Chapter Text
Max didn’t know what to think when Michael showed him the mark. The cross-shaped burn was an ugly, glaring thing and yet Max found he couldn’t tear his eyes away. It must’ve hurt, Max thought dumbly. He’d had burns before. When he was eight he had accidentally bumped his leg into the exhaust pipe of his dad’s car. He jumped away as soon as he’d touched it but the small point of contact had had him bursting into tears and his mom had put ointment on his skin and told him to be more careful. Now 4 years later all that was left was a tiny scarred mark on his leg. Max still remembered the pain so when he saw the mark that took up over half of Michael’s forearm, he resisted the urge to grab his own arm. His first questions had been how and why. Michael had said his foster parents had been trying to perform an exorcism. Still, Max couldn’t comprehend what would drive them to think this was the way to do and where they would get something that could make this kind of mark in the first place. Before he could get a word out however Michael was shoving his sleeve up and telling him not to tell Isobel about it.
Before he could protest, they were interrupted by a scream. Isobel. Later after everything had happened none of the three of them had wanted to camp out in the desert any longer. The three of them trudged back to their campsite in silence, none of them knowing what could be said. Max had killed a man and Michael had buried him. Max struggled to get the image out of his mind of the man’s lifeless body floating limply in the air, like a puppet without the strings, and knowing that he was the one that killed him. He distantly wondered how it felt for Michael. He had seemed to struggle with the weight as he held the man in the air. Max wondered if felt the man’s body as if he’d held it in his own two hands or if was simply like tugging a pulley, the weight there but detached and distant. Max found himself looking down at his own hands. Despite everything, he felt strangely energetic. Maybe it was just the adrenaline or maybe he was going into shock.
“Michael?” Isobel said interrupting their tentative silence, “Are you okay?”
Max turned around and only just then noticed that Michael was falling behind, sweating profusely even in the coolness of the desert evening. Michael opened his mouth as if he were about to answer but before he could his eyes rolled back in his head and he face-planted in the sand.
Isobel and Max scrambled over to his side. They turned him over and stared down at his pale form. When Isobel asked him later, Max wouldn’t be able to tell her why he did it. But in the moment, he felt compelled as he rolled up Michael’s sleeve revealing the cross-shaped burn that stood out painfully against his pale skin. Distantly he heard Isobel gasp as she saw the mark. Without thinking something in Max told him to grip Michael’s arm. He gasped as he felt a surge of energy and then he saw…
~*~
Michael thought he knew pain. He felt like he’d known it his entire life but this was something else. His new foster parents we're different, to say the least. He'd dealt with religious ones before but never to this extent. The man, his foster father, was a preacher and wore the attire proudly while enforcing the value of hard work and discipline. The prayer before bed was not unfamiliar although still unwelcome, and so was having to go to church on Sundays. But if there was one thing he’d learned over the years it was the value of keeping your head down. Since his powers had begun manifesting this had become an increasingly difficult task. Any strong emotion could lead to breaking glass and objects flying around the room. He liked to consider himself a careful person but feats like these were difficult to hide and impossible to ignore. Looking back it had been a matter of time before something happened.
It started off simple, with a headache if you could call it that. It felt more like the pressure in your head when you've spent too much time at the bottom of the pool. It was a constant pressure adding extra weight to the already growing ordeal that had become his life. He spent most of his days feeling exhausted and when he wasn't exhausted he was irritated. Irritated at the fact that he was pushed around at school, then go back to his foster home and spend hours on his knees cleaning the floors (an act his foster parents claimed brought him closer to God as if using a mop was too sacrilegious for them) then stayed up until midnight studying and doing homework because despite everything he still believed that maybe just maybe if he worked hard enough he might be able to earn a way out of this shit hole (so much for not believing the propaganda).
It didn’t amount to much in the end. All it took was one bad day. He’d gone to school and gotten into a fight first thing in the morning after a group of guys had managed to wrestle his backpack off his back and dump it onto the floor of the hallway. And that’s how he landed himself in detention before first period. Oh yeah and then he’d been late for class while he spent the first ten minutes after the bell rang trying to pick his stuff up off the floor. The day had continued on as it had started. The headache he had started the day with only built up and grew and had only rested his head for a second on cool biology before his teacher was berating him in front of the class. After what felt like an eternity the bell rang signaling for the end of the day but then just meant he was stuck in detention with the group of boys who had bullied him that morning. Somehow they had decided that getting detention was his fault and afterward and had chased him down the block and then proceeded to throw rocks at his back until was out of sight.
By the time he got back to the foster home, the sun had begun to set and he was well past curfew. This is where things go from bad to worse. He just stepped through the front door there was his foster father, arms crossed, waiting for him. He got up as Michael entered and came over so he could tower over him menacingly. His foster mother only a step behind home
“Why did we just get a call from your school saying you got detention for fighting? We don’t tolerate that kind of behavior in this household.” His voice was hard and menacing, but Michael wasn’t having it.
“Then send me to another foster home and I’ll be somebody else’s problem.” Michael readjusted his backpack on his shoulder, his back still sore from being pelted with rocks, and made to go up the stairs when his arm was grabbed.
“I will not be disrespected by you in my own home.”
“And I said if you don’t what you hear then send me to another home and I’ll be on my way. Now let go of my arm.”
“You will not speak to my husband that way,” His foster mother piped in.
“Oh fuck off,” was Michael’s only response as he attempted to wrestle his arm out of the man’s grasp.
A sharp slap echoed throughout the room and stilled his struggles. His foster father was yelling now something about teaching him a lesson, quoting scripture, and spouting other nonsense. But Michael couldn’t hear him over the roar in his ears. His cheek stung and the hand on his arm had only tightened. The past few weeks had felt like his head had been filling up with water and it was only of time before it spilled over. He guesses that could pretty much describe what happened.
He hadn’t even meant to yell really. He’d only meant to use his powers to wrestle his arm from the man’s grasp. But like a broken faucet, his anger fear, and pain caused all of it to come rushing out.
“I said let go!” he’d shouted.
Vases shattered, glass windows were blown out, and pictures frames fell to the ground. The man flung backward into the back of a heavy armchair toppling it over in the process. And the heavy cross that rested on the mantle came crashing down on the hardwood floor. Then everything was quiet. Without another word, Michael rushed up the steps. If he’d been smart he would have left there and then, but as it was Michael barely made it to the top of the steps and into the room he shared with 3 others before the pain and exhaustion caught up with him and he passed out on the floor.