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Evan Jennings was 16 when he and his parents had packed up and more or less drove four and a half hours away just to hang out in a patch of unoccupied woods for the weekend.
Evan was not so much an outdoorsman as he was a gym rat, but he did enjoy the occasional dubiously legal excursions to go camp in the middle of nowhere for a weekend here and there throughout the school year. After all―being a gym rat and a martial arts nut wouldn’t round him out into the kind of person who would probably survive the end of the world, which was his ultimate goal if he was totally honest. Outdoors survival skills were important! Nobody was going to survive the apocalypse scavenging from Wal-Marts with no idea how to live in the wilds.
(Being a gym rat and a martial arts nut did not make him any less of a nerd or a geek, clearly, but it did make it somewhat less obvious… until he started pulling out his video game-based theories on how the world would end and how he was going to survive. But he was a pretty typical teenage boy ― one expected that sort of thing from him.)
More important than that, though, it was just kind of cool to hang out in the woods.
But he was 16, and they were out in a patch of thick woods four and a half hours from home, and he was wandering through the woods nearby. He was smart enough to trail a length of twine along behind him, tied to one of the stakes of his tent, so that he wouldn’t get lost no matter how far he went as long as he didn’t drop it. Once he ran out he could turn around and go back.
Although an argument could be made that he shouldn’t be wandering at night.
He crossed the overgrown dirt road they’d rolled in on, mere yards from the highway, and paused on the tree-line. He directed his flashlight down the road and, remembering what looked like a path on this side, made a bee-line for it. He glanced down at his roll of twin, squinting. He may not have enough to get to the end of the path, but he could probably make his way back to it tomorrow to explore if that was the case.
His parents would be doing their own exploring, willing at this age to just let him be and go on his own while they went on theirs.
Finding the path and glancing at his twine again, he threw a glance over his shoulder into the darkness. In the distance he could still make out the faintest glow of the campfire. His parents would probably be in their tent by now, settling in to sleep and trusting him to come back and stomp the fire out in the next few hours. But he had enough twine to get a good distance down the path (which, this close, seemed more like long grass stamped down by a large animal several times over), and he would very much like to try.
So, taking a deep breath and delighting in the mild tingle of anxiety that wandering around the woods alone at night always gave him, he started down the path.
The sounds of the woods at night―crickets, distant wolves, the faintest babble of a stream off in the nearby clearing―kept him from feeling too unsettled as he wandered down the path. It became less stamped down as he went, but the snapped saplings and broken branches of the trees forming the corridor kept him moving and sure of his direction.
Suddenly, stepping out of the now waist-high grass, he found himself in a clearing.
The grass within was reasonably short, only roughly shin-high, and shining his flashlight around showed there were a great deal of flowers… Then, that the clearing was nearly perfectly circular.
Weird, but not the weirdest thing he’d ever seen in the woods at night.
He knelt, examining one of the flowers and glancing next to him at another tall plant that seemed to border the clearing with the trees.
Much later in life he would come to learn it was wolf’s bane―also called monkshood―, and that seeing it there should have sent him running.
But in that moment, he had never seen that plant before, and all he thought was that it was kind of pretty. And then, looking back down at the flowers, he realized he also didn’t know what they were called, but he’d seen them before. He was pretty sure they were poisonous… But he was also pretty sure they tasted horrible. And along with it (and several others like it) were marigolds.
(Later, he found out they were oleanders, and their presence also should have warned him away. And the marigolds… To a lesser extent.)
As it was, as with the monkshood, he just thought they were pretty.
He stood, shining his flashlight around the clearing once more and moving further in. If nothing else it would make for a good starting point for exploring tomorrow―it was easy enough to find, so he could tie the twine to one of the trees and be on his way.
By all means, he was done. He should go back to the campsite before it got too late, stomp out the fire, and go to bed.
But he wanted to keep looking around a while.
So he stepped further in, noticing at last that the center of the clearing had no grass―just rock that faded into grass further out.
Shining his light on it, he noticed carvings in the rock.
He stepped closer, kneeling and reaching out to trace his fingers over it in hopes of maybe recognizing any of the carvings. He furrowed his brows. He’d never seen these before, except in, like, horror movies. And even then he’d never seen these carvings. His mom would probably have an idea of what it was, since she sort of studied shit like this for a living, but that would have to wait until morning.
He started to withdraw, pulling his hand away from the rocks and resolving to go ahead and go back to the campsite.
And then, only when he did so, he realized the crickets had stopped chirping.
It was dead.
Silent.
