(no subject)

[shine_again]

Dan spends his time in captivity finding out what it might have been like if the Overlook had been a medieval dungeon run by fucking goblins. He feels precisely as helpless as he had in the worst of it there, at the beginning, when he's aware of everything. They beat him, of course, because it's a goblin dungeon, and one of them is sneering about tenderized meat. His coat and flannel and t-shirt are taken, though he's left with his jeans and boots. Something about foot-rot, they say. Not very appetizing.

He tries to frighten them, spits more of that strange language at them, and it earns him a cell of his very own, it seems. Now, this has nothing on the Overlook, cramped and slightly wet and cold; he's held to the wall with an honest to god chain, and all he can see from the gaps in the bars is a passageway, and a door on the other side, and fire beyond that door.

Dan thinks he might honestly have been dragged to hell.

The shining is of no use; all he feels is the terror and despair and angry helplessness of others in other cells. And then the dark waves again, which drag him down for hours at a time, and leave him shaking and gagging against his bonds.

He can't think, he can't think for all of the noise of everyone else's thoughts. Oh, but he tries. He thinks of Abra's light shining so brightly, that even across worlds, it might give him something to see by, he thinks of his mother fighting with everything to keep them alive. He thinks of the moment when he'd thought he was safe, his arms around Marcus and Marcus holding him so tight, the warmth of his breath, the little flicker of light kindling in Dan's chest.

He tries to get it back.

He's just so cold, and it's so loud inside his head.

Comments

[pushbackthedarkness]

In the end, no matter what he tries, Salem won't get out of the truck and so Marcus nudges him over to the passenger seat, muttering that he can't drive before he glances in the rear view mirror to make sure Trass is settled in the back.

He's going up to Kagura, to the bloody castle it's turned into with only a cat, a wolf, his rosary and a lock pick set he'd bought only days after arriving in Darrow, anticipating it might one day be useful. And here he is, finally in need. Kat is staying at the house, protected by the magic Sabrina left behind, planning on guiding him as best she can over the phone for as long as they can stay in touch. His knee is throbbing and swollen in his jeans where the goblin had clubbed him, but his jacket had taken the worst of the attack besides that and he's lucky to not be bleeding.

Dan isn't the only one up there. Marcus knows there are many people in danger, people who have been taken, and he wants to be able to help them all, but his focus is on finding Dan.

The drive is treacherous and slow going, Marcus's knuckles are white on the steering wheel, his hands aching by the time he's able to pull the truck close enough to the imposing castle. With a deep breath, he gets out, calling for Trass, but Salem darts ahead, disappearing into a slightly open door Marcus hadn't even seen in the blowing snow. He follows, limping carefully along halls with his rosary clutched tightly in one hand.

It might not do anything, but it's a comfort and he won't let it go until he finds Dan.

[shine_again]

Salem has been left with an assignment while Sabrina sees to her boys, and to her friends. Look after Marcus and the house. They'd both known the city streets to be unsafe for a black cat, and Salem has been doing his job properly, up until the moment Marcus (predictably, he will inform Sabrina) loses his mind over the just-friend.

So now Salem prowls the hallways of this castle, darting ahead and then trotting back to make sure Marcus and Trass follow. And then a certain voice, low and in pain, catches his ears and he runs, verifying the prisoner's identity before turning to tell Marcus, settling for a rather loud meow.

Once he has both charges following, Salem leads them to a cell, where he darts between the bars and goes to settle against a bleeding, bruised Dan, who shivers in the cold, both from lack of shirt and the huge chain keeping him at the wall.

[pushbackthedarkness]

The halls aren't without obstacles, but this is why Marcus has both Trass and his rosary. Briefly, he wishes he'd brought his gun, but he knows the sound of a shot going off in the castle would likely bring a whole host of enemies down on their heads and he's not willing to risk any of them for the ease of it. The wolf's teeth and the sharp end of Mother Bernadette's rosary work well enough for now and Trass charges the first goblin that comes at them, sinking his sharp fangs into the thing's throat before it even has the chance to raise the alarm.

Marcus's rosary dispatches the next in one long, deep cut of its throat. As dark blood courses over his hand, Salem reappears and lets out a particularly loud meow, which has Marcus hurrying after him down the hall, Trass taking up the rear. He hears the wolf growling several more times, snapping his jaws and tearing things apart, but at no point does he turn back.

