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Language:
English
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Published:
2025-10-18
Words:
1,283
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
32
Kudos:
452
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One Bad Day

Summary:

Nathan dies quietly, and the first to find him isn’t human.
Abaddon doesn’t understand what’s happened—only that Nathan won’t wake, that the medicine betrayed him, that the air has gone still in a way that feels wrong.

“You are too still,” he says under his breath. “Even for you.

The words carry no grief — only confusion, like a scholar staring at an impossible equation. He studies the man’s face: the faint violet tint on his lips, the color drained from his skin, the eyelids heavy but unmoving.

“This medicine… you used it wrong,” Abaddon continues, his tone quiet, thoughtful. “It made you sick instead of whole.”

Work Text:

The door is ajar.


That shouldn’t happen. Nathan never leaves it open. He locks it even when he’s inside — paranoid about privacy, about what lingers in the hallways after midnight.


Abaddon stands at the threshold, shadow filling the frame. The hall behind him flickers with a single wall sconce, its light soft and unsteady. A moth flutters against the glass, its wings dull and tired.


He listens.


The room beyond is still. No radio, no humming, no sarcastic remarks muttered under breath. Just the faint ticking of the grandfather clock downstairs, seeping through the floorboards.


The air feels heavy — old whiskey, sweat, and something else. Something final.


He steps inside. The boards complain under his boots. A lamp on the far table glows low, its shade tilted; the bulb hums in protest. Papers litter the desk. The armchair faces the window, half-turned toward the light leaking through the curtains.


He pauses there, studying the stillness like a living thing. Even the air seems to brace itself.


“Nathan.”


The word lands softly, almost reverent. It doesn’t stir the room.


He waits.


Silence.


Abaddon’s hand finds the back of the chair, fingers brushing the worn fabric. It’s warm from the lamp, but beneath it… colder than it should be. His brow furrows, though his face barely moves. The strange pulse in his chest — a mimicry of what mortals call a heartbeat — feels off-rhythm.


Something is wrong here.


The air feels heavy. Still.


Abaddon moves closer, careful not to startle him — though Nathan doesn’t move, doesn’t even twitch. His head lolls slightly to the side, lips parted, eyes half-shut as if he’d simply fallen asleep mid-thought.


“Nathan,” Abaddon says softly. “You are… sleeping where you shouldn’t.”


No reply. Not even the faint rustle of fabric when he breathes. Abaddon tilts his head, studying the rise and fall of his chest. It never comes.


A small frown folds his brow. He steps nearer. The air smells strange — bitter, medicinal beneath the whiskey and dust. On the floor, a bottle lies tipped near Nathan’s shoe. He stoops to pick it up, turning it over in his hand.


There are marks on the label — black lines, small shapes he can’t make sense of. He studies them anyway, as if meaning might fall into place if he stared long enough. When it doesn’t, he gives the bottle a small shake. The rattle inside is hollow — only a few left.


His eyes flick to the scattered pills across the rug, the glass beside the chair, the faint sheen of sweat clinging to Nathan’s temple.


“You’ve taken too many,” he murmurs, glancing at him. “That isn’t how the medicine works.”


He sets the bottle down, crouches beside the chair, and lays two fingers against Nathan’s throat — a gesture he’s seen humans do before.


Nothing.


His hand shifts, presses firmer. Still nothing. He waits longer, as if patience will coax a pulse back.


“You are too still,” he says under his breath. “Even for you.”


The words carry no grief — only confusion, like a scholar staring at an impossible equation. He studies the man’s face: the faint violet tint on his lips, the color drained from his skin, the eyelids heavy but unmoving.


“This medicine… you used it wrong,” Abaddon continues, his tone quiet, thoughtful. “It made you sick instead of whole.”


He straightens, pacing a few steps before turning back to him. “You must wake now. I’ll fix this. You can’t stay like this.”


