Old Wounds - Thy Kingdom Come plot
When Sam dreams, he dreams of slamming doors.
Our Father, who art in Heaven...
And when he wakes - or seems to wake - he’s stranded on a strange street where the doors are all shut and barred against him, and still he hears them slam.
Hallowed be thy name...
He picks up a paper from a deserted news stand, and it’s a few seconds before he registers the headline.
GO TO HELL.
Unnerved, he flicks to the next page.
YOU DESERVE IT. ALL OF IT.
Half-sickened, half-fascinated, he picks up another paper.
LYING LITTLE LIGHT AND FIRE.
The next:
WE KNOW WHAT YOU ARE.
And the last:
GO TO HELL, LUCIFER!
Sam drops the paper as if scalded; it flutters insect-like to the pavement and indeed, when he raises his hands to his ears to block out the sounds of slamming doors, he sees that they are red and blistered.
(Slamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslam!)
And Sam runs.
Thy kingdom come...
He runs, though he knows not where to, afraid through he knows not what of, running blind and disorientated through the empty blackened streets of LondonParisBerlinNewYorkLondon, running anywhere, only to escape the sounds of slamming doors.
Thy will be done...
He’s not sure how long he’s been running for, air fetid and viciously sour in aching lungs, doors still slam-slam-slamming at his back like daggers, when he catches a flash of long blonde hair and laughter, and he’s not quite sure how he knows who the owner is, but he twists and wrenches an ankle and ignores it to run after her.
On Earth as it is in Heaven.
After Freya.
Give us this day our daily bread...
He follows her laughter and her swinging, sun-bright hair through a labyrinth of shadowy alleys and sidestreets, gaspingchoking for glass-shard air, until eventually he stumbles and almost falls into her back, Freya who is standing rigid and immobile with her back towards him as though she’d never moved at all, like a Greek statue.
And forgive us our trespasses...
Sam stops dead - just - and approaches her, warily.
“Freya?”
She slaps him.
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
And when she slaps him, Sam, white-faced and black eyes like the ending of the universe, feels not skin sting his cheek, but cold bone that cracks his face and slashes his skin until the blood drips crimson.
He backs off in spite of himself, scared wide eyes in a bleeding face, as Freya (nails as claws, hair ragged, face gashed and vivid with hate) runs at him, screeching like a harpy with her bones all showing.
“Fucking bastard! Treasonous son of Time, fraud! Never a prince, nevereverever a prince, just some lying bastard scum...”
And lead us not into temptation...
Sam raises his hands to ward her off with magic, anything to make her stop, to try to understand, but nothing comes flowing from his fingers; his magic has abandoned him.
(Slamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslam!)
Sam runs, mad dead Freya’s curses still flying at his back like bullets (“Loved you? How could anyone ever love you?”), and under it all still he can hear the sounds of slamming doors.
---
Sam runs alone, back into the dark dank labyrinth of alleys, until even Freya’s mad rantings fade away and there’s only a faint rustle that might be voices surrounding him.
But still the sound of slamming doors.
At some point, however, Sam becomes conscious of a presence, somewhere behind him. It’s not in the sound of footsteps, nor in the sound of someone else’s breathing, but nonetheless he knows the feeling of another’s eyes on his back. Curious in spite of his unease, he halts, resisting the urge to shield his ears against the reverberating sound of slamming doors, and turns around to see him.
Michael. Archangel.
Sam’s old (lover) friend is (apparently) unarmed, his dark head lowered to stare at the ground, still as stone.
But deliver us from evil...
“Michael?” Sam asks urgently, coughing spots of blood onto his hand. “Michael, where are we? What’s going on?”
“What?” Michael finally raises his curly brown head to offer Sam a view of blue eyes running with blood and a red gash of a mocking grin. “You’re not having fun?”
His robes, Sam notices, skittering away unnerved, are filthy with gore.
Through numb lips: “I don’t understand.”
“Poor little Lucifer,” Michael croons, blood drip-drip-dripping slowly over his cheeks. “Little Light and Little Fire never did understand why we all hated him so.”
“You said something very different, once,” Sam reminds him, unable to look away from Michael’s sickly-dripping gaze. “Or so I recall.”
(Slamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslam!)
“Nothing more than you deserve, Little Light and Little Liar.” The archangel advances, painfully slowly. “Never worth anything more than lies, were you, Lucifer?”
A gory blade appears in Michael’s bone-white hand; the archangel’s voice is as cold and implacable as the sea.
“And you were a pretty shit fuck, too.”
Michael takes another step forward, sword raised; Sam turns and runs.
(For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory...)
And as he runs, the whispers that he’d barely noticed before (too soft; too loud the sound of slamming doors and clashing locks) seem to rise and rise until they’re a crescendo around him, a cloak that he cannot throw off, until the whispers are a roar that takes on a life of its own.
(Slamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslam!)
Or rather, a death.
The ghosts (ghouls) of former lovers, former loves, former friends of Sam Linnfer, Sebastian Teufel, Luc Satise, Lucifer swarm around him in a mob, whisper-screaming foul things as they clutch and tear at his clothes, at his hair, at his skin.
“You left us.”
“You left us.”
“You failed us.”
“Why did you let us die, Lucifer?”
And Sam can only run, runningrunningrunning with his eyes wide as black holes and his face, arms, chest running with blood (dripdripdrip) as all his thousand ghosts rip and claw at him and all his old wounds and as they scream muffled obscenities and as they spit at him, spitting spitting spitting drip drip drip.
And all he can do is run.
(Slamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslam!)
When Sam dreams, he dreams of slamming doors, and wakes with a scream.