The state he finds Dan in is horrifying and Marcus has to put it aside in his mind as he drops to his knees in front of the bars, digging the lock pick out of his pocket. He keeps his gaze on Dan, letting it flicker only briefly to Salem sitting against him before he softly calls his name.

"Dan," he says gently, the tools in his hands already working at the lock on the door. "Hey, look at me."

[shine_again]

Dan finds himself first pulled up from the waves by the feel of something small and warm against his side. Cat his mind supplies, and he's never been so grateful for the mild to medium meddling of Marcus's ward and her-- familiar. Opening his eyes only confirms Salem huddling against him as if trying to warm him.

This is not a bad hallucination, as they go.

And Dan is willing to think this until he hears a voice-- he hears Marcus and he startles up, trying to move forward only to be kept in place by the chain. The iron loop around his neck cuts into his skin again, and Dan isn't too proud to admit he whines.

"Marcus?"

Oh god, oh god, he thinks. Be real.

"Marcus." He doesn't try to plead with him to leave. No, Marcus is here and he's clearly capable, and Dan wants to go with him. He gathers Salem to his chest, shivering.

[pushbackthedarkness]

"Careful," Marcus whispers, finally catching sight of the loop around Dan's neck. That'll pose another problem in getting him out, but they can face that bridge when they come to it. For now Marcus just needs to focus on getting the door open without any of the damn goblins running around this place alerting anyone to his presence. They don't want him here, they had made that perfectly clear when taking Dan, and he has a feeling he won't simply be left alive again if he's caught now.

Knowing Salem is inside with Dan lets Marcus focus on the lock, even though he knows the small cat can't really warm Dan as much as he likely needs. Having Trass at his back is comforting, too, a massive, threatening presence to anyone who might approach. Somehow he knows not to growl now that they're still, not to call more attention to themselves as necessary while Marcus works on the lock.

Thank you, Matthias, he thinks, his chest aching as he does.

"Just give me a few more seconds," he murmurs as he works, the tools clinking softly within the lock on the cell door. They click and slide around inside as he searches for just the right angle. "Haven't had cause to pick a lock in awhile, I'm a bit out of practice."

[shine_again]

Dan can feel Salem purring against his chest, and now that he's got his eyes all the way open, now that he's not blocking everything out, he can watch Marcus.

"Feels like a bad dream," he croaks. "It's so loud here. Inside of me."

His vision is blurry either from tears or the sheer psychic exhaustion; it's probably both and he's not ashamed. He's never so relieved as when he hears the lock clicking open. "Jesus, they-- they hurt you, didn't they? How are you even here?"

It's selfish, but all he wants now is for Marcus to get close enough that they can touch, and maybe it will quiet down the noise that the radio in his head can't help but pick up. There's the silver lining: when shit is this bad, shame loses its meaning.

[pushbackthedarkness]

"Just a scratch," Marcus answers, although he knows he'll be limping for the next week and that his knee will be a mess of black and blue bruises for even longer. He's been injured before, however, and he's not particularly concerned about his leg at the moment. Once he gets Dan back to the house where Kat will be waiting, he can think more about his knee and consider how bad it is and whether or not he ought to come back up and see if he can set more people free.

Right now, it's only about getting Dan out.

The door swings open and Marcus carefully gets into the cell, Trass choosing to stay on the outside where he can guard the hall. The wolf's gaze sweeps back and forth, making sure they're still in the clear and Marcus nears Dan with his tools still out, studying the loop of iron around his neck.

"My God," he murmurs, reaching out to touch it gently, trying to figure out the best way to make this happen. "Why would they do this to you?"

[shine_again]

Dan eases himself, stiffly, into a position he thinks will allow Marcus better access to the iron loop and the raw skin of his neck. The cat in his lap shifts, having clearly identified another step in the protect Marcus directive.

"There's no real reason for cruel things to be cruel," he answers, as truthfully as he can. "I think they figured out I might be more difficult to keep near others. Or near where they're planning anything." Each word feels like a hard-won victory, and finally, having indeed given up on shame, he reaches out to touch Marcus's arm.

A little relief, but not enough.

He moves his hand down until he can manage to get Marcus's sleeve pulled up, and the top of his glove pushed down so that skin shows. With a ragged sigh, he wraps his fingers around Marcus's bare wrist and begins to take the first deep breaths in a long time.