He stopped, heart rate and blood pressure spiking at what must be some kind of record for him, and before he could even stand and book it back toward the campsite, something that looked like a huge spider leg sat itself heavily down on the rocks from over his shoulder. He froze solid, terrified for about a thousand different reasons at once, and struggled not to whimper when a hot breath blew against his back.
Another spider leg landed on the rocks, over the other shoulder.
“Well, well, well,” A voice, or several voices speaking at once, said from behind and above him―the same place the breathing was coming from, “A little rabbit off on its own. How…” A huge, wolf-like paw that was probably the size of his head or larger, moved in front of his face before settling on his chest, as if he was being grabbed, “... Convenient.”
He trembled, leaning away from the touch but then flinching away from the contact with one of this thing’s legs. And the voice, or the voices, laughed. Huffed out a hard breath that rustled his hair.
And then he felt its clearly massive form closing in over his back, and he squeezed his eyes closed.
The next breath was isolated to the back of his neck rather than his entire back, and at last he was unable to avoid whimpering. He knew it was stupid to walk around the woods at night, knew he should have gone back to the tent before now…
Teeth, huge teeth, closed in on the sides of the back of his neck, and the paw pressed to his chest, the paw he’d flinched back into, pulled away as the thing closed its jaw tighter. Tighter. He peeked a terrified eye open, trying to see… Something. He wasn’t sure what. Maybe he was just hoping that with his eyes open it would all fade away.
Instead, he saw the first spider leg lifting slowly. Slowly.
It pressed into his shoulder, pointy and dangerous.
The other followed its lead.
They began to press, and he instinctively flinched forward. Another laugh rumbled behind him, and the breath was wet against his neck. It was highly unpleasant. But it moved with him, pressing him with the legs but helping lower him to the ground without injury by lowering its head and chest until he was practically face down… Which was an awkward position, but he wouldn’t process that tidbit until later.
He turned his head, and the creature loosened its jaw and withdrew to allow it which was weirdly considerate of it. But while he squinted up at it from his uncomfortable position on the ground, twine and flashlight pressing hard against his chest and spider-legs pressed into his shoulders, all he saw was a hulking shape in the darkness, somehow darker than the black backdrop.
One spider leg lifted.
Pressed against his cheek instead, shifting to the corner of his mouth. It hooked in and pulled the skin aside.
He yelped, flinching and struggling to hold still so he wouldn’t hurt himself.
The creature gave another laugh.
In his distraction, he didn’t notice the other leg lifting until it was already gone. He spared a thought to where it had gone, not sure he wanted to know, and then―
Oh.
He blinked, wide-eyed, gaze stuck on the entrance to the clearing, as he started to process what had just happened.
The other leg was now pinning him to the ground.
Because it was stuck through his back and into the rock.
It withdrew, slowly, and he wondered why it didn’t hurt more than it did. Maybe he was just in shock?
“There we go.”
He blinked again, trying to look up at the creature.
Glowing purple eyes stared back at him, and he realized the form kneeling over him now was human.
“Pretty strong body ya got here, kid. Mind if I borrow it a while?”
He opened his mouth to protest, but all that came out was a wet cough.
… Blood?
He wouldn’t be surprised.
“Great, cool!” A hand landed on his face, and he recognized the feeling of calluses, “This is gonna be fun.”
And the light of the thing’s eyes disappeared and everything went horribly, completely black.
He blinked himself awake to the sound of his parents talking and laughing.
The sun was up, the birds were singing.
He jerked upright, hands going to his chest, his mouth, but he found nothing. No hole. No dried blood. He was in one piece.
Totally unharmed.
… A nightmare?
He hadn’t had one like that in… God, he didn’t know how long.
Not since he was a kid, for sure.
But he searched his tent as quietly as he could, pulling on a new set of clothes as he went, and found nothing out of place. He must have come back from wandering last night and went right to sleep and had a nightmare about the spooky clearing… Or something.
The memory would come back to him eventually, he was sure.
And when he emerged from the tent, his parents greeted him and thanked him for remembering to put out the fire and, after a moment, asked if he was alright.
“Just had a nightmare,” He waved off their concern, “Still trying to figure out where it started and where my walk ended, ha.”
They gave him those looks of sympathy and understanding that he hated, and the day went on as expected.
Unwilling to find any evidence that might poke holes in his nightmare theory, he steered clear of that clearing for the entire day.
He managed to pretend it had only been a bad dream for almost a week…
But he woke on a Sunday morning and knew something was wrong with that because the last thing he remembered was sitting down on his bed Thursday night after dinner.
He got up from bed unsteady and sore, feeling pain in places that normally didn’t get too sore from… Any kind of exertion, really. And if that and the lack of memory weren’t already bad enough all on their own, something felt… Off.
