Who: Sebastian & Ophelia Where: The McCarthy House When: Sunday afternoon, January 7 Status: Complete
When Sebastian got home Sunday morning, all he wanted to do was fall into bed. His body ached like he’d been in a car wreck followed by a fist fight, possibly with a bear or a mountain lion. Instead, he stumbled into the shower and washed the blood and dirt from his skin, the water washing away the grime far easier than the fragmented memories the last twenty-four hours. His brain had a habit of trying to fill in the missing pieces, but everything it came up with drummed up a fear he was still trying to squash. It felt like a horrible game of whack-a-mole, each scenario worse than the last, followed by an attempt to forget, or at least clear his mind. Whatever he’d been doing it must have been exhausting, as once he climbed into bed he was asleep within seconds.
Staying asleep proved more difficult than he’d expected, the nightmares starting just as soon as his brain had time to rest. He’d thought what he could come up with while awake was bad, but his subconscious was worse. He slept fitfully, waking every few hours before eventually giving up. He knew his body needed rest, but some of that he’d have to get with his eyes open. He refused to scare himself awake once more. Sebastian moved to the game room and started up a marathon of movies meant to distract and comfort-- funny movies that he could watch without thinking, that he’d seen multiple times already. He drifted off somewhere near the end of 21 Jump Street and finally fell into a dreamless sleep. When he woke again, he took a round of painkillers, then started up Horrible Bosses. It wasn’t exactly high quality entertainment, but it was better than thinking and that was what mattered.
Even though she hadn’t been through the same ordeal Sebastian had, Phee was also exhausted. As soon as they were home, she’d crawled into bed and was dead to the world for a long stretch of hours. Her dreams weren’t particularly pleasant, but she didn’t wake up until well into Sunday afternoon. She knew she ought to call Greg and let him know what was going on, but Phee couldn’t find the motivation to do that yet. Maybe it wasn’t a good thing to talk about over the phone anyway. Words were already going to pale in comparison to what they’d all experienced next door, so this conversation would take facial expressions too. It was just a lot to wrap her head around, and she’d been there herself.
Instead, she took a shower and put on some soft comfy clothes, then went downstairs to get something small to eat. As she was looking through the cabinets, the impulse turned into the desire to find her brother and feed him too. Phee made a plate with various cheeses and crackers and a bowl of cut fruit, thinking Bash might want something lighter on his stomach, then set out to locate him in the big house. She heard the TV running in the game room and padded her way inside, hands full of offerings. He was there on the couch, watching a dumb comedy, which really seemed like a genius idea. Phee wordlessly put the food down in front of him on the coffee table and sat down at his side. “I love Charlie Day,” she said idly, crossing her legs and looking at the big screen.
Sebastian’s eyes ticked towards the door as movement caught his attention, tension beginning to build in his back and shoulders. Of everyone in the house, Phee was his first choice for company, but he still worried about talking to her. Shame ate at him, almost worse than the fear, and he wondered if he could ever apologize enough. The worst part of it was that he wasn’t even sure what he’d done. He had a feeling that he’d wronged her in some way, but it was fleeting, like the memory of a nightmare from several nights past. He was trying to figure out the best way to apologize when she spoke and he smiled softly, relaxing just a touch. “Me too. He’s the best part of the movie.” He glanced towards the plate of food and his stomach rumbled, a reminder that the last time he’d eaten was Friday at lunch. “You sharing?” he asked as he reached for a cracker.
“Of course, yeah,” Phee said, making a welcoming gesture at the plate of food. She wasn’t sure when Sebastian had eaten the last time, but it was good to see him reach for sustenance. She didn’t say that she’d brought it strictly for him to avoid making it seem like she was babying him or something, and Phee reached to get a cracker and cheese slice herself to nibble on for appearance’s sake. She slowly munched and watched the movie for another couple of minutes, then glanced over at her brother. “How’re you feeling?” she asked, making her tone as casual as possible. There’d been so much sleeping in the house, she wasn’t sure if their parents had talked to him yet or not, but Phee was willing to bet she would get the more honest answers anyway.
