doesn’t think her knees have stopped shaking since they got up in the morning. God, that was this morning. It feels like today’s lasted a year. Her teeth are chattering and she clenches her jaw to stop it.

“It’s okay,” Kat whispers, but her hand on Verity’s shoulder is shaking, too.

“Food and rest,” Marcus says firmly. “Won’t stop the nightmares, but it’s easier to take care of your body than your mind.”

“Well, that’s positive,” Verity mutters. She can’t imagine what kind of nightmares she’s going to have tonight. She was already having nightmares before she saw a cloud of demon-dust take over a guy’s body and make her hear her mom’s voice taunting her.

They don’t talk much while they wait for their order. When they get it and get back to the motel, Verity can only pick at her food. She knows she needs to eat. She just keeps remembering the smell of sulfur in her nose and it’s making her sick.

“Want me to do the airplane?” Kat asks, voice trembling. Verity manages to laugh a little, but tears are building up in her throat.

“I know that it feels terrifying,” Tomás says. “I know you’re exhausted. I’m not going to say it will feel better in the morning. It’s going to take some time. You’re going to feel…almost like you’ve been sick and have to get better. And that’s just the physical part.”

“I’m sure you heard some things that hurt,” Marcus says.

“Yeah, you could say that,” Kat says. Verity’s stomach hurts again. It’s not just the smell of sulfur or her mom and Andy’s voices. It’s remembering the demon using Kat’s dead kind-of-girlfriend against her. And…well. The other stuff the demon said.

“It used Andy’s voice,” Verity says, pushing her eggs around.

Tomás sighs. “Oh, Verity, I’m sorry.”

“You were very strong,” Mouse says. “I’m sorry you had to be.”

“You both were,” Bennett says. Verity gets the feeling he doesn’t hand out a lot of praise or reassurance. It makes her feel kind of young, though it makes her feel good, too.

“I’m sorry,” Marcus says. He isn’t meeting her eyes. Tomás puts his hand on the back of Marcus’s neck.

Verity doesn’t know why this exorcism made things feel clearer to her. She just let go of most of her anger. Not all—she’s never going to stop being angry that her dad is dead—but she’s not angry at Marcus.

“There really wasn’t any coming back after the demon took him,” Verity says, tears sliding down her cheeks. “I get that now. Even if he lived, he wouldn’t—he’d be in jail or something. We wouldn’t have gotten to stay with him.”

“He would’ve taken all of you and run,” Marcus says. “We’d have helped.”

“No, he’d never do that,” Verity says.

“He would,” Marcus counters, but gently. “A man like that would do anything for his children.”

He’s right. She knows Andy would’ve done anything for them. But what could he have done? He killed Russ and Colleen. He killed Harper’s mom. He broke Shelby’s leg and took Caleb’s cane and left Truck in some institution. He dropped Rose in the well so she almost died. He almost suffocated Verity to death.

It was the demon, it was the demon, it was the demon. But it was Andy’s face, Andy’s voice, Andy’s hands. And Verity knows Andy would never have forgiven himself for it. She would’ve forgiven him, already has and didn’t blame it while it was happening, but she knows he wouldn’t have been the same Andy.

“I forgive you,” she whispers. Marcus inhales sharply, eyes wet.

“You don’t have to,” he says.

“Well, I do,” she tells him. That’s all she can really say for now. She doesn’t want to be in this cramped little motel room anymore. She gets up and leaves. No one tries to stop her, but she’s not surprised when Kat follows her.

She’s glad. Part of her gets excited about it, which adds to her confused feelings. It feels weird to be excited right now. They go outside and lean against the hood of Tomás and Marcus’s old lady car.

“You good?” Kat asks. “You know. Relatively.”

Verity manages to laugh. “I guess so. You?”

Kat just blows out a breath and widens her eyes. They both laugh a little at that. After a few seconds where neither of them say anything, Kat takes a deep breath. “So, um, should we…talk about some of the stuff the demon said?” she asks awkwardly. “Like…to get it all out in the open so another demon can’t use it against us.”

Verity can feel herself blushing already. God, that fucking demon. Now Kat knows Verity has a crush on her. Verity barely even realized that, but from the way she felt when the demon said it, she knows it’s true.

“We don’t have to,” Verity says.

Kat snorts. “I feel like not talking about it is kind of a way of talking about it.”

Verity sighs. “Look, don’t worry about it. I’ll get over it.”

Kat just looks at her for a minute, and Verity hunches a bit. She can’t even imagine what Kat sees when she looks at Verity. An immature kid? A friend she’s going to have to let down easy? This is humiliating. They agreed to be exorcist partners, not any of this. Kat already deals with guys throwing themselves all over her; she doesn’t need Verity doing it, too.

“Julia was my best friend,” Kat says softly. “For years. And by the time I realized what I felt…” She looks away, but only for a second. She turns back to Verity. “It feels unfair. It feels like I should’ve realized sooner with her. Because I just barely met you, and I already know I’m falling for you.”