He waits again, expectant. When Nathan doesn’t move, he lets out a slow breath that fogs the air in front of him — though demons aren’t meant to do that.


“You hear me?” he asks softly. “You’re not finished yet.”


Abaddon lingers there, stood by the chair. His hand still rests on Nathan’s arm, as though warmth might return if he waits long enough.


“You’re only… resting,” he mutters. “Humans do that. They sleep when their bodies break. It’s repair, not ruin.”


His voice wavers, too soft for something that once commanded storms. He moves his hand to Nathan’s shoulder and shakes him gently. The motion tilts his head; the body sways, loose and wrong in the joints.


“Nathan.”


The sound of his name folds into the stillness. The lamp hums quietly. A floorboard groans somewhere in the hall. Nothing else stirs.


Abaddon blinks, slow and deliberate, as if resetting the world. He presses his palm flat against Nathan’s chest.


“There,” he says quietly. “There should be sound. Rhythm. I heard it before.”


He waits. Counts the seconds.


One.


Two.


Three.


Nothing.


“Maybe it is trapped,” he murmurs. “Maybe your heart has forgotten how.”


He leans forward, his brow nearly touching Nathan’s. “You always forget things, don’t you? Where you put your keys. When you last slept. How to stop making trouble.” A faint, trembling smile ghosts across his lips. “How to live.”


The joke lands flat in the silence.


Something flickers above them — the bulb dimming, then flaring. The air grows thick, the shadows shifting against the walls like smoke in a jar. Abaddon doesn’t notice. He’s too focused on Nathan’s unmoving mouth.


“You have to wake up now.”


His voice drops lower, threaded with something raw. “Do you hear me? You’re being cruel.”


His fingers tighten around Nathan’s wrist. “You don’t get to leave when I’m still here.”


The bulb pops — a sharp crack, glass scattering in the quiet. Abaddon flinches, breath catching. For the first time, he looks afraid.


He looks back at Nathan. The off coloured lips. The empty eyes.


“No,” he whispers. “That isn’t what this is.”


But even as he says it, the silence around him answers otherwise.


Abaddon stares at him for a long time — unblinking, as if the stillness might break if he just waits it out. But nothing shifts. The room feels smaller now. The shadows breathe. The air hums faintly with his power, building without command.


He lets go of Nathan’s wrist. The mark of his fingers lingers faintly against the skin, pale on pale.


“You’re cold,” he says under his breath, as though scolding him. “You’re not supposed to be cold.”


He hesitates, then moves. Slow, awkward, ungraceful for something so old. He tries to move him but the body is heavier than he expects. Too heavy. He doesn’t understand why.


“Come on,” he mutters, voice cracking into something that almost sounds like pleading. “You can’t stay like this. You’ll wake when it’s morning. You always wake when it’s morning.”


Instead of lifting him, Abaddon gives up halfway — climbing onto the chair itself, the fabric creaking beneath the combined weight. He settles across Nathan’s lap, knees drawn close, his chest pressed to Nathan’s unmoving one.


“See?” he whispers. “You can rest. I’ll stay.”


His fingers hover over Nathan’s jaw, tracing along it, following the unnatural stillness of his lips. “You should be warm,” he murmurs. “You should—”


His voice falters. The tones of his skin blur to grey in the low light; he doesn’t see what would be the correct colour, only shadow and contrast. But he knows it’s wrong — too pale, too quiet.


Abaddon presses his forehead against Nathan’s, searching for heat, for breath, for any sign of the thing that makes mortals move. He waits, eyes shut, lips parted as if sharing air. But the air doesn’t move between them.


“You’re here,” he says. “You are. You must be.”


The light from the lamp finally dies, leaving them in dimness. The outlines blur — one figure curled into another. The faint hum of the world outside feels distant now, like sound underwater.


“You told me to let you sleep,” Abaddon says softly. “But you didn’t say when to wake you.”


His voice splinters. “You should’ve said when.”