Dumat: The Dragon of Silence (nearestvessel) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-09-24 15:44:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, abigail hobbs, samandriel |
Who: Abigail & Samandriel.
What: She prays that he’s okay.
When: 9/24
Where: Her bedroom.
Rating: Medium for talk about the triggery shit that happened when there was an evil!Samandriel, standard Samandriel warnings
Status: Complete!
It felt wonderful to be back in her own bedroom. The hospital was never home, never comfortable. The IV in her arm still felt like it was there, and she could almost taste the saline in her mouth from whenever they’d flushed it. They’d kept pumping her full of morphine even after she’d been healed, thinking there was no way she could not be in pain. The metallic smell of it was in her nose, plus that weird bleach antiseptic smell that was just hospital.
As soon as she’d gotten home, she’d taken a very long shower, washing her hair four times to get out the grime and smell. When she was finally in one of Hannibal’s undershirts and a pair of his boxers, smelling like the perfume they’d made together by hand, she cuddled a pillow to her chest. She knew that Samandriel hadn’t texted her back yet, and she wondered if that was because he thought she wouldn’t want to talk to him or something else.
“Please, God,” Abigail murmured, eyes closed. “Just let him be okay? Even if he doesn’t want to talk to me now, just ... let him be happy and don’t let him feel guilty.” Her fingers clenched and unclenched the pillowcase, trying not to cry. She’d already done that too much.
Nights when he wasn’t working were times when Samandriel tended to focus on actually listening to prayers. Even if there was nothing he could do about them, he was getting better at listening and hoping that the act of listening would be some comfort to someone somewhere. He’d done a lot of listening when he was confined. It was good practice, in retrospect, at letting some things go.
Others, he couldn’t so much. Like the ache in Abigail’s soul and the unanswered text that had been sitting on his phone for too long. There was no way he was going to miss her prayer, particularly since it was about him. It took a moment for him to get his bearings enough to appear sitting on the foot of her bed. “Like I could do anything but feel guilty,” he said softly.
She jumped a little when she heard her friend’s voice, not having really expected him to answer. Abigail didn’t want to cry - it seemed like it was all she was doing lately - but the tears she burst into were mostly happy. Just seeing him helped.
Moving to sit on the bed, she pulled him into a hug. “But it wasn’t your fault,” she sniffled. “I know you. I think I’d know you blindfolded, and ... it wasn’t you.” Squeezing him tightly, she wanted to hold him as tightly as possible to keep him from going away.
Samandriel closed his eyes, but allowed the hug. “With the rest of them,” he said softly, “I had to wander into their dreams to try to get them to find me both while it was all happening and...and I think they think I don’t know what he did, but I’d see it replayed over and over in their dreams. And you…” He looked at the place on the floor that had been fixed where Castiel pulled him from. “I didn’t need to go into your dreams.”
“But you didn’t do anything. There’s nothing to feel guilty for.” She stroked his cheek, hoping he’d be okay with him touching her. “If you felt sad or scared or terrified or ... anything but guilty, that would be okay.” She finally leaned back to wipe her eyes. “Seeing you hurt like that when you came to me in the hospital - that gutted me.”
Samandriel didn’t flinch away from the touch, but that didn’t mean he was entirely okay with that. “I tried,” he whispered, “to get out before you could see me or before Hannibal could...I don’t know. I just...I didn’t have the strength for it right away.” It’d taken too much out of Samandriel to do everything he’d done that day. Honestly, he was still recovering in ways that were mostly invisible. He took a deep breath. “Just because we both know it wasn’t mean doesn’t mean it’s the easiest thing in the world for you to look at me and not see him.” He opened his eyes and looked at her. “So I’m sorry.”
“I forgive you. It hurt more not seeing you.” She looked down at her hands which she’d folded into her lap. “I’d go through it again, you know. To keep you as my friend. ... I’m sorry I didn’t tell everyone where you were.” She felt the stinging tears coming again behind her eyes; her betrayal made her feel somewhat nauseated to confess out loud.
“You couldn’t,” he whispered. “You didn’t even know until it was too late. None of that is your fault.” He reached out to cover her hands with his own, finding himself once again attempting to be the pillar of strength for people his other half had broken.
“I probably could have done something,” she murmured. “I chose Hannibal over you. I - didn’t think I’d ever be in that position, and I don’t ever want to again.” She wondered how he was, and she squeezed his hand. “How’s Dean?” Talking about someone else seemed safe. “He won’t tell you if he’s upset.” It seemed abundantly clear that wasn’t his personality type.
