This is a blog for my writing. A resolution I made this year is to write more. I take requests and I do write NSFW. Feel free to inquire if your request matches my fandoms I participate in.
Pairing: If you wanna see Natan it can work for that.
Rating: SFW.
Word Count: 921
Summary: A small exchange when Satan restores Natalie’s memories and reveals what price he’s had to pay to do so. Has this been done yet?
She knows what he said - knows why he won’t meet her eyes - but despite hearing the words come out of his mouth, her mind stays peculiarly blank.
Natalie watches Satan’s pinched expression with a stunned smile. Her limbs are as light as air; they feel that way, at least. She can see very clearly that he’s acutely aware of her gaze on him in the way his shoulders start to hunch and his brow furrows deeply.
Ah. Uncomfortable. He’s uncomfortable.
Natalie fiddles with her hands in her lap, glancing away for the first time since he’d spoken. The words only begin to sink in when she repeats them on a loop for the dozenth time, taking her elated smile with them.
When her head whips back towards Satan this time, he visibly flinches, cranes his face further into his chest. He’ll do anything to avoid the horror painting across Natalie’s face as she realizes what he’s done for her.
“I never asked you to.” Her voice is strangely quiet, contrasting to the alarm hijacking her body. Satan blows a spout of air through his nostrils, trying in vain to ignore the distracting feel of perspiration on his temples. He keeps his shoulder blades pressed to the wall out of stubborness.
“Did I need your permission?” he retorts, but his voice sounds feeble even as he tries to make light of an otherwise shitty situation.
What, did she expect he would just be OK with her remaining in Hell? He knows it was stupid to pretend he’d never have to tell her. He was always going to have to reveal the price he’d been willing to pay for her body to be healthy.
And now that he’s done what he intended to accomplish - has managed to get her heart out, too, has managed to restore her memories of him - he sits in shame.
He should not be made to feel ashamed for this! What’s done is done. Natalie must accept it.
Satan chances a peek at the quietted girl, immediately regretting his choice to do so. Her jaw is trembling while she shakes in her chair, her face contorted with ugly, angry tears.
Oh, God. She’s angry.
Satan falters.
“How could you do that to yourself? How could you think I’d be OK with you doing that for me?” she demands, and the quiver in her voice breaks his heart all over again.
“Natalie . . .”
“You just said it right now! You said that this was something unheard of! So, what? Now you don’t have a family?”
He snorts, unappreciative. “I have a family.”
“Well now you can’t see them!” she cries.
“Oh, yeah, kid. Because I obviously see them all the time as it is,” he counters, rolling his eyes. He knows he’s not helping with the sarcasm, but it’s instinct. He wishes he could shut up right about now, but his mouth continues to run and fuel that horribly glassy sheen in her eyes.
God, he can’t bear to look at her cry. No over him. Not over this.
“You shouldn’t have done it, Satan. I wouldn’t have wanted you to.”
Like flicking the wick on a lighter, irritation blooms forth in a roaring surge of heat inside his belly. Memories flash like a playback of a movie, scene by scene of her death, the buildup and the aftermath, all brought to the surface that he prayed to his Father that he could forget.
He turns on her, narrowed eyes and bared teeth. “And who are you to judge me? You weren’t there! I was the one stuck with the guilt, you dumbass! I was the one stuck with a dead body and the stench of failure on me like decay.” Satan knows he should stop yelling by the size of her eyes, but he can’t control this. It’s bubbling up faster than he’s able to seal it away.
Picture frames teeter and the carpet gives beneath the grip of his fingers as his voice thunders like a typhoon. Natalie is forced silent under the power of the almighty Devil.
“Get off your fuckin’ high horse and tell me you’d be OK with knowing you were such a failure you couldn’t even save your best friend. That’s bullshit, Natalie! Pride goeth before the fall, alright,” he scoffs. He feels a pressure behind his eyes that disgusts him, blinking in hopes to keep the emotion away.
“If I had just given her what she wanted from the start instead of pussyfooting around, you wouldn’t have had to - wo-wouldn’t have . . .,” Satan growls, furiously thrusting his elbow against his face. “Fuck,” he curses.
This is beyond humiliating. Why can’t she just be grateful? No matter what choice he made, she wouldn’t be satisfied. So why not be elated? Look at his testament of love? These gashes in his back, scarred, mutilated skin, these are trophies to be praised.
God dammit. Why can’t he do anything right?
After a long beat of silence, a soft touch coaxes his face free from the safety of his arm. He stares in awe as Natalie bites into her lip, looking more agonized for him than he’s ever seen her before.
She slips her arms around his neck and squeezes tightly. He wraps his arm around her back and presses his face into the crook of her shoulder.
He can’t live with himself for letting her die like that.
She can’t live with herself for what he’s destroyed for her.
Pairing: If you wanna see Natan it can work for that. Jericho/Natalie indirectly I guess? It’s during the part where they’re dating
Rating: SFW. Well. Pretty much. It is Jericho, after all.
Word Count: 1837
Summary: Jericho forces Satan to be an unwilling participant in his own self-gratification. Satan really does not appreciate it.
It’s a moment in time when the world stops turning, just briefly. Satan feels himself almost lurch when the ground stops moving, the action alarming and abrupt.
He catches brown eyes through the window, completely unintentional. He hadn’t meant to get caught. Being caught peeking like this is mortifying, but who can really blame him for wanting to make sure Natalie is OK?
Just because she has a date in her home doesn’t change the fact that Jericho is a slimy, weaselly little boy who lacks any positive reading on a moral compass. If he even has one.
Surprisingly, he appears to be shocked, too. The wide-eyed pause Jericho has when he looks up and sees Satan watching him has to be proof enough. He has to have seen him there, shrouded in the darkness of the McAllister family side yard.
But then he removes his gaze, laughing at something Natalie says as Satan composes himself, shrinking back from the light of her bedroom.
No. No, he couldn’t have seen him. It’s the dead of night and he’s much too far for Jericho of all people to have spotted him amidst the rose bushes. Satan’s giving him too much credit.