Sebastian nibbled cautiously at the cracker, waiting to make sure his stomach would accept it before reaching for another. The nausea had mostly subsided, but he didn’t want to get overly ambitious and stir it up again. He didn’t have a great appetite at the moment, but he could tell when he was running on fumes and needed something. He stilled when Phee asked how he was feeling, continuing to stare at the screen for a long moment. He wanted to just say ‘fine’, but it was such a bald faced lie that he couldn’t bring himself to do it. “Pretty shitty,” he said quietly, his throat still sore and slightly hoarse. He wasn’t sure if she meant mentally or physically, but the answer was the same, so it probably didn’t matter. He glanced towards her, abandoning the movie to focus on his sister. “Did I hurt you?” He had the feeling he had, but he wasn’t sure how and that made it so much worse.
Phee had meant both, either, whichever he wanted to answer. She figured ‘pretty shitty’ was an overall assessment, and it wasn’t that surprising to hear. She wasn’t sure who could go through what Bash had gone through and not feel shitty at the end, and she was aware that they probably didn’t even know the half of what Baron had done to him. She kept trying to imagine what it would be like to discover you’d been completely controlled by someone else, and it made her feel awful to even think about. His question surprised her though, and it showed on Phee’s face as she looked over at him, her brows knotting together in sympathy. “No, you didn’t,” she told him, and briefly reached over to squeeze his forearm. “It wouldn’t have been you anyway, but ... no. You -- well, she -- did come and ask me for something, and I think she was ... fucking with my mind. Influencing me to do it. But that was all. As far as I know you didn’t hurt any of us, like family and friends.” Phee hoped that would ease his mind a bit.
Sebastian nodded slowly, remembering that his father had mentioned him trying to use the same sort of magic on him. Mind manipulation. Even without knowing how such a skill was obtained, Sebastian knew it was dark magic and he fiddled with the band on his wrist as he wondered how much backlash it had absorbed over the past few weeks. “What did I ask you for?” He knew she’d been the one to ask, but he still felt like he was the one to blame. He should’ve noticed that someone else was in his head. How could he not pick up on a thing like that? There’d been so many signs, he saw that now; he’d just been too naive to know what they meant. “I could’ve killed you. I tried to kill Caius. I’m not totally sure why I didn’t, except…” He licked his lips, trying to recall exactly what had been going through his head during that moment. It was the one time that they’d been sharing a mind, that he’d been absolutely sure there was someone in there with him because not all the thoughts had been his own. “She wanted something from him, too.”
Phee sighed softly, but didn’t hesitate to tell him. This wasn’t a fun topic, but it was a necessary one. She knew she would’ve been full of millions of questions if the same thing had happened to her. It was unsettling to think about not being in control of one’s self alone, much less when interacting with other people. “She wanted blood,” she said, determined not to say ‘you’ during any description of Baron being in control of her brother. “She told me to get it from Zania Castell, I guess ‘cause she knew I work at their place sometimes. And like ... I was gonna do it too. I didn’t even ask that many questions. From what everybody said, that was what she wanted from Caius too. And actually got from Veronica Kelly and maybe a couple others, I dunno. We’re not sure what for, but it couldn’t have been anything good.” Phee paused to wet her lips, fiddling with the hem of her shirt. “I think she wanted to steal you permanently, just ... move in. So it’s ... kind of good that the thing with Caius didn’t work, otherwise we wouldn’t even know, still. We stopped it. ... and none of it was you, Bash. It was all Baron being like, a huge cunt.” She offered a faint smile.
He wanted to laugh since the sentiment was too true, but he was stuck thinking about Baron’s plans and how close she might have been to completing them. There’d been so much blood on the snow, more than he could’ve possibly taken from Veronica Kelly or she’d be dead. He still didn’t know where she’d gotten it, or whose heart that had been, or what had been in that cup… “She couldn’t keep me out of my own head,” he said softly, partially telling her, but also thinking out loud. “I kept waking up. I’d be there for a moment, start to get my bearings, then she’d put me under again.” But if she’d had her way, he’d have stayed there in the darkness, drifting forever, not alive but not dead either. It made him feel ill to think about and he set down the cracker he’d been munching on. “You don’t still feel compelled to do it, do you? Cause I can ask you not to, but I don’t think it’ll work without her magic.”
