Chapter Text
In typical Bennett fashion, he makes for the most boring exorcism of Marcus’ long and illustrious career.
The demon ignores them completely from the moment they finally run Bennett to ground in northern Montana, loaded for bear. They can't provoke it, nor can they get Bennett to surface. Tomas even tries his white-eyed party trick (no less nauseating for Mouse's assurances that he's become adept at it), but comes back to himself early with a start.
“They told me to fuck off,” he says, beautiful dark eyes wide with shock and worry. “Both of them.”
Marcus scowls. “It's teaching Bennett to swear? This has gone too far!”
Mouse rolls her eyes. “Bennett knows the word fuck, Marcus.”
Marcus folds his arms. “Even if he does, which is an extremely dubious assumption, he would refuse to say it.”
Tomas frowns. “Is this about that chart Verity emailed you? It doesn't make sense to classify people based on how often they say a single word-”
“Actually it makes a surprising amount of sense, but more to the point it's funny, and jokes are about all we have left at this point-”
“We could, oh I don't know, pray?”
“We pray to strengthen the soul and weaken the demon, and you said yourself they're both ignoring us right now.”
Morning Star, I'd rather be exorcised than listen to your married bickering, snarls the demon. Dismember you later, meatbags. There is a whoosh of air, and the miasma in the room eases.
“-are hereby revoked!” Bennett shouts, then looks around the room. “Oh. It's gone.”
“Prove it!” Marcus barks, full of confounded Pavlovian adrenaline, and upends his entire jam jar of holy water in Bennett's face. He chokes and splutters, but he doesn't sizzle. Marcus sags in relief.
“I think I got along better with Sozuul,” Bennett coughs at last.
“That was the demon? You were on first-name terms with the damned thing?”
“Will you at least untie me so I can wipe my face?”
A change of clothes and a round of tea later (prepared properly, Marcus makes sure, since his skills as an exorcist aren't needed) it comes out that Bennett had run across what sounds like the demon version of - Bennett.
“It was deeply insulted to answer a Vocare Pulvere summoning and find only me in a coma instead of a lineup of willing sycophants. The ritual requires consent to work.”
“Then why let it stay for any time at all?” asks Tomas.
“It didn't want to waste the trip, and offered to trade information.”
“What kind of information?” Mouse asks carefully.
Bennett gives her a withering glare. Marcus swears he gets a new wrinkle every time Bennett aims that look at him. “What do you take me for? I taught it how to use the Internet. Sozuul is now Hell's leading authority on ICQ, MySpace, and-” he smirks, “America Online.”
Tomas whistles quietly. Mouse snickers.
“What?” says Marcus, who is still quite excited about email.
“Those are all dead Internet things,” Tomas explains. “Bennett might as well have taught the demon to - I don't know, drive a horse and buggy instead of a car.”
Bennett takes a serene sip of tea. “Confusion to the enemy.”
“That's all well and good, but it could have fed you garbage in like kind,” Marcus points out.
“But unlike a demon, I can perform a competent search and verify the information. Lend me one of your laptops, if you please.”
Marcus, Tomas, and Mouse blink at each other. “Bennett,” Marcus says slowly, “you don't pay me enough to own three pairs of socks. None of us own a laptop.”
It comes out that Bennett hasn't paid attention to the cost of living in almost twenty years. Marcus hasn't the foggiest idea what he thought he was doing with the money (“Frankly, Marcus, I thought you were doing cocaine.” “That was one time, they were coca leaves, and it was a local custom!”), but he finds his grievances greatly soothed by the joyous prospect of watching Bennett have to use a small-town library computer.
Bennett does not disappoint. He turns a greenish hue visible even underneath his exquisitely-moisturised (or whatever it is he does to still look so smooth and shiny while Marcus is the same age and emphatically neither) black complexion, and says, “Oh dear. This is very slow.”
Then he produces a yellow legal pad from somewhere, and a fountain pen, and starts to make notes. Occasionally he says things like, “Oh, my,” or, “Hm. Disappointing,” and then he resorts to just cursing very quietly in French, and Marcus is unable to feel amused anymore. He paces around the little library, feeling like a caged animal. Tomas puts a hand on his arm at one point, a silent question on his face. Marcus shrugs helplessly, and Tomas lets him go back to wearing a track in the floor.
By the time Bennett puts down his pen and pinches the bridge of his nose, Marcus is about ready to jump out of his skin. “Well? Just how comprehensively fucked are we?”
“Language. It seems about half of this new intel is bad, and the half that’s good is still bad news. I will refer to my other contacts to deal with most of it, but there is one piece that concerns you, Marcus.” He taps his notes. “Your religious visa's been revoked. You're in America illegally.”
At Marcus’ side, Tomas goes rigid and takes a sharp breath. Marcus frowns, confused. “Wasn't I always? I thought you did that back when you processed my excommunication.” That was why (before being shoved back into Tomas’ orbit, ears still ringing from God's version of a motivational speech) he'd worked the docks in a port for cash; a literal space alien could have done the same, green skin and antennae and all, and would probably have been invited out for drinks by the end of the first week.