Long fingers dig into the meat of his forearms, struggling against the current of his turbulent emotions. Standing out here like this just feels . . . wrong. Creepy. It’s like he’s some kind of stalker or jealous boyfriend, trying to live vicariously through Natalie’s date, looking for any reason to jump in and soil their fun.
That’s definitely not what I’m doing, Satan silently seethes, biting into his lip as anger bubbles in his belly.
Natalie is unassuming, too naive to get it through her head that bad people exist out there. That some people aren’t worth saving. Why she continues to see Jericho would keep him up at night, had he been able to sleep in the first place.
He jerks his head away in disgust when he places a gentle kiss to Natalie’s temple. A manipulator like that shouldn’t even be allowed to be in the same room with a girl, let alone touch one.
Oh, how he wishes they’d wrap this shit up. He’s on a cliffhanger in his latest novel and he’d like to finish it tonight without the taste of vomit lingering on his tongue from this visual assault.
Natalie curves her spine away from him, hesitant, but not a rejection, when a palm slides across the bare skin of her side. Jericho’s touch lingers, leaning forward to whisper something in her ear. When he pulls away, color is bleeding up Natalie’s neck, causing her to duck her head. She says something muffled by the glass.
Satan blinks, beside himself when brown eyes search the darkness and finds him again while Natalie fidgets beside him.
There’s no denying it. He sees him.
His tongue feels like a wad of dry cotton in his mouth, furrowing his eyebrows uncertainly. The intensity affixed on him leaves Satan’s skin crawling, like a million tiny slugs are slithering across his body.
Jericho smiles, breathless.
He likes this, Satan realizes with a sense of horror. He sees him and he likes him watching, a silent witness to their lovers facade.
He leans back into Natalie, kissing her jaw, taking her hand in his and running it down his neck.
Satan’s mouth slowly opens, disbelief painted across his face as he watches Natalie’s limbs be guided around this boy like a marionette. Jericho keeps his eyes trained on the darkness out the window all the while.
When Natalie kisses him, her face unsure, but still so genuine, with scarlet cheeks and no awareness of the lies of affection this boy has tricked her with, Jericho trembles with a gasp. It’s only when his eyes roll in his skull that their eye contact is broken.
Satan balks, at a loss for words, when Natalie pulls away, questioning this boy who is suddenly curling in on himself over one innocent kiss. Surely this looks out of place, even to someone with little to no experience as Natalie.
This is overkill.
Taking a horrified step back, Satan feels the cool wood of the fence at his shoulder blades, a hand covering his mouth in comprehension.
How had that shit stain involved him in their private intimacy? There was no doubt in his mind that he was an unwilling participant in giving him some kind of pleasure.
Is he insane? Where did he think he could do something like this to the Devil?
The insolence.
Rage simmers to the surface, too potent to hold back any longer. Without thinking, he lashes out and hits the tree, a loud boom resounding in the neighborhood.
Natalie and Jericho jump, their heads twisting to the darkness outside. He is long gone, sitting on a neighbors roof to calm himself, listening to the dogs in the neighborhood let out a cacophony of yowls to his outrage.
Natalie must know he’s the cause for the disruption by the stinging sensation against his knuckles. Satan doesn’t care. The drunken fever in those brown eyes are burned into his own. He clenches his eyes shut, feeling more violated than he has felt in a lifetime.
A human had the audacity to use him in this manor, all for petty entertainment.
Amber flashes like hot coals when he glares at the sky, hating the way his hands are trembling, the mortifying heat burning hotter against the cool air of the night on his skin.
Not only was he made a fool, but that person used Natalie to do it.
“I’ll kill him.”
Natalie’s voice fades from the doorway as she says goodnight to her date. Satan quietly seethes at the pleasant words she’s returned with, hating how easily she’s being duped. It’s only when he’s certain the door is shut and Natalie isn’t in earshot that he plucks him by the scruff of his shirt and throws him violently against the neighbor’s fence.
Jericho grunts, his arms shooting out in front of him with a brief twinkle of fear in his eyes before he takes notice of the livid face sneering down at him. Satan clenches his fist when he hears the awestruck gulp of air sucked between his teeth.
“Don’t you dare even start,” he snarls, only a little satisfied at the pain on his face when he tightens his grip against one skinny, flimsy arm. “How dare you.”
Jericho winces but he doesn’t pull away from the pain. He looks a bit unsure of himself, taking his time to gather his words. “What are you talking about?”
“You know damn well what I’m talking about. That girl might be wrapped around your finger, but I’m not blind. Why the hell did you do that?” Satan demands.
“I have no idea what you’re referring to,” Jericho starts before breaking off in a litany of yelps. Satan twists his grip against his arm, willfully ignoring the feeble attempt of frantic fingers trying to pry him away.
“Let go! I really don’t know!”
Satan shoves him away, repulsed, watching Jericho cringe into himself, holding his abused arm tightly to his side. There are tears in his eyes, reflected in the moonlight, hushed pants torn from his mouth.
“God, you make me sick. Stop looking at me like that.” He recoils from those eyes, a sickness at the back of his tongue souring his mouth. “You were watching me while you were supposed to be paying attention to Natalie. How fucking insulting is that to her?!”
He sees recognition spark in to life, and Jericho does a poor job of willing down a smile. Satan feels his lip pulling back over his teeth, his fury being ignited once more.
“You were watching us? Isn’t it you who was being creepy, Stan?”
He punches the fence, barely missing his head. Jericho jumps. That fog that’s so unsettling on his face every time Satan sees him dissipates a bit with his anxiety.
Satan is a wall of muscle compared to Jericho. He takes advantage of that.
“Watch it. You’re on thin ice.”
There’s a long pause, Jericho trembling under Satan’s intimidation, his knees clacking together. There’s a nervous sweat sticking light hair to the skin of his temples, belying his fear.
Jericho hesitantly wets his lips, speaking softer now. “It’s dark. How am I supposed to know if you’re outside or not? I really didn’t know you were there. Honest.”
Lies on top of lies. Satan doesn’t believe a single word that comes out of his mouth. Never has, and he doesn’t plan on starting today.
He has to give it to him, though. He’s very good in his performance. If he didn’t know any better, he would think by the waver in his voice that he is telling the truth. Unfortunately, he’s seen enough of him to know how far his unpleasantness actually goes.