It was a little worrisome to Phee that he didn’t laugh, but at the same time she completely understood. Nothing about this was really funny, and it was all still raw. Feeling better might take some time. Phee’s chest hurt a little as he gave that small description -- it wasn’t much, but she had a good enough imagination to get a slight idea of how fucking horrible that had to have been. She squinted one eye a tiny bit and shook her head at his question. “Not ... really? Like a tiny bit, sometimes, but it’s not strong, and I bet it’ll go away. It’s just like ... a weird impulse every now and then. Nothing I’m worried about.” Saying she was sorry for what he’d been through sounded stupid in her head, so Phee held back on the urge, reaching over to rest her hand on his arm again for a moment. “Of course she couldn’t, you’re a fighter,’ she murmured.
Sebastian leaned into her touch this time, craving any affection he could get. He wasn’t sure he deserved it, but it was hard to come by these days so he wasn’t going to let it go to waste. “I don’t feel like much of one right now,” he said. “I couldn’t stop her. I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t even know she was there until it was almost too late and even then I was useless.” He stopped, hearing just how pathetic he sounded and annoyed by it. He didn’t want to whine. He wanted to be strong. It just felt so out of reach at the moment. “I want to find a way to prove she’s not there...and make sure nothing like that ever happens to me again.” He didn’t know how to go about that, but it felt like something he needed for his own sanity. If he could prove that he was really alone in his head, he might begin to trust himself again.
Since he seemed to want to be touched, Phee scooted over and put her arm around his shoulders. He was taller than her, but slumpy so it didn’t matter. She wished she knew what to say to make him feel better, to take all of this away, even if those words didn’t actually exist. Just like all the other crazy bullshit that had been happening, it was something they all had to learn to live with now. It had happened, and now it was time to find a way forward. Easier said than done, but still. “We’ll figure something out,” she murmured. “We’re on like, first-name basis with all the badass witches in town now, so that’s gotta be a resource we can use, you know? I can ask Zania maybe if there’s like, protection spells to do.” Phee paused for a moment, then gave him a little squeeze. “Don’t beat yourself up though. Apparently Baron has given everybody a run for their money, you were up against a super powerful force. Let’s just ... use this as motivation to learn more magic.”
“Baron,” Sebastian said, her name a whisper as he leaned against his sister. “I should’ve known it was her.” He was sure there was a long, complicated explanation for how it had all gone down, but everything seemed to go back to her. Was this because he’d helped Reagan and Caius break their curse? The thought lit a fire inside him, a spark of fury rather than regret. “Fucking bitch,” he muttered and took a deep breath as he mulled Phee’s suggestion over. “You think Zania would help? I can’t go to Reagan again, not after everything. God, every witch in town has seen me, like, completely lose it.” He hated that so much, a superficial part of him still concerned about his image, the idiot witch who’d gone and gotten himself possessed and needed a whole coven to save him.
Phee realized belatedly that no one had given Sebastian a run-down of what had happened to him yet -- she’d assumed he knew who was possessing him. Oops. At least it was over now. It had better be over now, or she was going to be so pissed at Reagan Kelly and Caius D’Onofrio. Not that they would probably care, but still. The whole family needed this to be over. She brushed her hand through Bash’s hair, vaguely glad he’d taken a shower, and frowned softly. “Stop, you were going through hell, nobody sees it like that,” she told him. Phee kissed his temple, finding it easy to be touchy and affectionate with him at the moment. “But yeah I think she’d help, if she can. She’s actually really nice. To me, anyway. Or we could talk to Dad some more. Or both, hell.” Phee chuckled faintly.
If Sebastian had thought about it long enough, he probably would’ve figured out it was Baron, but the last few days had left his brain feeling scrambled. Eventually he’d ask one of his parents to fill him in, or even Phee, but he wasn’t ready to hash it all out yet. “Definitely both,” he smiled, letting his eyes fall shut as she ran her fingers through his hair. It was one of those things he’d absolutely never turn down, the kind of thing that made him feel cared for in a way words never would. “She seems kind of weird. And her brother’s kind of creepy. But I’ll take what I can get. Dad’s so weird about what he wants to teach us, like… I’m tired of only learning what he thinks is important. I want to know what else there is.” He was quiet for a moment, then his eyes opened and his smile faded. “I want the book.”