[pushbackthedarkness]

"Good," he says, flashing a quick smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. "Easier to get you out of here, yeah?"

Marcus doesn't think anyone in his life has ever thought of him as a calming presence. For so long he's been full of righteous anger and religious fury, burning with it at every turn, but something has happened to him in Darrow. He's still a fighter, he'll still do what God asks of him at any moment, he'll still spit in the face of any demon who tries to hurt an innocent soul, but friendship and love and family have brought a sense of peace to him he's never had before.

Maybe that's what Dan feels when he circles his fingers around Marcus's wrist. He doesn't want to take that from him, so he gently rests his palm against Dan's chest, using his other hand to take one of the lock picking tools to the keyhole he can see in the loop around Dan's neck.

"Tilt your head back for me just a little," he says. "I'll have you out of this in no time."

[shine_again]

"There are so many others," Dan says, even if a little voice that's entirely his own selfishness is telling him to shut up. "Are-- are we going for any of them?"

Then Marcus puts a hand on his chest and Dan's entire body relaxes. It's more than the calm and safety that Marcus gives him, but the knowledge that he's comforting Dan in the best way he knows. Dan's stiff and shaking muscles become pliant, and he's easily guided, letting his head fall back.

"You will," he says, letting his eyes close, safe to do so now, with this anchor. If only he was a little brighter, if only he had some of Abra's strength, he could turn the world halfway, and stay in that safe place he knows is there.

[pushbackthedarkness]

"You first," Marcus answers. "I'll come back if I can."

From the hall, Trass gives a warning growl that Marcus takes to mean he needs to hurry. He works at the lock in the loop around Dan's neck, giving it as much of his focus as he can given the situation. The tool he's using clicks around and he has to take his hand from Dan's chest so he can get the other tool into the lock at the same time. Just a few more seconds of feeling around, though, and he's got it.

The iron loop releases and Marcus shoves his tools back into his pocket, then reaches up to carefully remove the chain from around Dan's neck. The skin beneath is red and raw, it makes Marcus wince in sympathetic pain, but he can think more about that once they're out of here, once they're safely down the mountain.

"Put this on," he says, stripping out of his jacket. He removes his rosary from the pocket, looping the beads around his fingers, letting the iron cross dangle from his hand for the moment. Besides Trass, it's his best weapon, and he needs it for the way out. "Zip it up tight, it's too cold for you to go out there without a shirt on."

[shine_again]

Dan doesn't know what to say.

This turns out to to be fine, as he needs to focus on doing as Marcus asks so that the chain can be removed. "Count forty-five seconds at the door," he says, gasping when the ring and chain are removed. Salem is already trotting to do just that. "Just do it."

He doesn't argue as he takes the coat, zipping it up with numb fingers. Absurdly, he wants to take Marcus but the hand; there's no room for that, when they might have to fight, and as he stumbles toward the door, he's aware of Salem's amber gaze.

The cat makes a series of strange chirping noises, and then, rising up on his hind legs, he's not exactly a cat, but a shadowy form that wraps around Dan to support him. From the creature, a familiar low mrrrr.

Long, clawed fingers reach out to touch Marcus's face gently, and then point down the hall.

[pushbackthedarkness]

He ought to be afraid, he thinks. But he isn't.

The touch is so gentle and Salem is wrapped around Dan in a way that speaks of nothing but care and all Marcus can do is follow the pointed fingers down the hall and count the forty-five seconds Dan has asked. Trass steps into the cell and Marcus watches as one of the larger and more menacing creatures moves from one room to the other between seconds thirty-nine and forty-four.

Then the hallway is clear and silent once more. He glances at Dan with grateful eyes and nods.

"Lead us out, Trassel," he whispers to the wolf, then begins to follow him down the hall, keeping close to Dan and Salem at the same time. He keeps one hand out toward Dan, his touch there if he needs it, and the other clutches the rosary, holding it out in front of him. He wants to try Kat on his cell again, but he needs to wait until they're out to the safety of the truck.

One step at a time.

[pushbackthedarkness]

Marcus is still worried, of course, and he wants to go back up to Kagura to help the others who have been left behind, but by the time Dan is patched up and there's warm soup steaming in bowls, he knows he's in no shape to go back. He's wearing a pair of sweat pants, his jeans traded out for them before his knee swelled too much to get his leg free easily, and the limp is much more pronounced now that he's inside and his adrenaline has worn off.