The image of his twisted up face against the crook of Natalie’s neck as he fell apart resurfaces with a surge of nausea.
The slap sounds like a gunshot, blistering against his palm, but he knows this is all he can get away with; all he can do as retribution while Natalie is still vouching for this rat bastard.
He impatiently awaits the day she sees him for what he truly is, their ties cut, and the leash removed from Satan’s neck, free to play as he pleases.
Jericho hisses, instinctively covering his searing cheek with his palm. He bites into his lip hard enough to draw blood when the numbness wears off and pain blooms beneath his hand.
Cotton fabric is nearly torn as Satan hauls him upright, looming over Jericho dangerously. When he speaks, it’s low; a warning. A promise.
“If you ever pull some shit like this again, don’t expect to hide behind Natalie. I’ll tear you a new asshole, you hear? She won’t even have to know. You’ll just,” he drops him, making a gesture with his hand with a hushed whisper, “poof. Disappear.”
He lets his words hang heavy in the air
Jericho stays crumpled at Satan’s feet, silent and unresponsive. After a moment, he shifts, his shoulders bobbing twice while a strained little chuckle climbs out of his throat.
Satan narrows his eyes dangerously when he raises his head, a breathless smile on his lips, delight soaked into his gaze.
“Loud and clear. I’ll . . . have to remember that.”
He recalls falling. Recalls his Father wanting him to bow and revel at the splendor of humanity. Watching Jericho carefully pull himself up off of the dirt, meandering into the night, licking his wounds and looking down on God’s most precious son, Satan rekindles his hatred for the human race.
If he ever falters or needs a reminder of why he will lead his followers to victory and rightful glory at the End of Days, Jericho will serve his only purpose as a reflection.
Oh, how he looks forward to the day where his leash comes off.
Pairing: If you wanna see Natan it can work for that
Rating: SFW
Word Count: 504
Summary: Quick drabble on the reasons Natalie and Satan scare each other.
He scares her, but not for the reasons most people would assume he should.
He’s the Devil, so by definition he should be scary. But the calloused hands and weathered horns and piercing eyes that have a forlorn depth to them that’s terribly off putting - that’s never scared her.
He’s good at invoking fear in her in other ways. Hiding behind a cocky grin just before the sky goes ablaze is a very transparent shield that she sees through effortlessly. Natalie hates when he smiles like that; it rarely ever means the next few minutes are going to be pleasant.
Her heart beats, booming and erratic, so loud that it almost drowns out her prayer for his safety. She knows he’s claimed to be damn near invincible, but she’d rather they not test that. Despite his strength, Lucifer can die. He can leave her here, all alone, nothing but warm memories to haunt her like a spirit till the End of Days.
Natalie can’t hear her voice. She can’t focus on anything but the cold grip of fear in her belly that hugs her like a lover would.
She prays to God to spare the Devil. She prays to Titus, too. Anyone, anything, but please stop fighting. Do not kill him.
He wins, of course, just not in the way they’d both expected. There’s realization before relief floods through her veins like a drug, momentarily stealing her breath just before he stops her from falling to the ground.
Calloused hands that can tear through stone hold her gently with a care he doesn’t look capable of possessing. She looks up, sees part of his face illuminated by the fire behind him, a curious, thoughtful emotion in his gaze as he takes in her awestruck appearance.
There’s fondness there when he sees her, something unspoken but so palpable her knees quake together.
Lucifer is scary, just not for the reasons most people would assume.
XXXX
She scares him, just not for the reasons most people would assume she should.
He’s known humans are fragile things since the moment he’d first seen one, naturally, and Natalie is no exception. The amount of times he’s tasted her adrenaline, seen her blood, felt her sweat is so numerous he probably can’t recount them all.
She’s a clumsy, impulsive thing. Good intentions, of course, but he doesn’t really see the difference between a good heart or a malevolent one. Pain is pain, and she seems to be taking a crash course on the concept.
Her safety is imperative for his mental health at this point. He knows there’s no going back once he’d admitted to being her friend out loud for all the world to hear. What cruel irony it is that it’s her very friendship pricking his skin like needles when he watches her face smooth out in slumber, leaving him alone with his thoughts for the night.
It’s been so long since someone’s seemed to care for him the way she does. His thoughts, his opinions, his feelings matter to her. It’s almost unfathomable how interested she is in his company. Natalie wants to know them all, always asking him about his life and his dreams and his goals.
She wants to see him bare before him, to squeeze into every nook and cranny; to make a nest inside of him and call it home.
Lucifer places his face in a trembling hand and breathes. The idea of opening up for the first time like this scares him. How can she love him when there’s really nothing there to love? Surely, she has to know she’ll be disappointed. Because if she isn’t, then he’ll truly be lost in waters unknown.
Natalie dreams of a life with him but he doesn’t know how.
Natalie is scary, just not for the reasons most people would assume.
Pairing: If you wanna see Natan it can work for that
Rating: SFW
Word Count: 2300
Summary: Unstoppable force meets an immovable object. Natalie is starting to worry how protective Lucifer is being after she’d been brought back from Hell.
XXXXXXX
She didn’t remember him, so Natalie had no point of reference to go on when comparing this Satan to the man she’d apparently been best friends with just weeks ago.
Lucifer wasn’t in a good mood; at least, not since she’d woken up on a cold, bloody floor in some unnamed building. He was always grumbling and scowling, the smudges of purple under his exhausted eyes drawing her attention more than the luminescence of the amber resting just above it.
He wasn’t secretive, but he certainly wasn’t an open book when she would ask him questions.
Where had they gone together?
What caused the scars she found littered about her body?
How was their relationship prior to her death?
Lucifer would give vague replies or ignore her completely, something that perturbed Natalie more and more as they spent every waking minute together.
If they were as close as he implied, as Death implied, then wouldn’t it make more sense to try and fill that void in her head with his own memories? If she couldn’t recall specifics from her own experience, Natalie wanted Lucifer’s point of view during those events.
That, it seemed, he was not willing to divulge.