Phee chuckled softly at Bash’s description of the Castells, and she was about to comment when he mentioned ‘the book.’ For a second the only book Phee could picture was the leather-bound beauty she was using as her own personal grimoire -- just thinking of it sent a pleasant sort of thrill through her stomach, a now-familiar feeling, which was quickly followed by a spike of possessive anger. Why would Bash want that book? It was hers. Then she realized he probably meant the McCarthy family grimoire. Which made more sense and didn’t spark weird feelings inside of her. “I bet he’s got it hidden away,” she murmured, still petting her brother’s hair while her heart rate slowed down. She highly doubted their father thought they were ready for that kind of access, which sucked. They would’ve been ready if they’d been learning magic from the start. “I do think we need to learn a lot more, though. Fast now, because things are like, fucking scary out there.” Phee thought of poor Jules and her portal-hands, the thing on the other side of whatever she’d opened up, and she had to suppress a shudder.
“I don’t even think it’s in the house,” Sebastian said, remembering the room his father had at his office. He was willing to bet the book was tucked away there, though he’d not seen it that day or any other day. His father maintained such tight control over it that couldn’t imagine his father relinquishing it to anyone, despite his hints that he might one day inherit it. As much as he might hope for it, Sebastian knew that would never happen. If his father were to give his grimoire to anyone, it would be Phee, then Trip, if he wanted it. Some might say that was just his middle-child syndrome talking, but he knew the score. He wasn’t going to inherit anything unless both his siblings rejected it and that wasn’t likely to happen. “I want to know everything, even the stuff I’ll never actually do, I want to know about it. I don’t know if we’re magnets for this shit or if we’re just more aware of it because of what we are, but I’m so fucking tired of feeling helpless. I can’t keep running to more powerful witches to save me. I want to learn to save myself. And others.” Right now he could barely keep his own head above water, but helping others was the end goal. He just couldn’t do that when he was drowning himself.
Sebastian was probably right that James had the grimoire elsewhere. Their parents had tried so hard to keep magic out of their lives until recently, a grimoire that old and important would be like a loaded gun in the house -- not something you wanted your curious kids to find. Phee gave a soft sigh and kissed the top of her brother’s forehead. It was more affection than they usually showed one another, but considering everything that had happened, she felt it was probably needed, and she knew he didn’t have many other people to cuddle with. Human touch was important to healing, and Bash needed to heal. “Maybe this will change his mind about things,” she suggested softly. “Maybe now he’ll see that we need to be able to protect ourselves. It’s hit us directly now, and bad. He can’t shield us anymore, we need real training. And we’re both talented as fuck, we can handle things with guidance, you know? I’ll try to talk to him too.” Phee knew it wasn’t fair, but she thought James might listen to her more than he would to Bash. She might as well use her daddy’s-princess-privilege to help them.
For all the screwing around he did with Logan, it didn’t make him feel like this, like he was actually cared for. He was a poor substitute in that regard, but he hadn’t noticed until now, cuddling with his sister, one of the only people who still allowed him to get close. Sebastian wondered if he could stay there, curled up with her through the end of the movie and maybe another. “He’ll listen to you,” he said, turning a little to look up at her. “I’ve fucked up enough that my case kinda sucks, but you could do it. Probably without it becoming something to fight about.” He had the feeling that the only way he’d get what he wanted was through some kind of ultimatum. It gave him an idea that had been brewing in the back of his mind, but he still didn’t know if he wanted to play that card yet. “You know that fire I could make? During the fog? I thought it was talent, but I think it was just Baron’s magic. Now all I can do is this,” he said and held out his hand to conjure a tiny blue flame. It was only there for a second before Sebastian waved it away, already feeling the burn on his palm.
“Yeah, maybe,” she murmured. Phee wasn’t very convinced that James would agree to let her see the book, much less study it closely, but she would give it a shot anyway. Zania was so open with sharing her magical knowledge with Phee, it made her wish that her parents were more like that. Or James anyway, since Brianna didn’t seem to know much herself. All this sheltering could only get them hurt, especially now that they’d been targeted directly but some evil entity. Ancestor or no, Baron had been evil, and Phee was just glad they’d taken action before something worse had happened. Phee watched Bash conjure up the small flame and then snuff it out again, then shook her head a little. “She might’ve been giving you a boost or something, like steroids, but it was still your magic. You’ll get to that level again,” she tried to reassure him. “It’ll just be practice, like anything.” Phee gave his head another nuzzle. “For now though, just focus on resting, you gotta be wiped out.”
