the garden | michael langdon

chapter eight; we need to talk about michael (and the story of narcissus).

*smack*

Primrose held her cheek in shock. Cordelia stood rooted to the spot, frozen. Cordelia opened her mouth to apologize but Prim had already sprinted down the corridor to her room and slammed the door shut, the noise of the smack and the door slamming shut endlessly reverberating around Cordelia's mind. Already the guilt felt like a huge weight within the pit of her stomach. She had vowed never to treat her child the way Fiona treated her and yet here she was, standing redundantly in the corridor as her daughter cried herself to sleep.

-

A few hours had passed when Prim heard a knock at the door. She elected to ignore whoever was on the other side and simply rolled over to the other side of the bed. The knocking did not cease, however, and the visitor eventually let themselves in. Ever defiant, Primrose did not roll over to acknowledge the person sitting at the end of her bed.

"Prim?" She recognized her mother's voice. "Prim honey?" She recognized her mother's voice was shaking.

"I'm so sorry, Prim." She whispered.

"Yeah." Prim sighed and sat up slowly. "You should be."

"I am so sorry for hurting you and I promise never to do it again." She said, her voice cracking slightly.

"Are you sorry for what you said about Michael?"

Cordelia affectionately squeezed her daughter's leg through the duvet. "Honey, we really need to talk about Michael."

"I'm all ears." She replied, mockingly.

"I know you think that I'm just some crazy, overprotective Mom who doesn't want to see her only baby fly the nest. But you need to understand that it is so much deeper than that."

"Michael is evil. He is a demon spawned from the rape of a human woman perpetrated by a possessed spirit. He has been murdering innocent people since he was a child. He is also indirectly responsible for the deaths of countless others, including the warlock John Henry Moore. I believe his plan is to destroy this coven... and then the world."

Primrose sat still in shock. "I-i can't believe-"

"If you don't believe me, ask Behold and Madison; they were the ones that gathered this intel."

Primrose didn't want to believe what her mother was saying, but deep down she knew she was right. She had sensed the darkness in Michael the moment she had met him, and foolishly thought she might able to soften his edges, help him see the light.

"I am such an idiot." She sobbed, collapsing into her mother's arms. Cordelia consoled her with forehead kisses and choruses of there, there and it'll be alright.

Cordelia pulled away to look her daughter in the eyes. "This is why I need you to trust me when I say you cannot see that boy anymore." Using her thumb, Cordelia wiped away Primrose's tears. "Please promise me you won't see him again."

Primrose hesitated. She knew in her heart that what he had done was awful, and she could sense that something even worse was coming. And yet at the same time, she also knew that she still loved him in spite of it. She had never felt so confused, so morally conflicted, so absolutely tortured before in all her life.

"Prim, promise me." Cordelia implored.

"I promise."

-

Soon after that, the coven descended into war as Primrose fell into a deep depression. She wouldn't come out of her room, she refused all food, she kept the curtains drawn to block out all light, and worst of all, she stopped tending to her garden. Even though her mother had warned her not to breach the barrier of the magical protection that surrounded the house, she doubted she would've wanted to see the garden anyway; the roses reminded her too much of Michael.

Everyone in the house was extremely concerned, of course. Cordelia and Misty tried giving her many herbal concoctions in the hopes that it would lift her mood, Queenie tried teaching her card games to distract her, Myrtle even tried soothing her with her theremin. They all tried, and they all failed. There was no end to the sadness. She simply lay in bed all day, withering away like the neglected plants in her garden.

Days turn into weeks, turn into months, turn into nothingness. They say time heals all wounds, but every day she went without seeing Michael, she felt weaker and more alone. Michael had tried to visit her again, many times. She would watch him transmute into the garden from her bedroom window, unable to cross the threshold into her house, looking up at her through the thick glass between them, realizing that she wouldn't ever be coming down. Every time their eyes met, she would place her palm against the glass longingly, in the hope that this small action could convey how much she hadn't wanted to leave him, not really, and that despite all she did love him still.

And this is how she knew Michael couldn't possibly be composed only of darkness, because he had left her and with him, he had taken all the light.

-

It was a day that had started like any other.

She had woken up late, hopelessly stared at the ceiling for a few hours before getting washed and dressed. Emerging from the bathroom she stared at the closed curtains until she could bear the darkness no longer, ripping them open and watching the light flood in through squinted eyes. Her heart sank at the sight of her once burgeoning garden, now shriveled and dead. She felt guilty for neglecting them, but the emotional turmoil had drained her of her powers; she knew that anything she touched would surely die.

As her eyes scanned the brown, crumpled vegetation, her eye was caught by the smallest flash of color in the corner of her eye. Against all odds, one tiny little flower had survived. Gazing at this tiny flower from her window, she felt something stirring in her chest for the first time again after months of feeling numb; it was hope. Small and faint, yes, but it was hope nonetheless.

Suddenly feeling inspired, Primrose ran from her room and down the stairs the yard out back, searching for her tiny flower of hope. She found it, bright and yellow, beckoning towards her out of the masses of death that surrounded it. She kneeled down in the flower bed to pick it, and the strangest thing happened; it resisted. She gave it another tug, and still it would not yield.

How strange, she thought. I've certainly never had this problem before.

With both hands she pulled the stem with all her might until it was finally released from the earth, dirt flying everywhere as she fell back onto the ground. She smiled triumphantly at her prize and brought the flower under her nose to inhale its scent. Instantly it's scent invaded her nostrils, going straight to her head. She coughed and spluttered as it reached her lungs, she had never known a flower to be this potent, it's scent harsher than cheap perfume.

It all happened so fast; she felt her vision blur, and her ears ringing, she could've sworn she heard screaming coming from inside the house. Through her darkened sight, she could make out a van parked in front of the coven and two large men in black suits coming toward her.

"Primrose Goode, you need to come with us." The taller one said. "Now."

"W-who are you?" She asked, desperately clinging on to consciousness. "What's going on?"

"You have been selected for the cooperative." She felt two strong arms pick her up off the floor, carrying her across the garden onto the lawn, toward the black van. "We have a location prepared for you where you'll be safe."

She wanted to fight herself free from the stranger's grip, she wanted to use her powers, she wanted to scream, to call out for her mother, for Zoe, for Myrtle, for her all her sisters.

But she couldn't.

Whatever was in that flower's scent was fully working its way through her system now and it was only a matter of seconds before the darkness would fully claim her and she became lost in the abyss.

-

author's note; the timeline in this fic deviates slightly from the show's timeline, in this timeline the slaughter of the coven and the apocalypse pretty much happen one after the other, just a heads up xo