For a man who claimed to care about her to the point of going to the great efforts of plucking her very soul out of Hell, he didn’t outwardly show it.
In fact, any onlooker was probably likely to think he felt just the opposite about her. Natalie, after a few weeks time, started to believe that she was being yanked around and lied to, until she started noticing something peculiar.
Everything in the world around them, Lucifer seemed to treat like a threat.
He stood in front of her at diners, a wall made of flesh to insert himself between Natalie and strangers. He stood too close at sudden noises, like car alarms or dogs barking. She could practically feel his skin buzzing beside her, his eyes narrowing in the direction of the noise, ever vigilant, whenever Natalie would catch him pressing against her side abruptly.
The chill of the night was accompanied with heavy comforters, fires that still burned by sunrise.
He checked her body when she stumbled, treating a scuffed knee like a bullet wound, tending to it instantly and then glancing at her the rest of the day to make sure she was fine. It nearly drove Natalie mad, but she kept that to herself when she’d feel a flicker of indignation at his paranoia to her wellbeing.
He was the Devil, after all. She didn’t want to upset him.
Soon, their visits to town dwindled until the presence of people seemed more like a dream than a reality. It was then that Natalie realized what he had been doing.
“You can’t protect me from everything,” Natalie spoke up, watching the muscles around Lucifer’s neck tense as she trailed behind him.
The crunch of the dirt under her sneakers kept her mind present, the smell of pine grounding her to the moment. The forest they’d been walking through seemed never ending.
Lucifer’s pace didn’t falter, but when he looked over his shoulder Natalie felt the air still in her lungs at the sheer fierceness of his glare.
“Watch me,” was all she got as a response before he turned his attention forward once more.
Natalie waited a few minutes to regain her composure, making sure not to trail too far behind and gain his attention for all the wrong reasons.
“I know what you’re doing,” Natalie continued, tracing her eyes down the jagged skin on his back. The previously purple bruising was now yellow and green, leaving the healing wounds to pop out in horrifying contrast against his skin.
Lucifer ignored her. Natalie pursed her lips.
“I’ve gotta run into someone eventually. It’s not like we can live off the grid forever. My dad will notice. My friends.”
When Lucifer continued walking in silence, Natalie frowned, irritated at his avoidance. She jogged up beside him, eyeballing the stubborn scowl faced ahead.
She tilted her head curiously at him, seeking out his gaze. “I could get sick out here, spending all night outside all the time.”
The lines around his face hardened, making him appear far older than he already was. At the implication of illness, Lucifer’s form seemed to seep negativity, all imposing. Emotions like hurt, fear, sorrow all took the misleading form of rage on his face.
The gold of his eyes found hers, his stare deathly.
“You won’t.”
Natalie licked her lips hesitantly, Lucifer’s gaze flickering down at the action before flitting back up.
“But I-”
“You won’t,” he declared, his voice always so naturally rough now lethal in his rejection of her words.
“People get sick every day!” Natalie called, trying to catch up as his pace quickened. He was trying to avoid her again. Natalie clenched her fist, defiant as she caught up to him.
Lucifer’s expression was dark and undoubtedly uncomfortable. She tried not to let herself be intimidated, logically knowing that if he was this protective of her, he had to like her a lot, right? And if he liked her, he wouldn’t hurt her … right?
“If I live to be an old lady, I’m going to get sick at least once until then, you know?” Natalie reasoned. Lucifer’s frown pulled further at the corners, refusing to look at her.
“Right,” he started, his tone patronizingly airy. It made her feel stupid when he talked to her like that. “So, in the meantime, we’ll just limit the amount of exposure to the things that will do that.”
“So, people?”
“Yeah, people.”
“That’s not fair. I’ll go stir crazy if it’s just you and me in the woods!” Natalie cried, knowing she looked over dramatic but not finding it in her to care. Not when the prospect of being momentarily isolated with fucking Satan was looming over her.
Lucifer shot her an unappreciated side glance.
“Pestilence is infecting cities right now. You wanna walk back into a city and risk getting sick again? Fuck that.”
“Which cities?” Natalie huffed. “We’ll just avoid those ones.”
Lucifer breathed a smothered laugh and shook his head. “How am I supposed to know? If I knew that we’d have slept in a bed last night. You think I like feeling bugs in my ass crack or rolling over on pinecones at 3:00 AM?”
“What are the odds that I get sick again, though?”
“What were the odds that you would run into Pestilence of all people at the beach?” Lucifer shot back, his words acidic. The wound was still fresh in his mind, rotting away his better judgement as the phlegm soaked scenes of Natalie’s demise played over and over on a reel like a macabre movie behind his eyes.
Shimmers of purple reflected in Natalie’s eyes when he looked at her and he resisted the urge to cover his gauges.
It wasn’t a secret, anyway. He was still miserable.
“What if we run into those rebels? You know, the ones you said left you for someone else?” Natalie suggested, trying a different approach.
Of the few bits and pieces Lucifer did divulge to Natalie, she was informed that she had been abducted by a “Satan Wannabe piece of shit”, as he so nicely put it. She didn’t know what happened to that guy, Lucifer wouldn’t tell her, but he did assure her he wasn’t going to bother them again.
Natalie had no recollection of any of this, but Lucifer seemed to perk up at the mention of the rebels, so clearly they were still out there.
“We won’t run into them.”
“But if we do?” Natalie persisted.
Lucifer sighed. “If we do, I’ll kill them. Happy?”
“Murder doesn’t make me happy …”
Lucifer turned on her so fast it had her flying a foot into the air in her surprise. Natalie’s feet backpedaled as he swiftly approached her, backing her against the wide trunk of a tree. Lucifer’s fingers dug into the bark by her cheek, catching some of her loose hair.
“What do you want from me?” he snarled. “I’m trying my best with what I have. I’m tired and frustrated and everything’s gone to shit more ways than I can count, so I don’t need you picking at me. I’ll figure something out.
“Obviously I can’t keep you out here forever. I just need time to think of how to fix this shit, and I don’t need you giving me lip for trying to keep you safe. You are a danger magnet, kid! You’ve got the worst luck I’ve ever seen in a human. I’m not going to let you sabotage this and leave me again!”
