Chapter Text
Nathan Freeling loved his family. Sure, his parents were distant sometimes and his Great-Aunt never missed an opportunity to criticize him. Sure, Katherine had married that bastard Ron and hardly ever called or saw Nathan anymore, though she’d been smart enough to keep her maiden name and give it to the kids. Sure, he lived on the outskirts of one of the smallest towns in New York and lived in a haunted hotel where the spirits of those who died there in any of the two asylums, prison, or ritualistic burial grounds scared away any of the paying customers. They were a hellgate, a popular pick for serial killers, and a very good dumping ground for murder victims.
But Nathan loved his family and he loved his life. He was Nathan-goddamn-Freeling. He was a cult-survivor three-times over. He was smart and kind and sometimes when he was particularly locked in, he could finish a thousand piece puzzle in one sitting. He ran a semi-successful hotel that made bills by inviting very expensive ghost-hunters to the hotel. He was one of the only living people to actually get along with and survive the ghosts day-in and day-out.
And now Nathan had something to show his family for his life. He was a 38-year-old man, no wife or husband, no real profit to show for the hotel. But now he had a child of his own!
Katherine had always been the one with her life together. Well, not really. But on paper? Their parents loved to show Katherine off. Oh, she’s married to a salesman, he’s a sweetheart, he travels for work a lot. Her kids are just the cutest things! Ben is in high school and just won the science fair! Esther is such a story-teller, she keeps us on our toes!
Frank and Julia Freeling didn’t give a shit that it was all a facade, just that they could show their friends Katherine’s Facebook profile and it looked good.
Nathan’s profile was a hodge-podge of birthday wishes from other cult-escapees and pictures of the hotel with an empty parking lot.
But now. Now Nathan had done it. He had a son with two legs and two arms and two red-glowing eyes and he was a damn good entertainer, and Frank and Julia Freeling would have to eat their words when they saw their fuck-up son with his son at the reunion on Friday, fuck you and good night.
“What are you doing?” Abaddon asked. He wasn’t buckled in his seat anymore - the agreement is that he would buckle if there were police officers near-by. “And why are you driving like that?”
Nathan made the very conscious and intentional choice to unclench his fists from around the steering wheel where his knuckles had gone white, and to take his heavy foot off the gas a little bit. “I’m winning arguments in my head,” he said easily.
“I used to win arguments,” Abaddon said. “When I tortured sinners in Hell.”
Nathan smiled. It was the kind of thing that made Abaddon endearing in an Esther-y way. He told the best stories, had the best jokes. And he was full of personality and wit and dry humor. His comedic timing was unparalleled.
“Bud?” Nathan said, throwing Abaddon a look in the rearview. Abaddon was scrambling over the backseat and into the trunk. “Can we go over the family stuff again?”
Abaddon was a sweetheart when you let go of all the silly demon-y things that usually tripped people up. The first time Nathan had seen Abaddon join him at the dinner table with a plate of rotting squirrel flesh and razors, he’d fought every instinct to shriek or grab the plate back or scold Abaddon for the dangerous meal he’s prepared for himself. The first time Nathan had to tape Abaddon’s arms back to his body he’d swallowed back the gag and the phantom pain in sympathy and the worriedly frantic mother-henning.
But then they fell into a natural kind of cycle. Nathan got very good at making two different meals at the same time - something for himself and something for his little demon. He taught Abaddon how to do things like throw a baseball and read him stories at night and made pillow forts to nest in. Abaddon slowly found ways to embrace his forced human body. He made Nathan something called a cray-oft that he found in an old book using a bloody handprint and pens on paper. They watched movies and Abaddon let Nathan hold him close. Abaddon even let Nathan do something called bed-time that seemed to be a lot of nonsensical rituals like sitting in a tub of lukewarm water, brushing one’s mane, and then curling into a bed of blankets and softer, cuter versions of taxidermy, letting Nathan read stories to him until he pretended to fall asleep, and then crawling into the cabinet under the bathroom sink or sneaking into town to break into homes.