He wasn’t sure what it was.
Not yet.
And slowly he managed to head to the bathroom, flicking on the light with aching fingers and looking up at the mirror as he passed and closed the door. And he froze, hand still on the knob, as soon as he actually processed what he was seeing.
There was blood splattered across his face, and he knew at that exact moment that either this was a horrible dream by itself, or that the last thing he’d thought was a nightmare had, in fact, actually happened.
He was not wild about either option.
Understandably.
And, understandably, he promptly sank to the floor of the bathroom and had a lovely panic attack.
Which was, of course, not helped by the sudden feeling of something actually inside of his head.
Or the voice.
Smart little fucker, aren’t you? It purred, sounding pleased, I think I like you.
“Well I don’t fuckin’ like you,” Evan managed to reply weakly, under his breath, but he didn’t tell the thing to leave―regrettably that wasn’t how being possessed worked, he didn’t think.
Shame, It drawled in reply, rather unruffled, Not much you can do about it, is there?
“I can’t imagine trying to exorcise you would work.” He agreed, and was struck with the realization that he was possessed and talking to the thing possessing him. “What episode of Twilight Zone is this.”
It wrung a laugh―genuinely amused, a little startled―out of the creature.
And Evan just… Tried to start making peace with the fact he was possessed and probably going to be used for things he’d rather not think about it. Until he figured out how to get rid of this thing, there wasn’t much else he could do.
It’s cute that you’re trying to plan to get rid of me, The creature sighed, sounding very amused, Cute enough I don’t think I’ll stop you. But, for your information you little shit, I’m not just some ‘creature’.
“Then what are you?” And Evan forced himself to his feet, forced himself to wash the blood of his face and hands.
Mankind’s Bad Habit, It replied, almost gleefully, Or just Habit, if you’re short on time.
Maybe it was petty, but Evan had the feeling he was going to be going out of his way to not call Habit by his name.
Shithead.
“I’m not the one who possessed a teenager without his consent, asshat.”
And Evan didn’t know it at the time, but that would become their typical manner of communication.
The first time that Habit attacked Vinny and Jeff, Evan was totally unaware of it until he woke up on the ground with a bloody nose. That was almost two months after Habit possessed him.
Both of them were standing over him, angry as all get out but… More confused than anything, it seemed.
Your friends fight back hard, Habit had snickered in the back of his head.
Eyes widening in realization, Evan had sat up so fast he made himself dizzy (or maybe that was from Jeff decking him so hard in the face, which he wouldn’t find out about until later) and had to flop back down onto the concrete with an unpleasant thump of his head.
“You…” His tongue felt heavy in his mouth, head fuzzy, “You guys… Okay?”
“Evan,” Said Vinny, as soon as he was finished, “What the fuck was that?”
“Don’t, uh… Don’t know how to… Answer that?” Evan managed, blinking his eyes back open and squinting up at the other teen. “... Sorry’s probably not gonna… Fix it though? I’m guessing?”
It sure fuckin’ aint, Laughed Habit, and Evan barely resisted the urge to wrinkle his face up in annoyance and disgust.
“No.” Vinny answered in kind, “Sorry is not going to fix you coming at me with a baseball bat, Evan.”
Evan winced, hard, and it was Jeff who furrowed his brow and glanced at Vinny.
“... Vin, can I talk to you for a sec?”
“Sure,” Vinny said, and he did not sound enthused.
And Evan politely laid there until they were done and came back to him.
“So,” Vinny said, no less unenthused now, “Jeff thinks that wasn’t you?”
“It wasn’t,” Evan replied, “But I don’t… I don’t expect you to believe that.”
“If it wasn’t you, who the fuck was it?” Was Vinny’s brilliant (and somewhat annoyed question).
“My theory is a demon. Since your mom is always fucking around with that stuff.” Jeff supplied.
“I don’t know what the fuck it is.” Evan grumbled, getting a laugh from Habit in the process, “I just know it won’t leave me the fuck alone.”
“And you didn’t say anything?”
“Oh, yeah, sure Vin,” Evan rolled his eyes, “That would have gone over so fucking well! ‘Hey guys, just got back from a camping trip with my parents and now some fucker calling itself Mankind’s Bad Habit is living in my head and won’t go away!’”
It took you another week to figure it out, Habit reminded him, still amused.
I knew it before that. I just didn’t want to admit it. Evan snapped back.
Vinny’s face scrunched up, but after a moment he sighed. Relaxed a little. “... Fair enough. But a warning still would have been cool.”
“Funnily enough, I have the same sentiment about it being here at all.”