Natalie hesitated, her heart thundering in her chest like a caged animal trying to get loose, but not entirely from fear. She felt his fingers clench and something on his face started to crumble.
She had never seen anyone look as heartbroken as he did in this very moment, aside from her father arched over liquor bottles with her mother’s name sobbed through chapped lips all those years ago.
Lucifer ducked his head and looked away before she could inspect too closely, angling his head towards the other trees with a glassy look to his eyes. The guards went back up and his hand relaxed.
“Didn’t mean to yell,” he muttered. “Not your fault.”
Natalie stared at this familiar stranger, wishing she could force the memories back with sheer willpower. Everything in her body was telling her to fear him; to run away, never look back, reject him, reject him, reject him.
She wanted nothing more than to follow those orders in her brain.
But something in her chest kept her feet rooted, an anchor in the static haze of her mind. This part of her felt oddly at peace beside him. This part of her knew he felt like home.
With a trembling hand, Natalie reached out and placed it against his forearm. The sturdy muscle and veins were warmer than her own skin.
Lucifer paused before slowly glancing at her hand. He peered up at her with his eyes, keeping his head down in a gesture she’d come to recognize as heedful of her past rejections.
Every time she tried to evade him, looked upon him with terror in her eyes, and flinched when he so much as looked at her wrong, Lucifer silently recoiled.
By treating him like the monster she claimed him to be, she was hurting him in ways she’d probably never comprehend.
How could she? How many people would go so far for another person to bring them back from death itself?
Natalie glimpsed loneliness in his gaze and that part inside of her lashed out in anguish for him, for just a moment. She was smiling before she had even registered her mouth moving.
“Why are you doing that?” Lucifer asked, furrowing his brow in confusion. Natalie gave a gentle squeeze of his arm.
“I’m alive right now, see?”
Lucifer’s eyes widened minutely, giving a sharp glance to her fingers touching his skin. She could feel his pulse quickening beneath her touch as he registered her word’s underlying meaning.
Stop worrying. I’m here now. I’m alive. You made it better, see?
He couldn't stop living in the past. He couldn't worrying. Every day it was like she was dead, her death had rung a bell in his head when she took her last breath alone in a dingy hotel room.
Humans were fragile. Natalie would eventually die. She would leave him permanently someday.
That is the reality.
Lucifer reeled back, pulling out of her grasp as if she’d hurt him. He watched her with wild eyes, a sense of growing panic in his frenzied movements. He looked like he desperately wanted to flee, to get out of this situation. Put it away in a box and never take it out to think about it.
But he knew that to be impossible when he saw green eyes watching him with pity. He didn’t want her pity. He didn’t want this truth.
“I’ll let you die out here alone with me before I put myself through that again. I’m selfish. I can do that. I’m the Devil, after all,” Lucifer said, managing a smile of his own as he forcefully attempted to subdue his fears.
Natalie’s smile fell, horrified at what he had just declared. She could see the denial on his face warring with the cruel facade he was trying to spoon feed her, but a part of her believed him.
Who could stop him? It’s not like she could outrun him. She’d tried before.
“You don’t mean that …” Natalie hesitantly said.
Lucifer’s jaw clenched uncomfortably. “Try me.”
“I already promised I wasn’t going to run again. I want my soul back; all of it. I agree with you,” Natalie rambled when Lucifer started to turn away from her. Pale hands clung to his arm in sudden desperation. Lucifer jolted, unable to successfully wriggle out of her hold. He looked frightened.
“I want to help you get it back! I want to like you again,” Natalie asserted, causing Lucifer’s breath to stutter. She looked at him, pleading. “But I can’t do that if you confine me out here alone. Stop treating me like I’m your whole world.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed, his teeth digging into his lower lip to keep from abruptly jerking out of her hold and accidentally hurting her.
“I’m not your whole world, Lucifer.”
His silence was clearer than any words he could have spoken. His eyes looked defeated, helpless and at the mercy of a teenage girl.
Yeah, well. You might as well be.
The Devil is a selfish creature. He’d made that known to Natalie very clear.
Summary: Natalie doesn’t know why, but Hell seems to be quite taken with her hair. Perhaps that’s more concerning than she originally thought.
XXXXX
Sometimes he sings to her.
Well, he doesn’t exactly sing, she considers. There are never any words. But he does hum tunes to songs that sound familiar, but are just out of reach for her to recall exactly where she had heard them before. Perhaps when she was younger?
Natalie hates to admit that she likes it. It’s his voice, after all. Deep and languid, this monster that dawns Lucifer’s face sounds exactly like him.
Not-Satan plays with her hair as he continues the tune.
“There’s so much of it. It just goes on for days,” he comments, breaking the spell of his song and drawing Natalie back to the surface of her thoughts.
His hands make her feel revolting, even as they thread through the strands of violet and gold. She swallows the bile on the back of her tongue and yanks the hair from his gentle grasp. This seems to startle him for reasons Natalie can’t even begin to comprehend.
What did he think she was going to do? Let him continue to touch her forever?
Not like that. Not when he looks at her like that, curiosity reflected in mismatched eyes as they blink at her.
“Why so shy? You weren’t complaining a minute ago,” Hell says, its lip peeling back over its teeth in a smile. “Come here. I just want to brush it. I wouldn’t ruin it. Never.”
Natalie’s skin crawls. She pulls her knees up and leans away from it. When Hell follows, cocking its head to the side while waiting for its answer, trying to catch her gaze as she averts her eyes, Natalie recoils once more when hot breath touches her skin.
“You’re so pretty. It’s refreshing to see some color in here. Everything is so dark. I like what you bring to this place,” Hell murmurs into her hair. Natalie puts her hands up as a guard between them but it grabs her wrists gently and moves them aside with a force that belies the simple action.
“Don’t touch me,” she demands, wishing her voice didn’t tremble; wishing she didn’t shake like a leaf in the wind in its mere presence. Hells touch is cold and searing at the same time, slimy and rough, leaving invisible trails of sludge in its wake. Its touch feels like the sensation of walking through spiderwebs or that frightful moment of a dark closet door open at night.
