AFTG; The call in your whispers

[ephitomis]

Title: The call in your whispers
Fandom: All for the game
Notes: Written for the prompt "Spirito" for Esploratori del Polyverso
Wordcount: 1907
Summary: Spirits are bound to the calls of humans, required to fullfill their whishes once they accept the call. But Nathaniel isn't just a spirit, and Nathaniel has never followed the rules.
Warnings: Mention of self-harm; Mention of torture (of Nathan's family love)

His mother had always warned him never to answer a call.

You can never undo it once you do, she would warn him, and they’ll forever own a part of you.

Nathaniel never really understood what she meant, because he had never been allowed to answer a call. He knew that it hurt, ignoring them. It hurt his mother more, but Nathaniel could feel the stretch burn all the same.

A part of him wanted to answer, needed to, and he had to use all his stubbornness to stay.

Now, however. He feels the pulse of the call, feels the need to answer the soul reaching out to contact him, and for the first time in his life, he actually… thinks about it.

His father and his men have found him and he’s alone. The place where he has taken refuge isn’t secure, he knows that very well, and they’ll arrive to him sooner rather than later and then… then Nathaniel’s entire life would have been for nothing.

He doesn’t know what his mother would say in this situation, but she isn’t here and he is.

Keep running, Abram.

“We know you’re here, Junior,” Nathan’s voice comes from the other room. “Now be a good boy and come out, I’ll be more lenient, that way.”

He remembers Nathan’s lessons, and what passed for lenient in his house. Nathaniel remembers too much, can’t help but remember when he looks in the mirror and sees the slashes, the scars, the pathway of his life carved in blade and blood on his skin.

Run, Abram, Mary’s voice clear in his head from all the times his mother had really screamed those words at him.

He looks at the closed door, the window too small for him to crawl out of it, and the bland walls that separate him from his father. There’s nowhere else to run to… accepts the call.

So Nathaniel closes his eyes and for the first time in his life answers.

Spirits come in all shapes and forms in the world. Most people live their entire lives without really knowing of their existence. Some others believe in them and worship them as best as they can, but there were few people who really knew about them. And even fewer that knew how to summon one.

Spirits came with bodies, unlike what people believed, but they couldn’t really die from normal means. They weren’t entirely humans after all.

Some believed that spirits were born to serve humans, since they could call upon them in order to fulfill their wishes but it wasn’t exactly how that worked.

Nathaniel only knows the theory, since he was never allowed to answer a call, but he doesn’t really think that’s correct. Spirits can live their entire life without ever meeting a human, they only do so because of the call.

Not all Spirits are born equal, and every spirit is attracted by particular kinds of calls. His mother, for example, always dealt with women who seeked help to deal with their partners. Nathaniel doesn’t know if it had always been that way, or if it was something that had changed ever since his father’s appearance in Mary’s life.

His mother had taken a couple of calls ever since they’ve been on the run, unable to resist, and Nathaniel had always had to wait for her, sometimes for days, sometimes for weeks.

Once you answer the call, you can never leave until you meet the demand.

Nathaniel reopens his eyes not really sure of what to expect. But, well, what appears to be a children’s room is certainly not what he had in mind.

He blinks, stupidly for a couple of seconds, and then focuses on the figure in front of him. The boy is young, probably just as young as Nathaniel, and he doesn’t look like someone who practices witchcraft, nor someone who was expecting Nathaniel’s arrival if the razor pointed in his direction is of any indication.

Everything else about him is coiled for a fight, tense and wary. Everything except his eyes, who are bland and tired. There’s an edge to him, like someone who has already given up, but doesn’t know how to stop putting up a fight.

Nathaniel is intimately familiar with that.

“Who the fuck are you,” the boy asks, voice tight. There’s a threat there, but Nathaniel doesn’t really pay it too much mind. After feeling with his father, a human would never really scare him.

“You called me here,” Nathaniel answers, looking down at his feet. There’s a summoning circle there, but it appears to be sloppy from what he can tell, not the work of someone practiced with the craft.

The boy doesn’t answer immediately, and Nathaniel looks back up at him, watching his gaze move to a book abandoned at his feet. Nathaniel looks at well, and takes in the worn out book and the library sticker on the front.

Oh. Did this kid call him by accident? Was he just messing around with a borrowed book?

Sure that was possible but…

Nathaniel looks back at the boy, and the razor he keeps firmly in his hand. The boy is bleeding, he can feel the coppery smell in the air.

A human would never pick up on it, nor a spirit.

But Nathaniel was always a little special.

“I don’t need you,” the boy says in the end, “go away.”