Samandriel didn’t want to point out that she would always choose Hannibal over anyone else, even herself. “No one can ever hate Dean Winchester as much as Dean Winchester.” He tucked a leg to his chest. “He’s turned self-loathing into an art form and...and I don’t think Castiel fully knows. I’ll have to show him one day, but…” But he’d been here, right here, when his other self had forced Dean’s dreams on Abigail, had literally given her Hell. “I don’t think I need to tell you that Dean’s convinced himself he deserves every moment of it.”
“Maybe that’s why your evil twin made me feel his dreams.” Abigail was very much the same way, tortured by dream deaths that hadn’t really even happened in her lifetime. Sometimes she woke up and could feel the hunting knife in her hand, could feel a dull ache in her arm from where she’d drawn it up Nicholas Boyle’s ribs. She could see her bedroom filled with dead girls, their pallor and blue lips nearly accusatory in their own right.
“And Lucifer? He’s glad to have you back?” Abigail smiled a little to herself, glad to move to a topic that would make her brother smile.
“He is,” Samandriel said, turning his right hand so she could see the ring properly. “Immensely grateful that all is not lost.”
Abigail couldn’t help it. She squeaked a little when she saw the ring, taking his hand and bouncing a little on her bed. “Did he actually propose?” She wrapped her arms around him again, closing her eyes.
“No, not yet,” Samandriel said fondly. “I’d asked him...before everything, for something a little more permanent to carry with me of his. Symbolism and all that, you know.” And if anyone knew how much Samandriel loved symbolism, it was Abigail, “and so he ordered this custom. It’s meteorite. As close to the heavens as he could get.”
That just made Abigail smile more broadly. “It’s beautiful. It makes me think of your eyes, how they change color sometimes.” She squeezed his hands, taking one and kissing the knuckles. “So ... we’re okay? You know I want to see you still?”
“We will be,” Samandriel said softly. “Lucifer’s...he’s working on finding me a new therapist. I don’t think I can look Dr. Lecter in the eye ever again and...I don’t think you’ll blame me for needing to work up to being able to actually spend time here.” His eyes remained fixed on the place he’d been trapped and not his sister.
“Want to go somewhere else?” She reached out to stroke his shoulder. “Daddy doesn’t blame you either. He blames himself the most, which is just silly too. If anything, we should blame this place. It happened to this really nice mortician I met while I was in the hospital, she said she had an evil twin too for a while. But hers was mostly just a bitch, thank goodness.” Abigail’s blue eyes were concerned.
“Not being held responsible just makes it harder,” Samandriel said, forcing himself to remain right there in her room. “Hannibal couldn’t have won against him, and in truth...without Dean’s gun, none of them would have been able to stop him. He shouldn’t blame himself for anything. There is so much lore on the destruction that angels can and have wrought that Hannibal ought to know that.”
“He’s kind of irrational that way. I think it’s because only a couple of days before, he promised we’d get married sometime after I turn eighteen.” Abigail bit her lower lip and closed her eyes. “It’s not fair, none of it. The dreams, what happened to you - none of this is right. And Will dreamed about me and it’s just this ... spiral that’s effecting everyone I know.” Abigail would’ve done anything to return to the life that she and everyone she knew had had before the dreams.
“If this hadn’t happened,” Samandriel said calmly, “the other me wouldn’t have outed my relationship with Lucifer to my mother and I’d still be stuck playing pretend and would be more miserable than anyone would’ve wanted for doing it.” At least one good thing came out of it, right?
“He did - I bet that fucker didn’t realize what a blessing in disguise that is. So you live with him now?” Abigail smiled, tucking her anger deep down, into the place where she stored all of her bad feelings. Sometimes she imagined putting them into a box, like Pandora. Deep breathing helped too. “That’s got to be amazing.”
“I think he was more setting Lucifer up to be framed for murder and it backfired on him,” Samandriel said, “but yes it’s...it’s home, and I’ve never really had a home before so it’s...it’s really nice.”
“Fucker,” Abigail muttered. She sat back down on the bed, her wet hair making her shiver. “You know, I never really spend that much time in here anyway, but I figured you wouldn’t want to sit with me in Daddy’s room. If you heard me.” She reached out to squeeze his hand. “Is it weird that I’m not mad at you? I haven’t been, not for a second.” It was just that the other thing, whatever it was - it had been so angry. She’d never seen Samandriel angry. Upset, sure. Frustrated, yeah. But never wrathful.
“Nobody’s mad at me,” Samandriel said, rubbing his face with his hands. “Everyone’s all understanding and empathic and all I want is for someone to be pissed. Anyone. All you all are is concerned.”