Vinny was the one to wince this time.
There were plenty of warnings, Habit snorted, But you ignored them.
Yeah, yeah, don’t walk in the woods at night. Whatever. It’s not like I’m going to be doing it again after meeting your bitchass.
“... I don’t think I need to say that I don’t… Feel comfortable?” Vinny said, slowly, after a moment.
“Didn’t expect you to,” Evan sighed, looking away, “Don’t blame you, either.”
“... I’ll try to figure out some stuff for you?” Jeff offered, “But…”
“I’m gonna be eating alone from now on, I’m sure.” He guessed.
Jeff and Vinny’s semi-guilty looks said it all.
He tried not to be angry, and more than that he tried not to tear up. No need to make them feel worse for trying to protect themselves. He understood entirely.
He slowly picked himself up off he ground, holding his bleeding nose and sniffing. He stubbornly blinked away the tears that cropped up, rolled his shoulders, and prepared himself to do the right thing and walk away now. Before Habit had a chance to do anything else.
“I can walk with you?” Jeff offered, quietly, as he turned away from them to grab his shit.
“Nah, it’s all good.” He said, even though it wasn’t. And he wanted to say ‘see you later’, but it died on his tongue. He just threw his bag over his shoulder, bit back the tears again, and said, “Bye.”
“Bye,” They offered in return, after a brief pause.
And he did the right thing, and he walked away.
I hate you, he thought at Habit, even as the tears built up again.
Good, Replied Habit, totally unruffled, I’d start questioning your mental health if you didn’t.
You could have picked anyone else, why them?
And Habit, tellingly, did not answer.
And Evan managed to make it home and to his room before he broke down.
Still getting texts fairly routinely from Jeff even though he had only seen the guy in person four times in the last six months probably hurt more than not seeing or hearing from him at all would have. And Evan didn’t have much more left in him.
E: jeff, just give it up.
E: you’re not going to find anything. it’s not worth the effort.
E: and honestly getting texts from you about it is fucking painful.
E: just...
E: dont.
J: I don’t wanna just abandon you like that
E: itd hurt less if you did.
And he wanted to say something else, lighten the blow of the truth, but… Jeff deserved the truth and Evan was going to do or say something a lot more painful later if he didn’t tell Jeff the truth right now. It’d be so much worse if he just kept dealing with the pain until he couldn’t.
And there was a long, long moment where Evan just sat there staring at his phone. Waiting. Knowing Jeff would say something eventually but not knowing when.
The days before the ‘other person is typing’ ellipsis were hellish at moments like this, but he wouldn’t get a smartphone for another four years after this.
J: Okay.
And before Evan could think, Jesus, all that time to type ‘okay’? There was another message.
J: I’m sorry, man.
J: I know not seeing me because I’m trying to keep myself safe but still getting texts from me must suck total ass.
J: I just wanted to try and help, but you’re probably right that I won’t find anything
J: I’ll quit, but I just
J: I miss you and I want you to be okay because you’ve been one of my best friends since the day we met
J: and I hate seeing you hurting and scared like I know you are right now
J: But I promise I’ll stop, because I know I’m hurting you too and that is the absolute last thing I want to do
J: Thank you for telling me
J: Is it still okay if I text you on your birthday or holidays?
And Evan’s vision went blurry with tears, and he squeezed his eyes closed and suppressed a sob.
Jeff was too smart and too understanding for him, sometimes.
So he took a moment to sob, scrubbed his face, and texted back.
E: thanks for understanding dude
E: but don’t feel bad for trying to help, i appreciate the attempt
E: … and yea, that’s still ok
J: Okay <3
… And he didn’t get another text from Jeff or Vinny until his birthday two weeks later.
And after that, he didn’t get one until Christmas.
And everything kind of sucked in the meantime.
He fell in love, like most teenagers do, stupidly at the end of high school.
By then, he’d gone through enough with Habit that he knew the fucker’s true form and generally understood his motivations―which generally boiled down to “fuck shit up because I can”. And since Habit hadn’t gone out of his way to attack Jeff and Vinny since that first time―had only done that one other time since then, once when Evan was alone for the weekend and Jeff had come over to check on him since he was alone and he’d been worried.
He hadn’t gotten far with that attempt either, because Jeff had whipped out some kind of charm and sent Habit stumbling away and snarling in displeasure just from the sight of it.
And there had been times he still tried, but it had been passive.
Point was, Habit wasn’t, to Evan’s knowledge, really doing a whole lot of hurting people lately.
Stupidly, he’d thought he was safe.
Especially when Habit had said, “Oh, I like this one too. I’ll let you keep ‘em.”
