Chapter Twenty-Seven: Judas

"We need to get you to a hospital."

"Mm, no. No hospitals. I need a cigarette though—"

"You're really being fucking serious right now." Matthew laughs incredulously, the sound of it hollow and tired. "You need to go to the God-damned hospital—"

"No, I don't, Matt. I'll be all healed up in about a day, maybe more, depending on how bad it is. As long as we set what we can soon, it should all heal back fine—"

"What the fuck are you talking about—"

Jonah sighs, sounding annoyed and exhausted.

"Just trust me Matt, I'm talking from experience. I'll be right as rain—mostly, at least—by the time we are back in Connecticut."

Jonah wriggles in his blanket cocoon, struggling to extend his arm, unable to reach Matthew's cigarette and lighter in the middle console.

"Fuck, kid," Matthew groans, batting the medium's hand away, tucking him back down into the nest with one hand. "I'm pulling over. We're gonna stage an impromptu exam, and you're going to explain to me just how, exactly, you're going to be able to heal more than a few broken bones in a matter of less than twenty-four hours."

Matt pulls over on a desolate off-road less than an hour from the Burnham-Marshall house. He eases Jonah from the car and props him up in the bed of the truck. Stripping the kid's shirt and pants off is a laborious, painful process, but it's necessary to see the bruise patterns outlining any potential broken bones.

Jonah smokes a cigarette, exhaling through clenched teeth, as Matthew checks him over, the occultist emitting varied sounds of concern. Jonah's head lolls a little wrong, so Matt props his head up against the back window, so Jonah can smoke more comfortably. The teen has to use his non-dominant hand, explaining to an angered Matthew that he can't feel his left hand anymore, the one attached to the dislocated shoulder.

"Fucking great, nerve damage too," Matthew mutters, "and I think your neck might be fucking broken, Jonah. We really should go to the hospital, I literally do not know how your body is still alive and more or less functioning—"

"Not the first time," Jonah hissess through clenched teeth, as Matt pokes and prods at his rather loose neck.

"What? What the fuck, kid?"

"Well, my dear Matthew," Jonah begins to explain, as Matthew pokes and prods along bruising and suspiciously-raised skin, "while you were gone—I mean, after you left—I was rather, ah…heartbroken."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah," Jonah breathes, his voice tight with pain, "I don't remember what day it was, how long I lasted, before I decided to end it all. I hung myself from the railing on the upstairs landing. I woke up some hours later, hanging there, bloated and blue and cold. It took forever to haul myself back up the rope, over the railing again—and then my neck was bent all funny. It took almost the whole day to heal. I had to hold my head in my hands when moving, and then I propped it up with some pillows into the right position, so it could knit back together—"

Matthew is staring at Jonah with a blank look of horror on his face, paused mid-movement while assessing the damage to the conduit's body. He's silent for more than a few minutes, and Jonah squirms uncomfortably, self consciously fiddling with his lolling head, unable to meet Matt's eyes.

"You fucking hung yourself?" Matthew asks in a shocked whisper. His doe eyes are wide, rapidly filling with tears.

"Well, uh, yes—"

"And you lived?"

"Yeah, Matthew, I was fine. As I said, it only took some hours to heal, I just had to make sure my neck healed in the right position, lest it be bent for the rest of eternity—"

Matt suddenly gags, hard, and turns, leaning over the edge of the truck bed just in time to vomit down onto the pavement.

"Shit, Matt—"

But Matt is already hopping down from the bed, rifling through the cab of the truck. He produces one of the water bottles, swishing and spitting repeatedly to clear his mouth out. When he returns to Jonah, climbing back into the truck bed, he looks even more pale and haunted than before. He sits next to Jonah and lights a cigarette for himself this time, his hands shaking.

"Fuck me." Is all he eventually says, a muffled sniffle the only indication of the tears he is holding back.

"It's alright, though, Matthew, I turned out just fine—"

"No, kid. I brought you back into this world, thrust you back into life without any consent or real thought for you, as a person, at all, and then I left you, I fucking ran away when confronted with my own fucking selfishness and thoughtlessness—"

"Matthew, we've talked about this already, it's—"

"It's not fine Jonah, it never was, and it never will be. I fucked you up so bad you were ready to damn yourself to Hell just to escape this life."

"But that was before I found you again, you God-damned drama queen. Thank God I can't die! Thank God I lived to reach you, to apologize to you and make up. We got our happiness in the end, silly—"

"Is this happiness?" Matt asks bluntly, his voice a monotone as he takes one of Jonah's hands in his, fiddling with a broken finger, listening to his lover's exclamation of pain.