“Maybe,” Sebastian murmured, though he wasn’t sure any amount of practice would ever make fire easy for him again. Even if he could get to that level, it would still burn him, which made handling it far more dangerous. He couldn’t think of a good use for it beyond lighting candles, so maybe that was okay. He hoped he’d never need a fireball in his daily life. “My whole body hurts,” he said, shutting his eyes as he leaned against her. “I don’t understand why or how, but I guess exorcisms are just rough. Did I just...materialize in Caius’ house?” He kind of thought he did, but he’d been blacking out so often that it was highly possible he’d missed some big piece of the action.
It was possible that Sebastian’s soreness came from more than the ritual itself -- who knew what Baron had been doing with his body when she was at the wheel. Phee definitely didn’t want to bring that up at the moment, though. Hopefully Bash would just start to feel better and they could put all this behind them now. Finishing out the school year with as much normalcy as possible would be great, but she wasn’t going to hold her breath. “They had to do a spell to make it happen, but ... yeah, pretty much,” she answered him softly. “You just kinda ... phased in, inside the circle. If it hadn’t been so fucking scary, it all would’ve been super cool to watch, you know? All of them working together.”
Sebastian gave her a little smile as he nodded against her. “It would’ve been cool, if things had been different. There was all this energy…” Granted, it had been suffocating at the time, ripping Baron from him, but he could tell that his circumstances weren’t everyone else’s. “I wonder why they don’t work together more often. Makes me wish there were a few more witches our age.” The only one he knew of was Liam and they weren’t really friends. He was friends with Phee though. “Do you think we’ll ever be able to handle something like that?” While he hoped it wasn’t necessary, it got him thinking about what their limits were. Baron had been a witch and she’d almost managed to come back from the dead. He didn’t want power anything like hers, but it made him realize that what he knew was just a speck of what they were capable of.
“Somebody said there hadn’t been an actual coven in like a hundred years or something, so I dunno ... maybe the families just don’t get along well enough to do it much.” That was all conjecture, maybe they just didn’t band together out of habit, but there had seemed to be some tension in the room at some points. There was obviously history floating between them. Phee agreed though -- it would’ve been nice to have more teenage witches to talk to. Liam was great, but he was only one person. “I bet we will,” Phee told Sebastian, smiling faintly. “We’ve apparently got really powerful blood, so ... that’s gotta count for something, right?” She ruffled his hair a bit. “We’ll get there. We just gotta really practice now.” She wondered vaguely if he wasn’t feeling some withdrawal from Baron’s magic, like a high had been taken away.
“We’ll start when I feel better,” Sebastian smiled as he began to snack again. ‘Withdraw’ was probably a good description of what he was going through in many respects, made worse by the side effects of going through such an intense ritual. Baron’s magic had been revealed to him slowly, so it felt natural, but he’d been fully immersed in it by the time she was ripped from him. She might’ve been the one performing spells when he was unconscious, but he was pretty sure he’d suffer the backlash if he removed the leather band around his wrist. “What do you have for your backlash?” he asked. “I know dad said we shouldn’t be doing anything that would have any, but I’m pretty sure I’m past that point. I want to transfer it to something a bit more, I dunno… durable.”
“I don’t ... actually have anything yet,” Phee admitted with a small frown. She’d felt a bit of backlash before, when she did too much growing, but it was usually just a headache for a day. She knew the magic she’d been doing on her own was small potatoes though. She was glad that Sebastian had had something to absorb it, especially if Baron had been using him to do magic. The mental picture made her uncomfortable. “Yours is in the bracelet, right?” she murmured, already knowing that was it. She remembered the fight about it with their parents. Ugh, all of this sucked. “You’ll find something,” Phee said, her voice more decisive. “And I will too. We can worry about that later though. Let’s just like, forget everything and watch something, yeah?”
It was hard for him to turn his brain off with the past few days running through his head, but he nodded, knowing that forgetting for a few minutes was a good idea. If he didn’t, he would keep himself awake, examining every little detail, overthinking things he could do absolutely nothing about right now. “After this we should watch Dodgeball,” he said, then turned his eyes towards the screen. He felt safe there, curled up against Phee while Charlie Day and Jason Bateman ran around all hopped up on coke on the screen. Not ten minutes later he was asleep again and this time the nightmares stayed away.