Because he wanted to believe, like any person who hoped there was good in the world, that Habit would keep his word.
But he hadn’t.
He’d said he wouldn’t hurt them, but he did.
And Evan still tasted their blood months afterwards.
And Habit had a bad habit (no pun intended) of scraping his long spider-like legs over that particular piece of trauma when he was feeling rude, so Evan didn’t so much get over it as he just grew numb to it. Sometimes Habit would snag a piece of it that still hurt or still made him tear up, but usually it was just something that he thought about. Like, hm, that sure happened.
And Evan had long-since given up on telling Habit how he felt when he knew Habit’s only response would be to laugh.
During one of the quiet times where Habit seemed to be sleeping somewhere in the back of Evan’s head or otherwise occupied, which were incredibly rare these days as he was usually right behind Evan talking shit, Evan stumbled across something interesting in his mom’s books.
It was midway through his Freshman year of college, and he was home from college just because his parents had asked him to come visit. His relationship with them had been kind of shit since being possessed, but thankfully they were unaware of anything fucky going on, and he felt he owed them at least a visit. He still loved them to pieces, he was just… You know.
Possessed.
And constantly in a shit mood because of it.
Regardless, he was hunting through some of that shit while they were at the store or whatever since his mom had just left it all on the coffee table, and he found a mention of something he’d never thought of before.
A passage in one of the books that said, more or less, that the place where one was possessed by an ancient demon, such as one born of Human Sins, held power over the demon. It was the only place in the world where the host had more power than the demon did, after the initial possession, especially if the site already had a ritual circle.
And, thinking about it, ‘Mankind’s Bad Habit’ sounded an awful lot like an ancient demon born of Human Sins.
Which meant…
He packed the idea away for now, reading further and finding that while one couldn’t just kick the demon out without extra power saved up for it, one could form a Covenant. Turn an unwilling possession into something more like an agreement and give oneself a little more power in the relationship. Being clear and explicit about the terms was the most important part, and if the demon denied the Covenant? Bam, instant exorcism.
Unpleasant, the book said, but helpful.
And if the Covenant was broken? Instant exorcism along with any other terms the host had outlined, if the instant exorcism was part of the terms.
So, in the way he’d started to learn to do, he buried the thoughts below where Habit could reach them without searching for them outright and tried to start coming up with terms for a Covenant.
Even if it just kept the people around him safe from Habit, that would be enough. Even if it meant letting him be more violent with other people as a result.
But Covenants weren’t really a “give and take” unless the host wanted them to be, so he wasn’t worried about giving Habit anything in return. It’d serve the bastard right to have his freedom taken from him when Evan had interacted positively with about six people since being possessed.
And his parents returned from the store, and they had dinner and he tried to be normal with them while also figuring out terms and keeping Habit from finding out what he was working on.
“Were you reading my notes?” His mother asked, after dinner, when she found them out of order.
“I saw something about ‘Ancient Demons’ and it caught my eye, is all,” Evan said, laughing it off, “The next thing I knew I was reading about Covenants.”
“It’s like that,” She said, almost sympathetic as she packed the notes (and the book he had been reading) up, “Don’t get too sucked in, okay? You need to focus on college.”
“Will do, mom.”
And, inevitably, his parents went to bed and he took a deep breath. Gave his brain a cursory looking-at in that weird and almost too-literal way he’d learned to start doing after Habit had been around a while, and finding the demon still curled up and not even facing the forefront of Evan’s mind he sighed his relief as quietly as possible. Habit would not be bothering him yet.
Hopefully he’d stay back there until it was time.
He made his way out to his car and buckled up. Started the car, backed out of the drive, and headed out at the most law-abiding hurrying pace he could. He didn’t have a whole lot of time to work with, and ideally he’d already be down the path to the clearing where Habit had possessed him by the time the demon figured out what was going on.
Habit was going to catch a sniff of his growing anxiety and adrenaline sooner or later.
He had to pray it was sooner.
And pray as hard as he could, at that.
Funny, he’d never really been religious―still wasn’t, he guessed, but he was certainly praying harder than he had since he was a kid praying for his nightmares to stop.
A kid who had been shiny, dumb, and easy to trick into thinking that God was going to help.
… Not the point, but enough of a distracting train of thought that he was able to ride the rest of the highway to the woods at speeds he didn’t bother checking the speedometer for. He knew it was illegal and he was lucky he didn’t get pulled over.
He pulled off onto the gravel road, the onto the dirt one and pulled over on the same side as the path was on.
His heart was pounding in his chest as he pulled open the console and dug around until he found a pocket knife. Pounding in his chest as he slipped out of the car and shut the door behind him.
