Chapter Text
Abbadon had ruled for so long in hell.
He had commanded legions, shattered doctrines, rewritten obedience until it bent and broke beneath his will. His name had been prayed, cursed, whispered into stone and flesh alike. He had been bound before, yes—but never like this.
Never into someone.
Now he was standing at hotel’s third-floor bathroom that was quiet as always, save for the hum of ghost nearby and the sound of breathing Abbadon did not recognize as his own. He stood before the mirror, hands braced against the sink, staring at a reflection he neither needed nor wanted.
The vessel stared back.
Soft jaw. Too soft. The face of a small child looking back at him in the mirror, no matter how many times Esther insisted that the person behind it was just his "reflection" as she called it. Dark circles under eyes that had not slept in centuries, now forced into the mortal rhythm of exhaustion. Small shoulders that belonged to a body that had once been a boy and had never stopped being one.
Him, the world insisted.
Abbadon’s fingers curled tighter around the porcelain.
“This is idiotic,” he muttered, the voice echoing back at him deeper than he liked. Rougher. Wrong.
The sound scraped along something inside him, raw and newly exposed.
He had never worn flesh before. Bodies were mere entertainment—temporary shapes meant amuse him, nothing more.
Bound meant bound. Chains written into bone and soul, sigils burned so deeply into existence that even Abbadon’s true form could not pry himself loose. He could feel the vessel’s heartbeat when he slept. Feel hunger, cold, warmth, pain. Feel—
“Stop.”
The mirror did not obey.
He lifted one hand, studied it. The small size of it. The faint scar across the knuckle that belonged to a boy from another century.
Not his.
The thought hit harder than expected.
Abbadon straightened sharply, expression hardening.
“No,” he said aloud. “That is not—”
A knock interrupted him.
"Abbadon?” Nathan’s voice, hesitant in that way it always was when he wasn’t sure if he was about to be incinerated. “You’ve been in there a while, buddy. Esther’s threatening to break the door down if you don't come out, and honestly, I’m not convinced she won’t.”
“I am fine,” Abbadon snapped automatically.
A pause.
“Okaay,” Nathan said slowly and carefully. “You’re saying that in the tone that usually means the opposite.”
Abbadon scowled at his reflection, then toward the door. “I do not require supervision.”
“Right. Sure.” Nathan cleared his throat. “Just thought I’d check, kiddo. You know. Because last time you said that, you set a hallway on fire.”
“That was unrelated.”
“Mmhmm.”
Despite himself, Abbadon huffed. He grabbed the jacket Katherine had insisted upon—Guests prefer when you look approachable, she’d said, as if that were a reasonable expectation—and shrugged it on.
The fabric sat wrong on his shoulders. Too heavy. Too structured. It emphasized the vessel's frame. He turned away from the mirror before the thought could finish forming.
---------------------
The lobby was quieter than usual.
A human family stood near the front desk: two parents, tired but polite, and a child clutching a stuffed animal with one eye missing. They looked around with cautious curiosity, clearly unsure if this place was charming or dangerous.
Abbadon observed them from a distance.
They looked at him and saw a man.
“Hey young man,” the father said, offering a tentative nod. “Is this place… safe?”
The word landed wrong.
“Yes,” Abbadon replied curtly. “Provided you obey the rules.”
The mother smiled nervously. “Of course..”
He.
Boy.
Male.
Each word pressed down on him like a weight he hadn’t noticed before.
Why now?
He turned away before they could say anything else.
Nathan drifted beside him, hands clasped behind his back, feet not quite touching the floor. “You did great,” he said quietly.
Abbadon scoffed. “They fear me.”
“Well, yeah,” Nathan smiled faintly. “But in a healthy way.”
Abbadon didn’t respond.
---------------------
Later, when the hotel settled into its nocturnal stillness, Abbadon found himself in the chapel.
It was an old room where Abbadon hide his bones and some of the gifts the Freelings —and mostly Esther— gave him.
Cruelness lingered here, thick and watchful.
Abbadon sat in the floor, elbows on knees, hands clasped tightly together. The vessel slouched naturally; he corrected it out of habit, spine straightening with irritation. He did not like that posture.
He had been called many things by the faithful. Monster. Test. Punishment. Servant. Enemy.
Never daughter.
Never anything that required a shape.
“This is blasphemy,” he murmured.
A voice answered—not aloud, but close.
“Thou always sayest that.”
Abbadon stiffened.
The boy stood near the window, translucent and pale, dressed in clothes centuries out of place. Same face as the vessel, younger, rounder. Blue eyes bright with something like childlike curiosity.
“You speak too loudly,” the boy continued mildly. “Even now.”
Abbadon turned slowly. “Be silent.”
The boy tilted his head. “Thou art troubled.”
“I am not,” Abbadon snapped. Eyes glaring red.
The boy smiled, soft and knowing. “Thou hatest the body more tonight.”
The words struck deeper for being spoken in his cadence. The vessel’s cadence. Old, lingering, clinging to the demon like residue.
“That is irrelevant,” Abbadon said sharply.
“Is it?” the boy asked. “For thou dost look upon thyself as though thou art a stranger.”
Abbadon clenched his fists.
“This is nothing,” he said. “A foolish thought. Mortality breeds weakness.”
“Perhaps,” the boy said gently. “Or perhaps thou hast simply more time to listen.”
Abbadon said nothing.
The boy faded soon after, leaving the chapel colder than before. He used to disappear like that.
---------------------
Night stretched on.
Abbadon stood by the window in his room, staring into the dark. Nathan hovered nearby, hands hovering just short of Abbadon’s shoulders, close enough to pretend.
“I know I can’t—” Nathan started, stopping himself. “But if I could, I’d probably put a hand here, you know.” He gestured vaguely. “Comfortingly.”
Abbadon snorted. “Your imagination is inadequate.”
“Probably,” Nathan admitted. “But I’m here. That counts for something, right?”
Abbadon did not answer.
He did not move away either.
As the night deepened, Abbadon allowed one quiet, dangerous thought to surface—not fully formed, not yet named.
This prison had more walls than he remembered.
And some of them were shaped like expectations he was never meant to fit.