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There is something deeply, deeply wrong with Abaddon.
He feels it at the back of his throat, lodged in his gut, curling in his bones, his marrow. It festers in the deepest recesses of himself, rotting where it has made itself home, clinging to his despair, his fury, his hatred.
And then it climbs.
It claws its way up, up, up, so that it may escape. It wants away from him, too. So desperate to get away that it will bear itself to the world and everyone else will know there's something deeply wrong with him. Because surely they can see it, too.
It's in the way he snarls, in the teeth he bares, the way he bites, in his nails, his anger. In him. It's him and he is it.
They're intertwined so deeply he does not know where he begins and it ends. It has claws of its own. Teeth of its own.
They both bite.
They're both angry. Abaddon fights it, he wants to rip it out of himself, wants to break his bones and clean his marrow of it, of the feelings it brings him. He wants to tear out his bleeding heart, devour it alongside his vessel’s soul.
He digs his nails into his arms as if he might split himself open, peel it out in strips, carve it free from whatever part of him it has rooted itself in.
But it does not loosen.
It bleeds, he is it and it is he. He reaches for its fangs and finds his hand on his own, fingers hooked between his teeth, prying at something that does not give.
He wants it to give, to bleed so that it may feel his hurt, too. His teeth ache under the pressure. Something wet gathers at his gums. And it is still him. It's always been him.
He hates it, the way it makes him feel. It feeds on his despair, his fury, his angry tears. He claws at it and finds his own skin split open, bleeding, but he does not stop.
He will not stop.
He will find every part of himself that reflects it and tear it out.
Abaddon wants it out. Get it out, get it out, get it out!
His breath stutters, catches. Something twists violently in his gut, sharp and nauseating, his body is rejecting it. He is rejecting it. His nails drag deeper without meaning to, tearing skin, splitting it open. The sting comes a second later, hot and wet, yet it only makes him press harder. He deserves that pain, needs it to make him better. Needs it to make him right.
His stomach churns. His vision swims at the edges, dark creeping in slowly. The copper taste thickens on his tongue, makes him gag, makes his throat tighten like he might choke on it.
He doubles over, but even then his hands don’t leave him. There is no where else for them to go. There is no other task they must complete other than to dig.
He wants to be good.
Abaddon seethes as the realization. He wants to be good again, he wants out of this vessel, he wants his brothers and sisters. He is pathetic for it, for reaching his arms towards those who've already forsaken him.
His chest tightens. His heartbeat thrums against his ribs like a drum, relentless, burning. Bile rises in his throat. He tastes it, copper again, bitter and thick. The nausea twists through him, sharp as a blade, and yet his hands continue. Even as he smells the iron in the air, his hands continue. He needs this, needs to bleed it out of himself.
Every scrape of nail against skin, every sting of blood, presses him back into himself, into the truth he cannot escape: he is alone in this, trapped in this vessel. His desire to be good, to be accepted, to be forgiven, he is alone in it.
Abaddon’s nails drag through his skin again, pain flaring sharp and immediate. He can feel the warmth of his flesh against his fingertips, the blood dripping down his forearms hot and sticky. His chest burns. The bile twists in his throat. His hands do not stop. They cannot stop.
Then, suddenly, a force on his wrists.
Katherine’s hands clamp around his forearms, tightly. His eyes snap up, wide, wild, and for the first time in minutes, his body jerks, startled.
“-Op! Abaddon,” she hisses, low, urgent. “Stop!”
The shame is immediate. His face burns with heat that's both embarrassment and nausea. He wants to pull away, to fight, to tell her he can’t stop, that he needs this, but her grip is steady, unwavering. Panic spikes, tangled with something else, fear, humiliation, the stark realization that someone has seen him like this.
His nails twitch, itching, desperate, but she does not let go. Her thumbs press gently against the backs of his wrists, grounding him without letting go. He clamps his mouth shut, his tears dry in record time.
Katherine takes him to the bath. The water swirls with pink almost immediately. Her hands stay on his forearms, firm but gentle, holding him in place as he dips his fingers beneath the surface, watching the color bleed away into the water. His throat tightens again, not from nausea this time, but from the raw, biting taste of shame.
He wants to speak, to apologize, to explain, but the words die in his chest. He feels seen. He hates it.
The water moves around him, carrying away the worst of the heat, the sharpness, the immediate sting. It dulls into a low ache, the water lapping against the inner parts of his gruesome wounds.
Katherine leans in, looking unsure. “Was it about.. that, uh, priest?”
Abaddon would've laughed in her face if he hadn't found himself so pathetic. “The one who dealt his punishment onto me?” He asks, but he knows the answer. That she thinks he is reacting this way to his abuse, to memories he can't bury under thousands of years. To hands he wishes he could forget, to a face that haunts his every waking moment.
“Yes.. that one.”
Abaddon wishes it were that simple. Perhaps then he wouldn’t feel so small. Perhaps then he wouldn’t feel so utterly pathetic. He bites out the word, “no.” But he does not explain further, does not expand on what his made him react so.
Because it is pathetic—that he feels this rejection, that he is so deeply wounded by the fact that Esther had temporarily banned him from her room, that she had used charms to do so. He wishes it had been the priest who made him react. At least then there would be reason, a real excuse. But this… this was nothing.
He has no right to be this way. He hates himself. He hates this vessel and its stupid, human feelings. He hates Katherine and her big, confused eyes. He wants to tear them out of her face, feed them back to her, wants Esther to know—and to hate him for it. To hate him for a good reason.
He rubs his eyes angrily, teeth clenching. “Leave me be, matriarch. I am fine.”
Katherine pauses, hesitating a moment. She sighs, standing up and placing a towel next to the tub. “Okay, Abaddon. If you say so.” She stood, heading out the door, “don't leave until your arms heal. I don't want the kids seeing that.”
Abaddon almost finds it in himself to snap at her. Instead, he nods jerkily.
“Of course.”