Pounding as he started off down that path again.
And, finally, it seemed he’d managed to catch Habit’s attention.
Thought you said you weren’t going to be doing anymore midnight walks in the woods, He snorted, clearly amused and not yet aware of where they were.
Evan, unable to give a decent reply between his attempts to keep his plan under wraps and the dread that being here at all gave him, just gritted his teeth and kept walking down the pitch dark path.
Fitting that he’d done this on a new moon, he guessed.
… What are you doing? Habit finally asked, after a long moment of silence. Evan. Shithead.
Evan, again, had no reply to give him.
You can’t even see where you’re going with your stupid fucking human eyes. What are you doing.
And Evan wanted to run. Wanted to jolt into a full-on sprint toward the clearing and he knew it was close, but he couldn’t see well enough to move any faster. He’d trip and then he’d lose his focus and it’d be over just like that. Habit would wrap one of those unpleasant legs around him like a claw and yank him out of control, and no matter how hard he tried to fight it wouldn’t help.
So he kept walking and he stepped into the significantly shorter grass and then he bolted to the center of the clearing, right as he lost his focus anyway from the relief he felt at having made it here.
Evan. And Habit wasn’t amused at all. What. Are. You. Doing?
And Evan dropped to his knees over the stone and the divots in it, finding the old carvings with his fingers and feeling something crusty that was probably his own long-dried blood. He took a breath.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” He asked, partially to be difficult and partially because he needed to know that Habit knew what was going on.
Regrettably, the demon being aware was necessary for a Covenant.
And Habit growled, deep and dangerous, but interestingly did not surge forward. Didn’t even try. He just growled for a long moment before saying, Should have kept you away from your fucking witch of a mother.
“She’s not a witch.” Evan replied with a roll of his eyes, “But there’s nothing you can do about it now, is there?”
I could still take control.
But he hadn’t yet.
“I don’t think you can.”
Another deep and furious growl, but Habit did not argue, which meant Evan had accurately called his bluff.
There was a long silence as Evan flicked the knife open and tried to keep his breathing even. He knew what to do, knew what he wanted to say. Now it was just a matter of saying it.
State your terms, then, Habit finally snarled, and all semblance of having only a single voice had melted away entirely, You horrible little fucking brat.
And just like that, Evan knew exactly how to phrase it, had all the strength he needed to push it out.
“You’re not going to touch my parents,” He said, first, firmly, “And you’re not going to lay a fucking finger on Vin, Jeff, or Alex.” And sure, slightly clearer phrasing might be helpful, but a lot of the Covenant’s power was less in the words and more in the intent, so it knew what he meant. “If you ever hurt my parents or Alex, or go after Vinny or Jeff again, then consequences be fucking damned I call for instant exorcism.”
He picked up the open knife, and the hand he’d had on the carvings, and wincing minutely at the pain he sliced his palm open and pressed it into the rocks.
The air pressure increased exponentially, and he shuddered under it.
“I think that sounds pretty fair, don’t you?” He asked, even though his voice was suddenly choked and he felt less and less like he could breathe with every passing second.
His head was pounding, heart was racing. He felt like he was suffocating.
But it was small change if this worked. If Habit agreed to the terms and forged the Covenant.
And Habit was snarling, but eventually he ground out the words, Yeah. Sounds fair.
And the pressure in the air released…
And Evan woke up back in his bed at his parents’ house cradling his left hand to his chest.
It was bandaged carefully, and when Evan vaguely reached out in his head for memories he found a blurry set tinged in purple of Habit taking control to get back in the car and drive back here. It was weird, since he usually didn’t bother trying to cover Evan’s tracks and especially not when he was angry with him.
He blinked himself further awake, reaching out this time to see where Habit was.
He was in his usual spot next to the little nest of traumas and anxieties he liked to tease at.
“You’re pretty pissed off, huh?” He managed to mumble, and his body felt like lead.
Or maybe spaghetti.
Habit huffed, spider legs stretching out a bit as his tail lashed. Something like that. Maybe a little impressed.
Evan had no ready reply for that, so he just hummed and yawned, managing to stretch out his back a little but not much else. His everything hurt… But especially the hand still cradled against his chest, and the old wound somewhere below it that had healed overnight and never left a scar all those years ago.
Magical backlash does that. Habit snorted, some amusement creeping into his annoyance, That said… Ugh. Good job. Not a lot of hosts survive the magic it takes to bind my kind like that.
“You keep telling me you picked me for a reason,” Evan reminded him, but the smug tone was half-hearted at best.