She doesn’t want to be here. Natalie gasps, feeling smothered in nothing.
And just like that the sensation is gone. Natalie opens her eyes, blinking to make sure she’s not imagining it, and glances over hesitantly to see Hell withdrawn. It watches her on the balls of its feet, regarding her almost fondly as she gathers herself together again from the brink of hysteria.
“I can wait,” is all the reassurance it gives. “I’ve got all the time in the world,” Hell says almost smugly, its nose crinkling in a lopsided grin.
Natalie feels her stomach sink, but thanks the Lord for small mercies and drags clumps of her endless hair around her like a blanket to cover her nakedness.
She wishes for a way to distract Hell from looking at her like that - like a piece of meat. She sees it drag it’s gaze down the patches of uncovered skin, shivering when it stops at the meat of her thigh.
“Is this all there is?” Natalie blurts. Hell’s eyes pop up to hers, silently asking what she means. Natalie gestures to the expanse of blackness surrounding them. “Is it just a lot of dark nothing in here?”
Hell takes a long time to consider this, sounding cryptic when it responds with only a, “Maybe.”
“Well, is it or isn’t it?” she pushes harder, frowning at it. Hell smiles with a shrug, only frustrating Natalie more.
She huffs, getting to her feet quickly on unbalanced legs, intent on finding a wall or a border in the darkness.
“I’ll check it out myself, then,” she announces, meaning to storm away from this poor replica of her friend. She doesn’t make it ten feet before Hell is laughing behind her.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Natalie glances over her shoulder, glaring at the man clearly enjoying himself where he crouches.
“Oh? And why is that?”
“You’ll run into them eventually if you keep walking that way,” Hell informs. “Would you like a sneak peek?”
Natalie stares at it in confusion while Hell picks up what looks like a pebble and throws it just beyond her head. When Natalie turns around to follow its trajectory, she comes face to face with bulging eyes.
Natalie shrieks, stumbling back before falling on her back. Her legs kick out in her panic, scooting in the direction she came from to get away from the pairs of eyes slowly opening and watching her.
It’s dim and too dark to make out anything clear, but she can see a body, a few bodies, standing there where the eyes are.
Her heart is beating out of her chest when she runs into Hell’s side. It places a reassuring palm against her shoulder when she jolts. Natalie hates to admit it, but seeing Satan’s face coupled with the concerned gesture does calm her down a bit.
“Who the hell are they?!” she screams.
“Vultures,” Hell breathes, appearing torn between amusement and annoyance. “I called first dibs, you know this. Back off!”
Natalie hears shuffling, soft hiccups and groans, but then the eyes fade and she can no longer see their figures.
“They’ll ruin you, and not even in the fun way. I called first dibs, Natalie. I will be the one to taint you, no one else.”
Natalie tastes the fear in her mouth. She wills her body to elbow the laughing man behind her, edging away from him, but not far enough where the faceless figures can get her. As dreadful as it is, she feels a little safer with this patch of souls.
“I want to see Lucifer.”
“I am Lucifer. Just look at me!” Hell giddily responds, waving its arms out to show more of their muscles and tattoos.
“You’re sick. I mean his soul. Please take me to him,” she pleads.
“Why would I do that?” Hell asks, genuinely curious. It props its chin in its palm. “What’s in it for me?”
Natalie chews at her lip, coiling her fingers into fists where her nails bite into her skin like teeth. She glances down at the glittering strands of her hair, taking a calming breath before steeling herself.
“You can have … my h-hair. If you want it,” she mutters, usure how the words even made it past her lips. She doesn’t look up for a long moment, too anxious to do so. But after a long, drawn out beat of silence, Natalie finally gets the courage to chance a peek.
She goes rigid at the wild look in its eyes, stained teeth bared towards her in a grin.
“Are you offering to cut it off?” Hell asks.
Natalie hesitates before giving a curt nod.
Hell snickers, throwing its head back in a throaty laugh that rumbles the floor beneath her. Lucifer’s voice is joined with a cacophony of other voices, none synched together as they howl with glee.
“You must think I’m simple. I don’t just want your hair.”
Natalie pauses, wetting her lips as dread prickles against her skin. “What, uh - What do you mean? I thought you liked my hair. I’m offering to give it to you. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Hell watches her with eyes like little crescent moons.
“If the waves of that silken ocean is like the growth of a tree, what do you think is the root?”
“I’m … not following.”
Hell extends a finger slowly, pointing it towards Natalie’s torso. “I don’t want the tree for its leaves, I want the tree for its roots. What is the beauty of your hair without your reaction to my reverie? Let me have a moment to properly admire it before you choose to cut it as some godless offering to me. Then I will take you to see Lucifer.”
Natalie blanches, instinctively retreating from the man across from her, watching her like she’s just some mouse struggling under the teasing of a cat’s paw.
Even the idea of letting Hell near her, combing through her hair, braiding it, smelling it, is enough to make her knees clack together and her tongue turn to dry cotton in her mouth.
But as much as she detests the idea of that, Lucifer’s concerned face as she sat down on the motel bed and coughed phlegm into her fist floats to the surface, alluring and tempting.
She wants to see him.
She’ll do anything to see him.
So if some sick souls want a few minutes to stroke her hair and take pleasure as she squirms in disgust, then so be it.
“Alright. But you have to promise. I get to see Lucifer afterwards.”
Hell has never looked so satisfied, taking a pointed nail and scratching red marks against its chest, its voice now sweet and slow as honey.
Summary: Fic trade with @astarisms. Short sweet and to the point. Natan against a wall.
“Please,” she breathes into his skin, holding onto his arms like they’re her only anchors. Natalie’s body quakes under his, the realization of exactly how small and frail her body is compared to his becoming suddenly apparent to Lucifer.
He just pushes deeper into her, relishing in the way her heels dig almost painfully into the back of his thighs.
How this happened, he can’t quite say. Their relationship has been strange for a while now. Events after the warehouse, the beach, the showdown with Titus – something about all of that has made Lucifer notice more things; ponder more things.
There’s always this static between the two of them in a room. It’s only slight, but the tingling of it against his skin, in the air he pulls into his lungs is noticeable.