(Forever and ever, Amen.)
Fin.
Our Father, who art in Heaven...
And when he wakes - or seems to wake - he’s stranded on a strange street where the doors are all shut and barred against him, and still he hears them slam.
Hallowed be thy name...
He picks up a paper from a deserted news stand, and it’s a few seconds before he registers the headline.
GO TO HELL.
Unnerved, he flicks to the next page.
YOU DESERVE IT. ALL OF IT.
Half-sickened, half-fascinated, he picks up another paper.
LYING LITTLE LIGHT AND FIRE.
The next:
WE KNOW WHAT YOU ARE.
And the last:
GO TO HELL, LUCIFER!
Sam drops the paper as if scalded; it flutters insect-like to the pavement and indeed, when he raises his hands to his ears to block out the sounds of slamming doors, he sees that they are red and blistered.
(Slamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslam!)
And Sam runs.
Thy kingdom come...
He runs, though he knows not where to, afraid through he knows not what of, running blind and disorientated through the empty blackened streets of LondonParisBerlinNewYorkLondon, running anywhere, only to escape the sounds of slamming doors.
Thy will be done...
He’s not sure how long he’s been running for, air fetid and viciously sour in aching lungs, doors still slam-slam-slamming at his back like daggers, when he catches a flash of long blonde hair and laughter, and he’s not quite sure how he knows who the owner is, but he twists and wrenches an ankle and ignores it to run after her.
On Earth as it is in Heaven.
After Freya.
Give us this day our daily bread...
He follows her laughter and her swinging, sun-bright hair through a labyrinth of shadowy alleys and sidestreets, gaspingchoking for glass-shard air, until eventually he stumbles and almost falls into her back, Freya who is standing rigid and immobile with her back towards him as though she’d never moved at all, like a Greek statue.
And forgive us our trespasses...
Sam stops dead - just - and approaches her, warily.
“Freya?”
She slaps him.
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
And when she slaps him, Sam, white-faced and black eyes like the ending of the universe, feels not skin sting his cheek, but cold bone that cracks his face and slashes his skin until the blood drips crimson.
He backs off in spite of himself, scared wide eyes in a bleeding face, as Freya (nails as claws, hair ragged, face gashed and vivid with hate) runs at him, screeching like a harpy with her bones all showing.
“Fucking bastard! Treasonous son of Time, fraud! Never a prince, nevereverever a prince, just some lying bastard scum...”
And lead us not into temptation...
Sam raises his hands to ward her off with magic, anything to make her stop, to try to understand, but nothing comes flowing from his fingers; his magic has abandoned him.
(Slamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslam!)
Sam runs, mad dead Freya’s curses still flying at his back like bullets (“Loved you? How could anyone ever love you?”), and under it all still he can hear the sounds of slamming doors.
---
Sam runs alone, back into the dark dank labyrinth of alleys, until even Freya’s mad rantings fade away and there’s only a faint rustle that might be voices surrounding him.
But still the sound of slamming doors.
At some point, however, Sam becomes conscious of a presence, somewhere behind him. It’s not in the sound of footsteps, nor in the sound of someone else’s breathing, but nonetheless he knows the feeling of another’s eyes on his back. Curious in spite of his unease, he halts, resisting the urge to shield his ears against the reverberating sound of slamming doors, and turns around to see him.
Michael. Archangel.
Sam’s old (lover) friend is (apparently) unarmed, his dark head lowered to stare at the ground, still as stone.
But deliver us from evil...
“Michael?” Sam asks urgently, coughing spots of blood onto his hand. “Michael, where are we? What’s going on?”
“What?” Michael finally raises his curly brown head to offer Sam a view of blue eyes running with blood and a red gash of a mocking grin. “You’re not having fun?”
His robes, Sam notices, skittering away unnerved, are filthy with gore.
Through numb lips: “I don’t understand.”
“Poor little Lucifer,” Michael croons, blood drip-drip-dripping slowly over his cheeks. “Little Light and Little Fire never did understand why we all hated him so.”
“You said something very different, once,” Sam reminds him, unable to look away from Michael’s sickly-dripping gaze. “Or so I recall.”
(Slamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslam!)
“Nothing more than you deserve, Little Light and Little Liar.” The archangel advances, painfully slowly. “Never worth anything more than lies, were you, Lucifer?”
A gory blade appears in Michael’s bone-white hand; the archangel’s voice is as cold and implacable as the sea.
“And you were a pretty shit fuck, too.”
Michael takes another step forward, sword raised; Sam turns and runs.
(For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory...)
And as he runs, the whispers that he’d barely noticed before (too soft; too loud the sound of slamming doors and clashing locks) seem to rise and rise until they’re a crescendo around him, a cloak that he cannot throw off, until the whispers are a roar that takes on a life of its own.
(Slamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslam!)
Or rather, a death.
The ghosts (ghouls) of former lovers, former loves, former friends of Sam Linnfer, Sebastian Teufel, Luc Satise, Lucifer swarm around him in a mob, whisper-screaming foul things as they clutch and tear at his clothes, at his hair, at his skin.
“You left us.”
“You left us.”
“You failed us.”
“Why did you let us die, Lucifer?”
And Sam can only run, runningrunningrunning with his eyes wide as black holes and his face, arms, chest running with blood (dripdripdrip) as all his thousand ghosts rip and claw at him and all his old wounds and as they scream muffled obscenities and as they spit at him, spitting spitting spitting drip drip drip.
And all he can do is run.
(Slamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslamslam!)
When Sam dreams, he dreams of slamming doors, and wakes with a scream.
(Forever and ever, Amen.)
Fin.