Hard to summon anything more than that when his whole body felt so difficult to move.
Yeah. Habit agreed, and his tail abruptly stopped in its lashing, legs settling in around him again. His eyes squinted, wolf-like head tilting and ears flicking forward. When he spoke again, he sounded… Fond? You did a pretty good job plotting without me figuring it out.
“Thanks?”
Like I said, Ev, I’m impressed. Habit dropped the praise without any issue, completely nonchalant, Impressed enough that I’m honestly really not that pissed off.
“Huh.”
And he’d laid there for pretty much the rest of the day, thankfully missing no classes as it was the weekend, and the next morning he managed to pull himself out of bed and slink back to his car and then back to campus in his car. Habit had even put the pocket knife back into the console and cleaned the blood off of it.
He ran into his friends on accident, midway through the next week, at lunch.
He was done with his classes for the day, since he only had morning classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and was grabbing a bite from the campus cafe before he headed home…
And he ran literally right into Vinny’s back while he was trying to put a straw in his drink.
Thankfully he didn’t drop it (or stab Vinny with the straw), but he did stumble backwards and barely manage to catch himself on the wall with his shoulder as both his arms were full. And then Vinny was turning around and Evan was blinking at him, eyes wide, and Vinny stopped before he even started speaking to blink back at him.
“Ev?” He finally asked, seeming surprised.
“H-hey, Vin!” He tried not to perk up too much, but this was the first time since Habit possessed him that he wasn’t genuinely concerned Vinny was going to die in the next ten seconds, “S-sorry, dude, didn’t see you there.”
“I―” Vinny sort of half-laughed, “No, it’s fine, I… I didn’t realize you were taking college classes.”
“Just getting my generals,” He admitted, managing to straighten himself out without dropping anything by some miracle, “I try to keep to myself. Cuz. You know.”
Vinny’s slight smile slipped off, and he winced. “That’s still…?”
“He’s less of a problem now?” But that didn’t even sound reassuring to him, “I managed to, uh, pull some demon-magic bullshit to get him to back off of the people I like but it’s still… You know. I don’t wanna chance it no matter how much I miss you guys.”
I literally can’t even touch them with intent to hurt them. Habit groused, lightly, There’s nothing to chance, you little shit.
“Habit will you shush?” He said, out loud, before he could think better of it. He winced, and Vinny’s eyebrow shot up. “... Sorry. He’s a little salty about it.”
“Last I heard, ‘he’ was an ‘it’.” Came Jeff’s voice, before Vinny could reply, “You guys buddies now or?”
Evan turned to look at him, and couldn’t help the way he lit up. He missed these two. He really did. And seeing Jeff smiling, mostly unbothered by his presence eve if he looked mildly wary.
“Hey Jeff,” He said, then, “I wouldn’t call us buddies. But I’m kind of stuck with him unless he breaks the rules or gets another host, so.”
“Wait, the rules?” Jeff’s brows furrowed suddenly, looking very concerned, “Evan, you didn’t― Forming a Covenant could have killed you.”
“Accidentally killing myself with magical backlash seemed preferable to the alternative.”
Both Jeff and Vinny gave him disbelieving (and maybe disapproving) looks for a long moment before Jeff finally sighed and shook his head. And then he hugged him, and Evan hugged back with vigor, although he was careful not to squeeze too hard.
“So what were the terms?” Jeff asked, as he pulled back.
“If he so much as touches you guys, Alex, or my parents with intent to hurt you he gets a one-way ticket back to wherever he came from.” Evan shrugged, “Which, sure, the sudden exorcism might kill me too, but…”
They gave him that look again, but eventually Jeff laughed and shook his head.
“Well, I believe you,” He said, “I did a lot of research and, like, if he breaks the Covenant he’s got a lot of other bullshit to deal with after he gets ejected. And you didn’t jerk away when I hugged you, which… Well. If you were him…”
Jeff withdrew the charm he’d used against Habit in the past, and Habit still made an agitated noise at the sight of it, but Evan got the point and Habit seemed to as well. If Habit had been in control, he wouldn’t have even let Jeff touch him because of that thing.
Vinny, still seeming hesitant given his last encounter with Habit had involved a so-called emergency machete and some knife throwing, kept his distance regardless for the moment and said, “How can we, like, be sure, though?”
And Evan didn’t blame him for his hesitance, but it still hurt.
“We can’t until we run into Habit again,” Jeff shrugged, “But I don’t think Evan would lie, and I think Habit would probably have tried to kill us by now if he could.”
He’s the only one of this whole group who has a lick of sense in him, Habit said in reply to that, snorting.