Natalie is all smiles, her voice no longer grating or obnoxious. It’s a balm over a wound that Michael had ripped open years ago, when he was younger, bolder. Lucifer hasn’t been bold in a while and it’s frustrating.
He can see Natalie feels this static, too. The way her gaze is hesitant, the way her smile wavers for a moment before she continues on with her musings. The rosiness of her cheeks makes her features look softer, suddenly tempting.
A rapid round of deep grinding, changing up the rhythm, has Natalie quaking in his arms. Her nails dig into the skin of his back and the pain of it excites him.
It’s been too long since Lucifer allowed himself to be bold. He isn’t hesitating anymore.
Her smile, her voice, her attention is too much to ignore anymore.
This was random, not premeditated in the slightest as he fucks her against her bedroom door, making sure to dig his own fingers into the meat of her ass to keep her supported.
But he’s gentle. Well, gentle enough, anyway. He won’t allow her to be bored or unsatisfied. This is more about her than him, he realizes in this moment, breathing heavily into the crease of her shoulder and neck.
Lucifer shuts his eyes, overcome with a foreign emotion in his chest.
This is a closeness he’s never been offered, never felt like he was allowed. He partakes in her body, but what really makes this moment all-encompassing is knowing that it’s only with Natalie that he can do this.
The thought and understanding of this fact is like a punch in the gut, leaving him breathless and gasping against her open mouth.
Lucifer doesn’t fight the desperation, swiftly feeling that they aren’t close enough even though his dick is inside her, her legs holding him in place as he rocks into her.
“Lucifer,” Natalie breathes and he opens his eyes, her gaze seeking his out while he frantically fucks her. This is supposed to be about her. What is he doing?
Natalie combs her fingers through his hair, catching on a knot and pulling the dark strands loose from their neatly slicked back position. She bites her lip and it’s surreal to see her hair bobbing in time with his movements.
She places her hand against his cheek and surprises him yet again with a smile. His hips stutter, he loses pace, too far caught up in that loving look of hers.
No one has ever looked at him like that before – like he’s the sweetest thing she’s ever seen, been searching for to finally find.
He feels his throat close around itself when she clenches around him.
Lucifer must look like an imbecile, standing there holding this girl against her door, slack jawed and wide eyed.
Natalie always somehow makes him feel like he’s drowning. Father, please, let him drown in her.
“Sorry,” he mutters, feeling ashamed, loosening his hold. “Am I hurting you?”
Natalie allows her head to fall forward and rest against his forehead, laughing. It’s not mocking or ill willed.
“No, no. You’re really good at this.”
“How would you know? Have you done this before?”
“Well, no –”
“Then hold your compliments until you know better,” he corrects, starting up his rhythm again, fucking her as deep as he can go. Immediately her smile drops into an open mouthed moan, her head falling back and thumping against the door.
“I want this,” she breathes, raking her nails down his arm, caught up in the feeling of him inside of her. “I want you, I want you. Please,” she begs, the warmth and wetness of her consuming him.
Natalie isn’t making sense the longer he pushes into her, rambling random words, praises, telling him to grab her here or angle his hips there.
She’s loud, but then again what did he really expect? Everything Natalie does is loud – from her singing to her snoring to her laughter. Why wouldn’t she tilt her head back and moan like the world would end after they’ve finished?
She soaks in her moments and gets the most out of them. He wishes he could do that, too.
Her hands become more desperate suddenly, the movement of her hips trying to meet him halfway as she grinds herself onto his cock.
Lucifer manages to support her with one hand, pressing her back harder against the wood and maneuvers a hand between them. He rubs erratic circles around her, hiding a smirk in his shoulder when she somehow manages to get louder. He didn’t think that was possible.
It’s a good thing her father took that annoying brother of hers to the movies. This would be a bit hard to explain as Natalie flutters around him, her body curving in on itself as she comes.
He fucks her through it, making sure she takes every last bit of enjoyment she can out of him before she deflates like a balloon against him.
“Keep going,” Natalie gasps against his jawline, carding her fingers in his hair and kissing up his face.
He’s not loud like she is when he finishes. He’s never been an emotional man, and this doesn’t change that. He wants to prove to her that he doesn’t regret this, that this was enjoyable for him too, so he kisses her desperately as he spills himself.
His knees quake and wobble when the high is gone, so he pulls out of her and sets her down on the floor before he drops her.
The cleanup after something like this is always disgusting and tedious, but he wipes himself off and reties his robe while Natalie does whatever it is she does in the bathroom. When she comes back into the room she’s dressed, but her hair and face scream “I just had sex”.
He tries not to stare but it’s hard.
Natalie grins at him and Lucifer ducks his head, frowning and looking away, feeling embarrassed all of a sudden.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” he mutters back.
“That was unexpected. Is it my birthday or something?” Natalie asks, bouncing around him like some hyper dog. He doesn’t know what to say.
So he says the first thing that comes to mind. And it’s strange, because he believes it. “It was going to happen eventually.”
Natalie stops her bouncing and blinks at him, catching his eye when he sits down on the beanbag chair he’s made his own.
“I suppose it was,” she finally says.
His heart flutters in his chest as she goes over to her desk to continue the homework he’d pulled her away from. She’s singing along with some shitty song and talking about a story her and her friend Michael were involved in, but all he can focus on is the thrumming in his chest.
He doesn’t let her see his smile, overwhelmed by this random human girl and her words that make him feel . . . loved.
Summary: Reincarnation AU prompt @kohiiandmilk gave me. Natalie and Lucifer are in love every lifetime, but their ages never seem to let them be together. Until the end.
I always notice you immediately, as odd as that sounds.
Every time, when I look up and catch that glint of orange in your hair, the green of your eyes, my stomach does a mortifying lurch and I know I’ve found you.
It’s been so long that I’m unsure exactly what made me fall for you in the first place. Your laugh is obnoxiously loud and not easy on the ears in any sense. Your skin is always too blotchy when you drink or when you’re out in the sun too long. And I can’t even begin to describe how aggravating it is that you always hum under your breath when you’re stressed out.
But still, I’d be lying to myself if I said I didn’t love you every time.