“My doctors were mad at whoever did it to me.” Abigail pulled a throw blanket over her shoulders, looking at Samandriel. “I can’t be mad at you. You didn’t do it.” She shrugged; to her it was as simple as that.
“Your doctors thought you’d never wake up,” Samandriel said softly. “And Lucifer put a bullet in my head but, things are normal, right?” He laughed dryly. “I don’t even eat anymore. I don’t participate in class, just sort of...sit in the back and wait for all of it to be over so I can go home and think harder about what I didn’t do.”
Abigail bit her lower lip, not knowing what to say to any of that. When Samandriel put it that way, of course he was upset. “There was nothing you could do,” she murmured. “We’re just lucky things turned out okay, I guess.”
Part of Samandriel wanted to shout that they could have found him sooner, that they could have listened, but of course none of them could have. His dark self had been just as powerful as he was and unbound...there was no part of the angel who had been trapped that could have overridden any of the work the other one was doing. “I know,” was all he said instead, “but I still don’t think I can go back to Hannibal for therapy.”
“He’ll understand,” Abigail murmured. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told someone.” She scrubbed her hands over her face, sighing to herself. She didn’t want to cry, because that would make it about her.
“He would have killed you if you had,” Samandriel whispered. “He would have done all the things to you he did to me and he would have made Hannibal watch. I’m glad you didn’t.”
Her eyes went wide and she reached out to touch his hand. “Samandriel. I’m ... you didn’t deserve any of this. And I’m so, so sorry.” She didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to help. She didn’t even know how to begin.
“Don’t,” he whispered. “I don’t want pity or sympathy or...anything but to just move on from it.” Wasn’t that enough? “You’re still family but...but this is really hard for me no matter how much I love you or how important you are.” He was doing his best. He hoped that was clear.
“Of course it is.” Abigail shook her head. “We don’t even have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” She squeezed his hand. Normalcy she could provide, if that was what he needed. “When are you two getting married, anyway? Do I get to come?”
“He’s not even properly proposing until my birthday,” Samandriel said as fondly as he could manage. “And of course you’re coming. You and the Winchesters and your father and Julia. Perhaps we should find Julia a date just so we can have a thoroughly debauched weekend away wherever it is.”
That made Abigail laugh. “How do you know she doesn’t have a boyfriend already?”
“Girlfriend,” Samandriel corrected gently. “And I know.”
Abigail smiled more. “I’ll keep my eyes open,” she murmured. She agreed with him, going back to normal would be best for all of them, most likely. She was just glad that Samandriel wanted to talk to her still.
Pulling her knees to her chest, she shivered a little under her blanket. “We should throw you a graduation party.”
“No, we shouldn’t,” he replied wrinkling his nose.
“Why not? It’s celebrating your liberation from institutionalized education!” Abigail grinned, pulling her blanket over her wet hair. “A ‘Samandriel’s Finally Free’ party.”
“Won’t that be the same as my wedding?” he asked, arching a brow. “Speaking of.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a slightly battered envelope containing his SAT results. “I thought you’d like to see.”
“Oh, no, your wedding will be a ‘Samandriel’s Getting Hitched’ party. Totally different. I’m just trying to find excuses to throw you a party, you know.” Taking the envelope he offered her, she opened it up. “Oh, I knew you’d do awesome on these. You’re so much better at tests than I am.”
“I don’t like parties, Abs,” he whined.
“A little get together, then. Just people you want to be there, and food, and a few nice bottles of wine.” She handed him his SAT scores back, giving him an impish look. “I’m guessing you’ve made your mind up about college, huh. Now that you don’t have the she-dragon breathing down your neck about it, I’m sure it made things easier to decide.”
“It makes the decision easier to acknowledge,” Samandriel said after a moment. He put the envelope back in his pocket. “I still think that we should just get all the party out of the way at once with the wedding. I’d hate to see Castiel’s face when he realizes that there’s more social obligations for him.”
“We can do that.” She’d have ended up doing whatever Samandriel wanted anyway; Abigail had a hard time saying no to her best friend.
“Good,” Samandriel said, stretching a little. “I should get going.” It was weighing on him too much, being in this room and he needed to stretch his wings out in the open or maybe not worry too much about Hannibal walking in and seeing him.
“Don’t stay away so long,” Abigail murmured. “I miss you.” She reached out for his hand again, squeezing it gently, not wanting to upset him too much.
Samandriel squeezed her hand, pressed a kiss to the top of her head and was gone.