Verity’s heart starts to pound. I’m falling for you. She just heard Kat say that with her own ears. She’s almost worried the exorcism didn’t work after all and this is all some trick from a demon. But really, that shouldn’t be what she’s focusing on in what Kat said. Kat still has so much guilt about what happened to Julia. This is hurting her.

It’s hurting Verity now, too, thinking that these feelings that give her butterflies are making Kat feel bad. Verity can get over her crush if that’s better for Kat. “We don’t have to go there,” Verity says. “We’re partners in this. We can stay partners like we have been.”

Kat doesn’t say anything for a second. Then she moves her pinky over to tangle with Verity’s where they’re both resting on the car. Verity’s heart leaps and she looks down at their entwined pinkies. “But maybe…we do go there,” Kat says quietly.

“Oh,” Verity squeaks.

“Maybe just…slow,” Kat says. “We’re both kind of, uh, going through a lot right now.”

Verity laughs, giddy and kind of high-strung and just on the verge of hysterical. “That’s super mature of you.” Kat snorts at her. “Yeah. Slow works.”

Verity feels bolder now. She moves her hand closer to Kat’s and turns it palm-up, an invitation. Kat smiles. It’s not her big grin when she’s laughing or her smirk when she’s shooting off a smart comment at someone. This is a small, sweet little smile Verity’s never seen before. It’s a smile just for Verity, she realizes. She wants to see more of it. Kat takes her hand and Verity laughs again just out of pure happiness. She can’t believe this is real.

“Good,” Kat murmurs. She bites her lip and Verity can’t look away. “Because I feel like…slow will be nice. We can feel everything.”

Verity spent so long trying not to feel anything. Anger was the easiest thing to feel for most of her life. She was angry and rude and mean to everyone around her. Feeling things was terrifying, because it meant facing, really facing, what happened. What her own family put her through.

She’s gotten better at feelings. She still wouldn’t say she’s great, but she’s a work in progress. Aren’t we all, she can all but hear Marcus say dryly. This, these feelings with Kat, their fingers laced together and both of them blushing, is something Verity really, really wants to feel.

Mouse lets Kat and Verity both hug her in the morning before they go their separate ways. Marcus raises his eyebrows at Mouse over Verity’s head, but he doesn’t tease her about getting soft or anything like that. He’d like Mouse to show her soft side more often.

Kat and Verity sleep most of the way home, nestled together in the backseat. Tomás looks back at them and then over at Marcus. “They are they,” he whispers, which would be utter nonsense if Marcus didn’t know exactly what he means.

Marcus isn’t sure if it’s because he knows Tomás so well or if it’s just that obvious that Kat and Verity have some sort of something brewing between them. Maybe they should’ve seen this coming. Maybe it’s a feature of working exorcisms in pairs. He’ll have to check in with Mouse later and see if she and Bennett are getting up to anything.

Tomás slept well and woke up headache-free today, and it’s settled Marcus’s nerves. He doesn’t know how long that will hold or what they’ll do if it doesn’t. But for today, it isn’t a worry. Today, Tomás turns the radio low so as not to disturb the sleeping girls in the backseat and sings along under his breath. Marcus always wishes Tomás would sing louder. He has a rather beautiful voice, but he’s bashful about it. He’ll only sing loudly if Marcus does, too, and they’re being silly.

Marcus sighs with relief when they get home. Home. He’s never had a home until now, not really. The house with his parents certainly wasn’t a home. But this apartment, with its ugly view of a brick wall and its mismatched chairs and the pipe that makes that awful clanking sound every once in a while, is a refuge. It’s safety and security. Their home hasn’t seen any violence. It’s the first place Marcus has ever lived longer than six months that can say that.

Tomás makes Kat and Verity eat—ham and cheese sandwiches, because that’s always his go-to meal—before they go into their room and pass out again. They’ve been holding hands all day, and it makes Marcus smile.

He snorts at the sound of one of them snoring. “They’re going to wake up at 2 am and have no idea what day it is.”

“Remember how long I slept after Angela’s exorcism?” Tomás asks.

“Almost three days,” Marcus remembers. “Thought I needed to go in there and turn you for bedsores.”

Tomás laughs. He leads Marcus with their plates of sandwiches and potato crisps out to the front steps. It’s a little cool but not uncomfortably; the sun is going down, trying to stay out longer now it’s spring but not lasting long. Tomás’s good mood from finally being pain-free is catching, and Marcus finds himself humming as he follows Tomás.

He peels an orange and sections out pieces for Tomás. Tomás loves oranges but hates peeling them, and it gives Marcus a thrill to do it for him. It’s only an orange, but still. Sharing it, feeding Tomás, is an act of love. He certainly means it that way, and he knows Tomás gets that.

“So,” Marcus says once they’ve finished eating. “Are we going to talk about it?”