“I was required to present it to you, and I was carefully watched for any hesitation.” His voice is dry as ashes. “But I wasn't the one who processed it, and if I noticed that no one remembered to do the paperwork to revoke your visa, well. Who am I to tell someone how to do their job?” He gives Marcus a brief, oily smile, survivor of the Vatican's pit of eels; it's no wonder he ran circles around a single demon in his own head. “But it seems that detail is no longer overlooked. If your whereabouts become known, Vatican agents will enlist immigration to have you deported.”
“Shame,” Marcus reflects, “I quite like it here. Very big. Interesting music.” He can't look at Tomas, but he can feel his gaze burning a hole in his head.
“Marcus,” Bennett says patiently, “you’re on the watchlist of every demonic faction organized enough to have a watchlist. My people had to kill several integrated assassins every time you flew before Chicago. After it, I kept you stateside because I didn't know if my resources were enough to keep you safe. Now, I doubt you would even make it off the plane.”
Marcus digests this information for a moment, feeling a bit like a fish reminded of the existence of water. “Can't you just whip me up a fake identity?”
Bennett looks at him, then at the clunky little computer in front of him, then at his scribbled-upon legal pad, then back at Marcus. “No.”
Marcus sighs heavily and thumps into a battered library chair. He doesn't even try to hook a leg over the armrest. “What am I supposed to do, then?”
“Loath as I am to suggest inflicting this fate on anyone, it would be expedient if you could find someone to marry you.”
Marcus nearly falls out of his chair, for all that he's sitting in it properly for once. “Say again?”
“You heard me.”
Now it's Tomas’ turn to sigh heavily. Bennett is infecting them all. “You know, I wasn't always good at it, and I haven't actually done it for almost two years, but I really did like being a priest.”
Marcus grips his armrests wearily, feeling that he may be flung off the earth into space at any moment. “What are you on about.”
Tomas blinks his giant green eyes, innocent as a baby deer. “Isn't it obvious? I'll have to get laicized before I can marry you.”
“What? Why would you jump to the conclusion that it has to be you?”
“I don't understand the question.”
“You could let someone else do it.”
Blink. Maybe less like a baby deer than some obstinate mountain stag. “Um, no.”
They boil out of the small-town library, voices rising rapidly past the threshold that earned them the ire of the small-town librarian (Mother Bernadette would have been impressed by the frostiness of her glare).
“You don't have to do this, Tomas. I have friends-”
“Mostly nuns,” Mouse points out.
“Some of them are ex-nuns!”
“Lesbian ex-nuns.”
“Well, what about you?”
“I'm British, which does exactly nothing to solve your problem. Also I wouldn't marry you in a million years, luv.”
“Oi!” Marcus clutches theatrically at his chest. She smirks at him. Christ, she's a dear friend. Marcus wouldn't shackle her to himself in a million years either. Which is part of the point. He turns to his dearest friend and says, “Tomas. Be reasonable. You can't marry me.”
As soon as he says the ‘c’ word he knows it's a mistake. Tomas’ unreasonable shoulders bulge in his sleeves, and he thrusts out his chin. This is the picture next to the word 'mulish’ in the dictionary. “And why not?” he says.
“First of all, you said it yourself: you're a priest. You like it. You're good at it.”
“I liked it. I was good at it - parts of it. Now I'm an exorcist.” Marcus notes with dismay that he doesn't say he likes being one. I am no one's bloody role model. “I was never going to go back to being a priest. I'm not really giving up anything.” Except the possibility of an exit strategy, one of Marcus’ fondest daydreams: Tomas safe and at peace, the beating heart of a community that adores him.
“You’re not to give it up at all,” he rages. “I'm not entering into a sham marriage with anyone!” Least of all you. I couldn't bear it.
“That's exactly why it should be me,” Tomas says, “it wouldn't be a sham.”
Marcus boggles. “You're straight!”
“Says who?”
“Says Jessica!”
Mouse and Bennett are just staring at them both, heads going back and forth like spectators at a tennis match. At the mention of Jessica Bennett's eyes go round, and Mouse covers her mouth with her hand.
Tomas is red-faced but undeterred. “La bisexualidad, Marcus, it’s a thing.” He hesitates. “Wait, are you straight?”
Marcus fidgets. “Don't think so. Don't rightly know much more than that, though,” he mutters. Now it's his turn to be beet-red, nevermind that he has the best possible excuse for being a virgin in his fifties.
“We can figure that part out,” Tomas urges, “it won’t be a problem. Marcus,” he widens his eyes pleadingly, “we already share everything: life, work, a common calling from God. This will just - make us stronger.”
Marcus crosses his arms and glares at the ground. “I'm not convinced.”
It’s another misstep, and Tomas pounces on it. “But you could be convinced. Let me convince you.”
“What, are you going to court me?” He meant to sneer it, but to his horror he falters and it comes out more - wobbly.
Tomas beams. “Well, I am now.” Marcus has read that a sensation of impending doom can be a symptom of a heart attack.
“This is the greatest day of my life,” Mouse says fervently.