Or at least, that’s what bed-time looked like before Abaddon called Nathan father on accident once. It was a weird feeling. Something that didn’t really belong to the Abaddon part of his mind, but rather an ancient urge that bubbled up in the memories of the vessel part. Like his mouth was so accustomed to forming the word, it couldn’t help but spit it out. Abaddon would never ever admit it out loud, but he liked saying it. He liked the way it made Nathan’s eyes light up, the way it settled something in his chest.
After calling Nathan father, bed-time changed. Now, after the strange but comforting ritual of sitting in the water, brushing his mane, curling into bed with his animals, and letting Nathan read to him, Abaddon did really sleep.
Sometimes, he slept in Nathan’s room, in Nathan’s big bed, watching tiny, moving pictures on Nathan’s miniature television in his hand.
Nathan was used to his little son’s demon-y traits. He was used to his little boy.
But Abaddon was a demon trapped in the body of a little boy and he wasn’t easily liked by people expecting a socially conventional child and didn’t possess the mental flexibility to recognize that not all children should be cookie-cutter and normal.
Hence, the family pep talk stuff.
“Abaddon? We’re going to…” Nathan trailed off, his favorite way of teaching.
Abaddon rolled his eyes. “A reunion event for all those related to you and their kin.”
“And you are my…”
“Aquired offspring,” Abaddon said evenly. “Will your sister, the woman known as Kathy, be there? I wish to meet this mortal who you claim was influential in your upbringing.”
Nathan smiled. “Yeah, bud! Your Aunt Kathy will be there and she’s got two kids - your cousins! Ben is a boy, like you, and he’s really into learning new tricks like magic! Last I heard, he was actually working on juggling, but I haven’t seen the new act in person yet. And you can’t tell a lot about physical acts like juggling over Facetime.”
“And this other child whom you call my cousin?”
“Esther! She’s a lot like you, I think you’ll really get along with her. She’s very good at extortion!”
Abaddon’s face split into a wide grin. “Some of my favorite sinners were extortionists.”
“Great!” Nathan said cheerfully. “See, you already love her!”
Abaddon scrambled back over the backseat and poked his head between the driver seat and the passenger seat. He was chewing something that sounded concerningly like a piece of glass.
“Are you eating glass?”
“A beetle,” Abaddon corrected, opening his mouth to show Nathan the green and black ooze on his tongue.
“That’s a fun way to get protein!” Nathan said. “Now, you know about my Great-Aunt Rose, and I told you about my parents, Frank and Julia. You can call them grandma and grandpa. There’s also going to be my Aunt Becky and her husband Joshua.”
“And what makes her the lesser aunt?”
It took Nathan a moment to understand what he was talking about, before he let out a bark of laughter. “No, no. She’s not lesser. If anything, she’s better and greater than my Great-Aunt Rose. When we say ‘great’ in that, it just means she is my parents’ aunt. Like how we say grand-mother or grand-father. It just means older.”
“Such is the way we call it a grand canyon and yet I have seen far grander and far more magnificent canyons in the yawning chasms of Hell.”
Nathan laughed again. “Yeah, well. My Aunt Becky is cooler than Great-Aunt Rose, but not by a lot. She’s still pretty boring, and a bit uptight. Her son, David is coming, and I haven’t seen David since he was a little boy. There’s a pretty big age gap. He’s only 26, but he’s really nice. For a while we didn’t see him at all because he lived with this guy for a while, I could never tell if it was, like, a state thing or if it was about school or what.”
“Does Cousin David have more children for me to meet? More lesser cousins?”
Nathan shook his head and his phone, propped up on the dash, pinged that there was a reported speedtrap ahead. “No, David is just himself. But that’s part of what makes him such a wonderful guy! Now sit in your seat and buckle, there’s a cop up ahead.”