Tomás stacks their plates together and puts them off to the side. He leans against Marcus’s side. “My laicization?”

“No, your haircut,” Marcus deadpans.

“Well, we should probably talk about that, too,” Tomás snarks. “Since I am sure you have an opinion.”

“Tomás.”

Tomás laughs. He rests his head on Marcus’s shoulder. “I feel good about it.”

“Are you sure?” Marcus asks.

“You know that I am,” Tomás points out. And yeah, he does. Tomás has been thinking about it for months. It’s just that Tomás can be impulsive sometimes. Marcus doesn’t want this to be a regret for him to look back on later. “I think this is what God wants,” Tomás adds softly. “I think this fits His plan for me.”

“And it just happens to be what you want, too,” Marcus says.

“It’s not what you want?” Tomás asks.

“I don’t want you to give up anything for me.” He knows it’s a stupid thing to say. He knows Tomás would—and has—give up so much for him.

“Well,” Tomás muses. “I will miss the way some people gave me free refills when I wore the collar.”

“I miss that a lot,” Marcus agrees, but his voice breaks a bit because he doesn’t see how. How Tomás can do this. How Tomás can think Marcus is worth this.

Tomás laughs softly, sitting up straight again. “Marcus,” he murmurs. He turns Marcus’s head to look at him. “I would give up anything for you.”

Marcus presses his forehead to Tomás’s. “I don’t know if you should.”

“But you think you should give up anything for me,” Tomás points out. He’s not even getting mad or upset. He’s still smiling at Marcus.

“I…” Marcus doesn’t know what to say. He knows Tomás won’t want him to say that he’s not worth it.

Tomás kisses him softly. “I might miss little things. But I will still have God. We will still have our work and our purpose. And I will get you. That is better than anything I’m giving up.”

Marcus is choked up about that, not that Tomás could possibly be surprised. Tomás is smiling, but his eyes are tearing up, too. Marcus pulls him in for a hug and relishes the way Tomás rests his whole weight against him. He loves that, the way Tomás will let his body droop and let Marcus be the only thing holding him up. He loves when Tomás returns the favor, too. Tomás is the only person Marcus has ever hugged like that.

“Well,” Marcus says quietly in Tomás’s ear. “I can’t promise I know I’m worth that. But I can promise I’ll be right here with you through it all.”

He can feel Tomás’s smile against his face. “I know you will,” Tomás says. “And I will be at your side forever.”

They aren’t marriage vows, not traditionally. Marcus has no idea if they’ll ever bother to do that officially. But they’re men used to making and upholding vows. They made them to God, and now they’re making them to one another.

Forever. Marcus is already older than he ever expected to live. He’s already experienced more happiness than he ever expected to get. But he’s got two young apprentices inside who trust him and rely on him. He’s got Mouse and Bennett and Olivia and Luis, people who care about him not as an exorcist but as a person.

And he’s got Tomás. All those Church politicians and the demons called Tomás the rising star. He is, but not in the way they thought. Tomás is a rising star not for the Church but for God. Tomás is a rising star to help others and see their humanity. Tomás is a rising star for teaching others.

He is Marcus’s stars, if Marcus wants to get flowery about it. Tomás is the brightest spot in Marcus’s life. Marcus is already older and happier than he ever expected, yes, but he knows down to his bones that he’ll only get older and happier from here on. They’ll teach whoever Bennett sends them to teach. They’ll build this life together until they shuffle off this mortal coil.

The first time they met, when Tomás came to him at St. Aquinas and told Marcus he was in his dreams, Marcus had sent him away. Live a long and happy life. He’d meant without him, of course. But that’s not what Tomás means now. Tomás wants to live a long and happy life together.

“Forever,” Marcus echoes.

“Forever,” Tomás confirms.

That used to mean different things to Marcus. It used to mean being stuck forever with his parents’ brutal hands. It used to mean being forever unloved and unwanted. It even used to mean forever as a tool with no will but God’s.

Now it means Tomás. It means praying together each night before bed, holding hands with their heads bowed together. It means family and home. It means serving God and making his own choices, too. It means living a life. He’s not entirely sure he knows how. But he’s going to try.

He remembers asking God, after that first meeting with Tomás, all this time, and this is what you send me? Now he thinks of that, he thinks of God sending Tomás to find him and God speaking to him to tell him to get back to Tomás, and he thinks thank you, Lord, for sending me my life.

It had taken him so long to think his life was worth anything if he wasn’t useful. So long to think he had any use other than exorcism. But now he has life. He has love. He has Tomás. Forever, forever, forever. These are gifts from God, and Marcus knows better than to try to reject His gifts.

So instead, he leans over and kisses Tomás and smiles at the way Tomás smiles into it. They sit and watch the sunset together in front of their home. Marcus’s head is quiet and his heart is light. When the sun drops down and the sky is dark, he tugs at Tomás’s hand to get him to stand, and they step into forever together.