"You know what, Matthew, maybe you are just a fucking asshole." Jonah hisses through his clenched jaw, weakly snatching his hand back. He struggles forward, as if to get away from Matt. But he doesn't make it far, crying out in pain as he crumples to the cold metal floor of the truck bed.

Matt sighs, wiping his face with his hands, doing his best to stem the flow of tears that have finally spilled free. He carefully and gently rights the medium, settling the vessel back into a semi-comfortable, less-painful position.

"I am, kid, I really am. I will never be able to express how sorry I am."

"Well, you can start by ceasing this useless pity party. Then, light me another cigarette in apology, and finish up with this examination." Jonah grumbles, sighing. He reaches with his 'good' hand to wipe the tears from Matthew's face, the occultist giving him a watery smile.

"You got it, boss."

It takes an entire, pain-wracked hour to get Jonah somewhat assessed and situated. Matthew left at some point and came back with two wooden fence posts, no doubt stolen right off of someone's property line. It makes Jonah laugh, giggling mischievously as Matthew begins fashioning splints with a pocket knife.

Matthew begins by wrapping yard after yard of gauze tightly around Jonah's blackened, swollen ribs, the easiest fix, as he delivers the damage report to the gasping teen.

"Alright, kid, this is the long and short of it. Dislocated left shoulder. A broken finger. A broken wrist and ankle, both on the left side. Six broken ribs. A broken neck, and a fractured vertebra in your spine—that I do not know what the fuck to do about—though, according to you, we should just keep you as immobile as possible, and hope for the best."

"Other than that, it's all bruising and swelling, due to the banging around you sustained while exorcizing Venus, and then Roam. One thing that really has me concerned, though, is this dark splotch of color on your side, here." Matt points to a massive black bruise on the right half of Jonah's stomach, livid in color, with no real defined shape. "This, I think, is bruising from internal bleeding. Something is ruptured, I just don't know what it could be."

"Can't be that important if I'm breathing and awake," Jonah quips, dismissive. A shocked, barking laugh escapes Matthew, and soon the occultist is doubled over with it, cackling to himself as Jonah chuckles weakly in mirth.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Jonah. You're so fucked. You're sure you don't want to go to a hospital?"

"Matt," Jonah sighs, rolling his eyes, "how would we even explain my birth date to them, let alone my complete lack of any identification whatsoever—"

"Damn, you do have a point there—"

"And anyway, as long as we immobilize the broken bits, they'll heal fine, and the rest of the damage will clear itself up. Worst case scenario, we re-break and reset shit when we get home."

Matt suddenly goes white, shaking his head.

"Fuck no, that won't be happening."

"Then you better do it right the first time." Jonah states dryly. "Get to it, I'm more than ready to be in an actual bed."

Matthew prepares the vessel first. He roots around in his truck and brings Jonah painkillers, which he makes the teenager down with a generous gulp of whisky from a bottle Matt keeps behind the seat, forever an alcoholic at heart. The two of them have one last cigarette, Matthew urging Jonah to down at least two to three more shots of whisky, hopeful to take the edge off the pain the medium will no doubt be experiencing in a few minutes.

The necromancer watches as his reincarnation hollows out his cheeks around the last drag of his cigarette, seemingly savoring it. Matt takes the butt from Jonah, flicking it away. He leans forward and presses several kisses to Jonah's still-dirty face, the kid giving him a lopsided, blurry little smile, the alcohol and painkillers already kicking in.

Matthew gently arranges Jonah flat on his back, wincing at the soft whimper the medium emits, his fractured spine against the unforgiving ridges of metal comprising the truck bed.

"I'm so sorry, baby. This isn't gonna feel good." Matthew informs him. Jonah just smiles again, giving a half-hearted thumbs up. He opens his mouth obediently, hazy blues half-lidded, as Matt wedges his thick leather wallet between the kid's teeth, hoping to spare his tongue if the teen bites down.

Hands still on the medium, Matt catches the briefest flash of something—a feeling, more than a vision. A leather strap, tasting of vomit, in his mouth, gagging him, restraining his limbs—

Matthew takes a deep, shuddering sigh, taking his palms off the projecting conduit. He does his best to calm his own thoughts and emotions, to try and achieve some distance or acquire some kind of indifference to the whole situation, lest he spiral into a K-hole of self hatred and damnation for just how wrong Jonah's second-life has turned out. The kid is supposed to be at home, wading in the creek in his drawers, running through the woods in knickerbocker pants, getting down and groovy to some God-damned Benny Goodman—but no. They both chose the hard path—Matthew, leaving, and Jonah, following behind, and quickly surpassing him, running full-tilt into this bright new century.