Your lips, Evan thought at him, exasperated, zip them. Please.
Habit made a terribly realistic zipping noise in response, but thankfully didn’t say anything else.
“I… That’s fair,” Vinny finally said, “I still just…”
“Don’t blame you a bit,” Evan sighed, “I’m still not sure I trust it either, but considering the magical backlash left me sore for like three days…”
And they didn’t really make any plans, but Jeff did ask if he could start texting Evan more regularly again and Evan told him that as long as they were hanging out again the answer was yes, which made Jeff laugh.
Finishing college with Jeff and Vinny back at his side was great.
They had intended to start a YouTube channel for fitness, with some occasional horror gags thrown in because they were children, but Jeff ultimately vetoed the idea and shockingly enough Habit had backed him up.
You don’t want to meet Ol’ Stick-In-The-Mud for real, Ev. Don’t bring him around by putting him in your videos. He’d said, In fact, don’t do videos at all. Bad idea.
And as much as Evan had hated listening to him, Jeff also thinking it was a bad idea meant he and Vinny either had to fight those votes or give in. And when the hell they started caring about Habit’s input and started considering him a part of the group as well during decision-making processes, Evan wasn’t sure. It just seemed normal now, honestly.
Ultimately, they ceded to Jeff and Habit’s votes of “fuck no” and moved on.
And everything was going well, and Habit wasn’t like, constantly trying to yank him out of control anymore, so that was cool. But, then again, he could be playing the long game―waiting for Evan to drop his guard so he could just pop into control.
As it turned out, though, it was really just that Habit was waiting for a reason to need to be in control again―with no one around that he could hurt on a regular basis he was just sitting back there kind of bored.
And it wasn’t until Evan had packed up to go for a little camping trip on his own that he really had any openings… Which was similar to him just chilling waiting for Ev to tire out, but this version had significantly less of Habit talking shit up to the point where he managed to get an opening.
Evan noticed he seemed to be moving a little, creeping in his direction carefully, when he was finishing zipping the front door of his tent closed.
And then he stood, and he felt one of Habit’s spider legs wrap around his middle and tug, and usually he would squirm and fight back, but he just… Man, he was still reeling from the Covenant (which was months prior by this point) and he didn’t really have it in him. And also, there wasn’t much trouble Habit could get into out here…
So instead of fighting or bracing himself, he just sighed and sagged in resignation.
The leg nudged him out of the way fairly carefully, and he only stumbled a couple of steps before righting himself.
You’re killin’ me, Ev. Habit said, theatrically swiping at his head with a large paw even as he settled down into what qualified as the controls of Evan’s mind, I’m supposed to hurt and kill shit, and you just keep me locked up in here all time. That’s cruel.
“All due respect, I’m pretty sure solitary confinement is less cruel than you deserve.” He said with a roll of his eyes.
Habit didn’t try to make him leave the forefront, or even make a move to imply he should skedaddle on his own. In fact, Habit just snorted and got comfortable. Gave Evan’s consciousness a side-eye and then, snorting again, shifted to open up a spot between his front paws.
And Evan sighed, eyeing the spot for a moment.
And then he settled in, a little uncomfortable with being this close to the thing possessing him, but not… Exactly against the idea. Habit was soft, and he started purring almost as soon as Evan had settled in.
And he spent the whole time he was in control just… Hunting.
And Evan liked it a lot more than he’d ever admit―he’d felt… Safe.
Then again, there were very few places that were more safe than being curled between Habit’s front legs, listening to him purr and feeling the vibrations.
The years after that went by almost in a predictable way.
And for all that Evan didn’t trust Habit, he definitely liked the guy a lot more nowadays than he’d expected to. And Habit seemed fairly fond of him in return.
… But then Ash showed up, and she was different from the beginning, and Evan…
Well, he and Habit didn’t get along very well for a while.
But Evan survived forming a second Covenant, and he and Habit and Ash sank into a new normal after a while. And if that new normal involved a lot of he and Habit sort of co-piloting the body―one of them actually in control, the other just curled up with them―, then that was how it was.
Go to sleep, shithead. Habit grumbled at him, not even opening his eyes, You can think later.
Hush, Evan grumbled in response, shifting and shoving his face into Ash’s hair, I do not control the thought process.
You sure don’t, He snorted, shifting there in the mindscape to drape his head over Evan’s side, Sleeeeep.
And Evan didn’t even get a chance to argue, because Habit began rumbling out a purr that could have rattled his whole actual body, and the instant feeling of safety pretty much stole all coherent thought from him, which got a chuckle from Habit even amidst his purring.
And Evan drifted off to sleep without another single thought about the past.