Nathaniel thinks for a second, but he doesn’t think he can. The call hasn’t been answered, and he’s bound to it.

“No,” he replies, “you called me here. So now you get to ask something of me. You get to ask what you wanted so much the moment you made the call.”

“I don’t want anything,” the boy answers, immediately, looking affronted by the suggestion. Nathaniel’s presence in the room is proof enough of the lie the boy has just told.

Before Nathaniel can point out that very fact, the boy raises his razor again in a threatening manner. “Go away or I will stab you, I changed my mind.”

Nathaniel huffs, annoyed, and closes his eyes for a moment, but as he thought he can’t leave. “I can’t,” he repeats, annoyed. “You called me here. So now I get to stay until I do what you want.” Well, more or less. He thinks Nathaniel might actually walk away, but then… he would always be called to this place, to this request.

The boy stays silent for a couple of seconds, furrowing his brow. “That’s how it works?”

Why did he have to be called by someone that knew nothing. Nathaniel wasn’t much better, of course, but that wasn’t the point.

Nathaniel simply nods, and waits.

The boy takes a couple of seconds before he does something that on anyone else's face would have been a smile. On his it looks like defeat. “Well, what the hell, I did this didn’t I. Time to face the music, Andrew. I want to disappear.”

Nathaniel blinks but he feels something settle inside of him. Disappear, yes. It was semantically different than dying, but Nathaniel realized that killing the boy would release him from the call.

What the boy wanted was to cease.

Wasn’t it ironic that this was what called Nathaniel? Someone who pushed everyday just to survive? He should just do it and then run, but…

But.

“Why?” he asks then, looking around. There’s something nagging at his skull, something pestering him. He shouldn’t care about the life of this boy, this Andrew, and yet he does.

“That’s not the deal, right?” Andrew asks, watching him, “you said you’re here to do what I wanted. That was it.”

Nathaniel watches Andrew and tries to rationalize what he’s thinking. The other is right, that’s the deal, and Nathaniel shouldn’t be hesitating but… but…

Oh. It’s because Andrew reminds him of himself. The way he’s standing, the tense slope of his shoulders, the hollow eyes. Andrew is running from something, and Nathaniel, who has been running all his life, doesn’t want to help someone else do the same thing.

“Because someone is hurting you, isn’t it?” he says then, feeling a part of him stir, wake up gently.

A spirit is bound by the call. But Nathaniel isn’t just a spirit.

Andrew doesn’t say anything, so Nathaniel takes a step forward, And then another. “Because I know what that’s like, and I can make it stop. You managed to complete the call because of intent, but there’s a reason you called me.”

Andre watches him, his razor lax in his hands, but Nathaniel knows that he’s ready to strike at a moment’s notice. Ready to disappear, but still ready to fight.

“You said you are just called to answer the wishes,” Andrew finally says, “if I wanted someone to psychoanalyze me, I would go to the school shrink.”

“Spirits are called just to answer wishes,” Nathaniel explains, and leaves the rest to the other to figure out.

“But you’re not just a spirit,” Andrew says, and Nathaniel smiles and points to the human’s wrist.

“You’ve added blood to the call, which means you can ask me something else, and we’ll make a deal. Tell me a name.” He says, waiting for the other to say anything, or to ask something.

“What do I give you? It’s not a deal if I don’t give you anything,” Andrew says, and it’s true, of course.

Nathaniel knows very well what his father usually asks the people he makes deals with...but he’s not his father, and as much as he doesn’t need calls as a spirit, he doesn’t need souls as a demon.

Still, Andrew’s right. A deal needs a payment.

“I do this for you,” he says, “and you never spill your own blood again.”

Andrew looks at him, and for a moment he seems to be furious. Nathaniel doesn’t understand why, it doesn’t seem to be that terrible of a deal, really. “There’s nothing in it for you,” Andrew explains, “I don’t want pity.”
That’s… well.

Nathaniel really doesn’t know what else to ask, however. There’s nothing he needs from Andrew but..

Wait. That could work.

“Okay then,” he says, looking up. “I do this for you, and you never spill your own blood again…” before Andrew could open his mouth, Nathaniels stops him, “and I’ll be able to appear wherever you are, even if you don’t call me.”
Andrew seems surprised by that for a second before his stare becomes inquisitive. “You’re running.”

Nathaniel doesn’t know how the other managed to reach that conclusion, and then he sees that when he had raised his hand to stop the human, his sleeve had gone up, revealing some of his fresher marks.

Well.

“Do we have a deal?” Nathaniel asks, instead of replying, and Andrew stays silent for a couple of seconds.

Then he says, with a bored voice: “Drake Spears.”

Nathaniel smiles.