He takes Jonah's dislocated shoulder firmly in his broad, rough hands, giving his lover little warning at all before shoving with his full body weight.

Jonah's scream of pain is muffled by the wallet, his body flinching hard as the joint pops back into place. Tears rise and flow, Matthew pausing to rest warm hands on the boy's upper chest, a relatively-unharmed expanse of skin, hoping that his touch is somewhat comforting, or grounding, at least. The medium rides out the wave of pain, moaning pitifully, his little white teeth dug deep into leather, tears streaking down his temples. After a few moments, Jonah hesitantly rotates the shoulder, hissing as it moves appropriately, grinding only a little, feeling already shooting to his fingers in searing little pinpricks of sensation.

Moving further down the same arm, Matthew gently feels out the broken wrist, watching Jonah's face. The vessel is staring off to the side, his head having lolled and bent wrong on his broken neck during the reset. Matt gently rights the skull and neck, a feeling of dread pounding through his bones at the glazed look of pain in Jonah's unseeing eyes. Alcohol and opioids can only drown out so much, after all.

He continues to watch as he wraps a hand around the wrist, feeling the bones grind and shift in his grip, taking some effort to settle back into their natural alignment. Jonah stays still this time, barely flinching, his only indication of pain the flexing of his jaw, the tears flowing never-ending from him. Jonah keens, though, barely audible through the gag, as Matthew splints it and wraps it tight with gauze, ensuring the bones aren't going to float off anywhere. He moves on to the broken pointer finger, sighing as he straightens out and splints the shattered middle joint.

The teen is entirely unresponsive, still and silent, as Matthew splints his ankle. His eyes have closed at some point, long dark lashes resting thick on snowy cheeks, still stained and sticky with tears and inky rot.

Jonah is all wrapped up and splinted, three rolls of gauze and six makeshift splint-boards later, half-asleep and floating in a drugged haze in the bed of Matthew's truck. The occultist pulls his wallet free from the kid's mouth, tucking the spit-soaked, chewed up object into the pocket of his jeans. He leaves and returns with wet wipes, and goes about gently cleaning Jonah's face, scrubbing all of the rot and decay away. Jonah stirs slightly, humming as Matthew cleans him. He mumbles something unintelligible, his words entirely slurred and warped by the combination of pain and substance abuse.

"What is it, silly goose?" Matthew asks, as he gathers the medium back up in his arms, easing him down from the truck bed. Jonah slurs out a response, still nonsensical—something in German, maybe—groaning as Matt settles him back into the truck cab, bedding him down in the nest of blankets, still undressed. The necromancer is doing his best to brace Jonah's broken neck just-so with a pillow when the kid struggles, leaning up to plant a sloppy, uncoordinated kiss on Matthew's unsuspecting mouth, the medium humming softly to himself. Matt's breath hitches, giving the kid a weak, watery laugh in response before suddenly staggering away, sitting down heavily on the side of the road.

Jonah stares through the open car door at the back of Matthew's blurry form, the man's sobs sounding distant and warped. He wonders if Matthew is okay, what's wrong, as he struggles to maintain consciousness. Bright, mid-morning light streams in through the truck windows. Swaddled back in his blanket nest, all clean and mostly fixed up, Jonah smiles, closing his eyes and reveling in the warmth of the sun on his face. He wonders if this is Heaven, floating as he is in this warm, liquid feeling. He's reliving the memory of Matthew teaching him how to float in the creek back home, when he finally loses consciousness, his grip slipping, disappearing easily and quickly into the nothing.

Matthew comes back to the truck after he is all cried out, quite a long while later. He feels like he can lay down in the dirt and die, considering how exhausted he is, and how guilty he is. He downed two shots of whisky, the last of it, and smoked a fourth of a pack of cigarettes in the last hour, trying to calm his nerves after his impromptu shift as a medic for a boy that defies all medical logic. He's fading hard and fast, the fight-or-flight adrenaline of the Burnham exorcism finally wearing off.