If Dan and Kat didn't prevent him from going out again, he rather suspects Salem would.

Still, it's difficult, sitting here in the house, knowing there's nothing he can do. People he cares about are still in that castle. Trass is still up there. Marcus wants to be, too.

Turning away from the window and limping over to the kitchen table, he sinks down into the chair across from Dan and takes up his spoon to finally eat some of the soup. "Are you feeling any warmer?" he asks before he takes a mouthful. It helps, warming his throat and his chest, all the way down to his stomach. The chill begins to ease off.

[shine_again]

Dan has already worked it out with Salem, or has at least tried to reason with-- well, it's not really a cat, is it-- about keeping Marcus from going back. This is, Dan knows, fairly selfish of him. Just because he's somehow made this sort of friend so quickly doesn't mean he should get to keep him to himself.

On the other hand, Marcus might be even more injured than him, in terms of being able to do things, and there's Kat, and presumably Sabrina will return at some point as well. There are plenty of reasons to be on the side of keeping Marcus here.

He finds himself eating slowly, waiting for Marcus to join him, and then he nods. "Yeah," he says, the rawness of his throat keeping his voice quieter, a bit rougher. "Before long I think I'll actually be able to refer to it as being warm, in general. How's the knee? I'm not sure you should be on that at all."

[pushbackthedarkness]

"It hurts, but it'll heal," Marcus answers with a small, lopsided smile. "Few days of rest, ice and some painkillers, and I'll be right as rain."

It's swollen and the place where the goblin had hit him with the club is already turning a rather spectacular shade of purple, but Marcus has had worse, and he's more concerned about Dan and the others still up at the castle. There's nothing he can do in this state and that's what bothers him most about his knee. Not the pain, not the time he knows it will take to properly heal, but the fact that it prevents him from helping any further. Until he knows the outcome of this, whether or not people are safe, he's going to be utterly stir crazy.

"I'm more worried about your throat," he says. "We'll have to keep an eye on it. Trauma to your throat can cause swelling even days after the incident." He knows this, having been grabbed by the throat more than a few times in his life, starting with his father and ending with Betty Cooper, although he rather hopes she doesn't remember having done so.

[shine_again]

"As long as you stick to that," Dan says, and he doesn't need the shining to see the possibility for restlessness. "I'm sure you'd rather be heading back up there." Dan remains unsure of whether he could make himself go back into that dark place, though he thinks that if Marcus did, he'd try.

He lifts a hand to his bandaged throat, a far-away look in his eyes. "Yeah, you're right." It's on his list of things not to think about, puzzles not to solve. Had it been Mrs. Massey that had strangled him, or had it been-- that's not what he wants to think about, no. But he's gone quiet and distant enough that he feels he should say something.

"I was strangled pretty badly as a child, once. I don't think my mom understood that much. It's not like she could have taken me to a doctor anyway, I think we were snowed in at that point. I suppose I was lucky."

[pushbackthedarkness]

"Me too," Marcus admits with a faint smile that's completely lacking in any real warmth. It looks more like a grimace than anything and he takes another mouthful of soup before continuing. "First time it happened, I think I was five. My mum wouldn't have taken me to a doctor anyway."

He doesn't think it was her the first time, he's fairly certain it was his dad, but she'd done her fair share of it, too. Thrown him into walls, slapped him hard enough to bloody his nose, dragged him around by the arm hard enough to leave finger shaped bruises. In the early seventies in the tiny town he'd grown up in, no one had really cared much about trying to prevent that sort of child abuse, so he'd suffered the two years in silence until they died.

"Was it your dad?" he asks, figuring he might as well. It's a difficult question, but one an abused kid will always think to ask.

[shine_again]

"I'm not sure," Dan says honestly. "Whether it was one of the ghosts, or whether it was one of the ghosts fucking with him to make him do it, or whether he was just drunk and angry. I was five too, actually, and we were staying at a hotel called the Overlook. He got a job as caretaker, and we were snowed in, and-- the place was evil. I mean that in a literal sense."

He keeps the shining quiet, where it wants to reach out. This is the kind of talk meant to be done this way, face to face, words spoken aloud.

Or so he tells himself.

"And you? There's a reason you asked."