Despite his best efforts to drown himself, the sights and sounds of the last twenty-four hours still play in Matt's head like some fucked-up horror movie. Jonah, thrashing on the floor, beaten by unseen hands. Jonah, eyes rolled back, throat working around viscous droves of ectoplasm. Jonah, his thin, small frame, hovering several feet above the floor, bent and broken at wrong angles.

Jonah, moaning in the throes of demonic possession, grinding himself along Matthew, his face twisted in a mockery of pleasure. Roam's voice, drenched in all of the sin and vice of Hell—

He dreams of being split open underneath you—

Matthew roars in sudden rage, punching the side of the truck. Then again, and again, his knuckles crunching against the metal, splitting. He continues this for as long as it takes to drown out the voices in his head, till the images swimming in his eyes fade to white static.

The necromancer admires the new, bloody dent in his truck with a satisfied smile. He checks on Jonah, then, gently fishing out the kid's good arm, checking for a pulse. The vessel is limp and unresponsive, the witch having finally succumbed to unconsciousness while Matt was busy working through his issues.

He tucks the arm back into the nest, gently re-swaddling his lover's broken, bandaged vessel leaving only Jonah's face exposed. He presses a lingering, reverent kiss to the slack mouth, and the boy smiles in his sleep, mumbling something about feeding a cat.

Matt shuts the car door, careful not to wake the kid, and climbs into the driver's seat, propping Jonah's head and neck carefully on his thigh. He starts the car and turns on the radio. After some consideration, he selects a CD, an old favorite he re-discovered right before Jonah showed up at the university and upended their life all over again.

He backs up and gets back on the main road, picking up speed, nodding along to the music, picking up the chorus quickly. He rolls the window down and lights another cigarette, his throat literally sore from the amount of smoke he's inhaled in the last hour alone.

He's always been a selfish creature of vice.

Jonah wakes a full eight hours later, stirring fitfully in his tight blanket cocoon before his eyes open blearily to the fading light of evening. They hit a pothole, and the pain finds him, jarring all along his broken bones and sore joints. He groans, and Matthew quickly turns the radio off, silencing some band Jonah hasn't heard yet.

"Hey, kiddo, how are you?"

"Feel like shit." He mumbles in a froggy, wrecked little voice, grimacing at the pain racing through his system.

"On a scale of one to ten, how bad is the pain?"

"Whatever number is appropriate for being run over, and then drug for a few miles, by a slow-moving train—"

"I'd say twelve, then." Matthew quips.

He fishes around in his breast pocket and produces two more pain pills, holding them in front of Jonah's face for the medium to see. Jonah opens his mouth like a hungry baby bird. Matt tucks them inside, careful not to choke the teen. Jonah struggles to swallow, though, his mouth as dry as sandpaper, rasping around the sticky, powdery pills. Matt glances at the road before leaning down, holding the kid's mouth open with one hand. He hocks and spits wetly, carefully oozing the excess saliva into the vessel's mouth, easing the passage of the two pills sticking to the insides of Jonah's thoat.

Jonah swallows finally, with a sigh. A smirk suddenly warps his face, a vicious little expression of mischief. He laughs, staring up at the underside of Matt's jaw with that same damnable look on his face.

"What?" Matthew asks, glancing down at the kid every few moments. The professor is blushing, and can't seem to meet Jonah's eyes. He self-consciously wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Your spit tastes like cigarettes and whisky, Matthew. Drinking and driving, I see. And chain smoking—"

"Listen, kid, it's been one Hell of a day. I wish I could be as inebriated as you've been for the last ten or so hours, you little opioid fiend."

"I have a good excuse."

"You do."

They listen to the radio in silence for a while, before Jonah sighs, and shifts, restless as the painkillers slowly but surely kick in, numbing the pain wracking his entire body. Jonah giggles suddenly, grinning again, his bottom lip between his teeth.

"What, silly goose?"

"I'm gonna have to ask you to do that again," Jonah murmurs, an evil little grin still on his face, his eyes already half-closed, "under different circumstances."

"Jesus Christ Jonah, I literally cannot believe you're thinking about that, like that, right now—"

"Mhm, I'm also thinking about all the shit that demon said." Jonah's voice is slurring already, as well, struggling through inebriation. "He gave me some ideas."

"Absolutely not. We are not going to pretend that that wasn't traumatizing—literally none of that was sexy, like, at all—"

"You're no fun."

"Sorry, honey. We can joke about it later, after we've had time to process some of that experience."