[pushbackthedarkness]

Just a child, snowed into an evil place with ghosts that could make his father choke him. No wonder Dan had been so deeply bothered by the snow, by the castle and the dungeons. He's lived through this already and maybe the bars on his cell hadn't been quite so literal the first go around, but Marcus feels a surge of warmth and worry for him.

"My dad," he says. "Some of the time anyway. My mum the rest of the time. The two of them never wanted to be parents and at best I was an inconvenience."

At worst he'd been the reason they were poor, the reason they were sad, the reason they were angry.

"He ended up killing her," he tells Dan. "When I was seven. Your mum, though..." He wants to hear she was able to get away, found a place to be safe with Dan. His mother never would have, but he has a feeling Dan's mother was a far better parent than his own was ever capable of being.

[shine_again]

Dan puts down his spoon and reaches out to set a hand on Marcus's wrist, the back of his hand. The dizzy feeling now isn't from darkness or evil; it's from the realization that they are so similar, that they've been hurt in so many of the same ways.

His thumb strokes the inside of Marcus's wrist.

"When my dad finally lost it, he tried to kill both of us. I had called for help with the shining, called a man I knew I could trust, and it nearly killed both him and my mom, but we got out. My dad died at the Overlook. So we were safe, even if we were changed. The ghosts tried to follow me, but Dick, that's the fried, he helped me with that." He keeps his voice soft, as soothing as he can manage.

"How did you escape it?"

[pushbackthedarkness]

Marcus does his level best not to shiver when Dan's thumb strokes over the inside of his wrist. At this angle, his fingertips cover the gun barrel tattooed just there, the smaller circle within the larger, and he knows it's utterly meaningless to most people who see it, but for him it's a reminder. Not just of who he is, but of what he's done.

"I killed him," he answers, lifting his gaze from Dan's hand to his face instead. "I was seven when he killed my mum, hit her with a hammer right in front of me, and I knew I was next. I went for his hunting rifle, grabbed it down off the wall, and shot him through the throat as he tried to choke me to death."

Seven years old, his father's strong hands wrapped around his throat, wet with his father's blood, and Marcus had never felt freer in his entire young life. He doesn't regret it at all. Never will. He hopes that's clear in the ways he says it all.

[shine_again]

Dan can't quite seem to pull his hand away, and he doesn't think he wants to, not in this moment. To be fair, he's done an awful lot of touching his friend today, and it's been-- allowed. Okay. Perhaps even welcomed.

"You set yourself free," he says, still in that quiet tone. "I'm sorry, I can feel that coming through, but it's clear. Set yourself free from that, though not everything."

He feels something stirring in his ribcage, and he's not sure he's felt it before. Maybe Abra had pierced through the numbness, but not like this.

"I'm really glad I met you."

[pushbackthedarkness]

No, certainly not everything. Not long after, the Church had gotten its claws into Marcus and even now, all these years later, he still hasn't quite shaken it. He has no love for the Church, really, not as an institution, but he still goes to sit in the buildings when he feels like he needs to. Still crosses himself, still carries his rosary, and his Bible. He strongly suspects, if not for his excommunication papers ending up in the hands of the local bishops, that he might even still be a priest.

All that gets shuffled aside, however, at Dan's next statement, and Marcus can't let himself hope Dan might mean it beyond friendship. Though there's no denying he's nursing a bit of a crush these days, he's doing rather well keeping it under wraps, he likes to think, keeping it from being something Dan can just read in him. The friendship already means so much to him. He can't risk it by overstepping.

"So am I," he agrees, his smile widening a touch, becoming a little lighter. "I've a tendency to be a bit of a grumpy prick, so that you like me at all is rather impressive."

[shine_again]

Dan would be the first person to tell anyone that Dan has really ever found himself in a relationship when he's been the pursued-- not out of ego, but because he tends not to notice these things. Perhaps it's natural inclination, or maybe it has to do with how carefully he keeps himself closed off from people. That he feels such warmth, such ease with Marcus just makes him happy, and at least right now, he's not questioning it.

you also let abra call you uncle dan for how long

Dan blinks, surprised for a voice to pop up. It's not Tony, or anyone he'd known to visit back home. He thinks, maybe, Tony might still be with him, but not the others. He squeezes Marcus's hand gently, and returns to eating his soup.

"I'm capable of absolute wonders, you'll see," Dan says, and smothers a yawn.