Jonah just hums in response, his half-lidded eyes still staring up at Matthew. Aware of the medium's constant gaze, Matt shifts his grip on the wheel to his left hand, settling his right onto the warm bundle of blankets. It doesn't take long at all before one of Jonah's hands, the bad one, snakes free of the mass of fabric, wrapping around two of Matt's fingers, an expression of pure happiness and contentment washing over the conduit's face.

"Love you, Matthew."

"I love you too, Jonah."

Matt thinks the kid has fallen asleep again, he's quiet for so long, before his weak, slurring little voice asks:

"What happened to your hand, Matthew?"

"Nothing—"

"And what's this, Matthew?"

Jonah is staring at Matthew's right palm, squinting at the black-inked lines, spidering into the cracks of Matthew's skin.

"It's a sigil—"

"I know that, Matthew." Jonah scoffs, turning Matt's hand this way and that. "What's it stand for?"

"You figure it out." Matt offers, hoping it will distract the kid until he passes out again. They're literally only seven or so hours out from Connecticut. Matt's hoping to make the whole drive in one stretch, anxious to get Jonah home and actually stable as soon as possible.

Jonah is tracing the sigil with his splinted finger, stiff and uncoordinated, slurring softly to himself as he theorizes what consonants the mark contains. It's endearing, how hard Jonah is concentrating, fighting through the haze of drugs in his system. It's gonna occupy him for hours—

"Control?" Jonah asks, clearly, and Matt's blood runs cold.

When Matthew doesn't immediately confirm or deny the answer, Jonah asks again, his voice rising in the cab of the truck.

"It's control, right? They're right here, five letters—C, N, T, R, L—"

Dread rises in Matt's stomach, churning his insides. He'd hoped he could've gotten Jonah home and healed before this conversation happened, especially considering the implications—

"Matthew?" Jonah asks, his voice loud and scared. He's looking up at Matthew, a slow look of horror and fear dawning across his bruised face. "It stands for control, right?"

"Yes." Matt finally confirms, staring squarely at the road, unable to stomach the flash of hurt and betrayal in his reincarnated soulmate's cornflower-blue gaze.

Jonah falls silent, seemingly too overwhelmed to come up with a coherent discussion, his opioid-addled brain working overtime to process this new information.

"Lemme see the other one." He slurs a few moments later, reaching for Matthew's left hand.

"No. Not right now, Jo—"

"Give, now." The medium orders again. He struggles against his bundling, a whimper escaping him as his head lolls wrong again.

Matt sighs and straightens out Jonah's neck again, switching his grip on the steering wheel, bending awkwardly at the elbow to offer his left hand to his creation.

Jonah stares at the sigil, the confusion written clearly across his face, obviously struggling to decipher the wickedly complex marking.

"Jesus, how many letters—"

"Fourteen."

Jonah traces it over and over, an expression of awe and disgust on his face as he especially traces the perfect circle, over and over again.

"Oh, God." He slurs finally, his quiet, pained voice wavering with the immensity of the meaning behind the sigil. It's the most damning, insane bit of magic he's ever seen. Sheer necromancy, black magic, twisted and fucked. It makes the necromancy his father Ramsey Aickman practiced look like child's play.

"It's…it's our names, Matthew, and—oh, oh God—" Jonah wails softly, and begins to cry.

He struggles harder within the tight blankets, trying to sit up. His breath is coming in fast, hitching little gasps, hyperventilating in the beginning throes of a full-blown panic attack. Jonah's beautiful, neon eyes are ablaze with sheer terror.

"Ma-Matthew, you—how could—how many times have you used this sigil—"

Matthew grits his teeth and sets his jaw, pulling his left hand free of Jonah's trembling grip. He pushes the reincarnation down into the bedding by firmly pressing his right palm—control—to the vessel's forehead, an action he's performed a handful of times since the golem's creation. This time though, the action is entirely cruel and deliberate, and Jonah is very much lucid and aware as it happens.

Jonah emits a soft little cry as the pain envelops his brain, struggling against the override for as long as he can before succumbing. The body goes entirely limp, all independent will, brain function, and motor control suppressed by the necromancer.

Matt sighs and returns his right hand to the wheel. His eyes, dull and cold, are fixed to the road. He fishes his cigarettes out again, huffing out an annoyed sound as he realizes it's his last one. He lights it, rolls the window down.

He studies his left palm in the shifting yellow light of streetlamps, the burning cigarette between his middle and pointer finger.

Fourteen letters, no repeats. M, T, H, W, C, P, B, L, S, R, J, N, K, G.

Matthew Campbell, Master. Jonah Aickman, Golem.