Maybe the first time, maybe you loved me back, and in that desperation we were granted some mercy from someone (the universe, God? Pfft!). And in that mercy we kept living.
We’re born, we grow old, we die.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
I don’t know how I do it, but I find you every time. You have a different name, a different job, a different family. I’m the same. But I still find you without even really having to look.
Of course, the universe is a dick and nothing comes without a catch.
This mercy is also a curse to me because it’s left me in anguish for longer than I can remember. Every time, every God damn time that we meet, there’s always some sort of age gap that I can’t breach.
Two lifetime’s ago I found you at a playground. I was taking my brother’s daughter there for the afternoon, a task I despised as a bitter middle-aged man. Kids really weren’t my thing then, and they still aren’t now.
But at the time I was forty six and the idea of having kids with you didn’t sound so unpleasant.
Regardless, I hadn’t found you just yet, and the idea that you left me behind was creating a fog with my concentration that I hadn’t yet noticed that you were talking to my niece.
There wasn’t a doubt in my mind when you looked up and grinned at me, waving when my niece pointed me out.
This was the worst possible situation. I’d have to wait another life to be with you I realized when you shook my hand. Your hand was so small – too small – in mine. A girl’s hand. A child’s hand.
When you smiled I saw that you hadn’t even lost all of your baby teeth.
And regardless of how alarmed I was at meeting you this way, I tried to savor it as best I could. You became friends with my brother’s children, set up playdates and sleepovers.
I got to watch you grow up from afar. It wasn’t too bad. At least you were still here.
You’d barely entered middle school when I had an untimely blood clot that took my life. Dying never scared me anymore.
I’d always get to find you again, after all.
XXXX
I’m sixteen when I find you.
You’re thirty-five, and my principal.
I’m an asshole; I know that. And I know that I’m an even bigger asshole during puberty, so it comes as no shock when I’m sent to your office for punching a classmate in the face.
It’s my first time here because I’ve been trying my hardest for my sick mom to stay good and stay clean. I’m allowed one fuck up, OK? I’m only human.
But the idea of worrying my mom fills my stomach with dread when I open your door and expect to call her and tell her what I did.
We look up and catch each other’s eyes and my dread turns to butterflies. Your hair’s up in a clip, but a few strands curl around your neck that catch in the sunlight.
Your jaw falls open. My shoulders tense.
Just as soon as the butterflies take over do they leave just as quickly when I realize we missed each other again.
“Fuck!” I curse, fisting my hands in my hair while you run yours nervously against your jaw.
“This is . . . no good. We can’t work with this, huh?” You laugh, that bad habit of yours rearing its ugly head. You shouldn’t be laughing. I’m not.
“Gimme two years, Natalie,” I bargain, trying my best to make my voice drop, to seduce you with this offer, but my voice cracks which makes you laugh even harder.
“That really isn’t going to look good. You get to be the kid who bangs his principal and I get on the sex offender registry? No thank you, Lucifer.” You wave me closer and I begrudgingly take a seat across from your desk.
You prop your cheek in your palm and tilt your head, watching me with a sense of amusement. I scowl and shift uncomfortably under your gaze.
“What?”
“Nothing. You’re just really cute.”
“Don’t call a man cute. What the fuck.”
You laugh again. It’s the best sound I’ve ever heard. I could listen to you laugh and talk for hours – days, even. Not that I’d ever admit that.
But soon you grow silent and the tension is back. I’m still just a minor and you’ve got a job to do. It isn’t like my alibi would withstand against my peers.
“Just … Don’t call my mom. She’ll be worried and she doesn’t need that,” I mutter, fighting off my pride and humiliation. Once upon a time I have a vague memory of kissing you – of holding you – and now it’s getting buried under this new memory where I’m painted a child with a tantrum that you have to correct.
Your gaze wavers and I can’t keep it for long, looking away. “She’s sick.”
I glance at the nameplate on your desk when you agree not to call my mom this time if I don’t act out again. Knowing you’re at my school, I can’t even fathom it.
You’re a miracle worker Selena Brown. In this life, as with every other, your name is different.
But you’ll always be Natalie to me.
You transfer school districts before I can graduate. I can’t look you up in the phonebook or find you online.
I sit back with balled fists and wait for you in the next life. Maybe I’ll have better luck.
XXXX
I’m eighty-four, waiting around in a hospital bed, when you walk in to administer my medication.
The look on your face must mirror mine but with much more emotion than I’m capable of left in this dying body. You drop the instruments in your hands and burst into tears.
Leave it to you to make my last moments unpleasant.
I take your hand and press it to my lips, shutting my eyes as you quiet down in the chair beside me.
“You’re late this time,” I grumble. You manage a snort around all the snot and tears, squeezing my hand back.
“Fashionably late,” you affirm.
It’s the first sunny day I remember all winter. I think you waited for the perfect moment for me.
XXXX
I’m ten years old and waiting for the moving men to finish unloading our stuff.
All I’ve wanted to do all day is take my dirt bike down to the creek and ride down the mud hills. My dad won’t let me go until everything is put into our tiny two bedroom apartment.
I have no idea why my parents split up, but I know that it makes me feel angry and warm deep down in my gut. My dad tells me to keep my temper under control when I slam a door into the wall, leaving a hole where the doorknob was.
It helps a little I guess when I count backwards from fifty.
Living in an apartment is a lot different than living in a house. Usually, from what I can remember, I’ve lived in houses mostly in my lifetimes. I think this might be my first apartment complex and I know I’m not adjusting well.
We have loud neighbors. The ones across from us yell all the time and the ones next to us play music too loud. I’m finding myself angrier and angrier the longer I live here.
A few months pass and our cable goes out. That’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
While my dad tries to fix the television I stomp outside and sit down by our doorway in the hallway. I’m so involved in my own frustration that I almost miss the pale skin contrasting against the pea soup paint.
You look up at me just in time to uncurl yourself from your legs. It’s summer time and you take advantage of that by wearing the shortest pair of shorts I’ve ever seen. My eyes bulge and you laugh when you catch me staring.
“Nice seeing you again, Lucifer,” you greet. I missed your smile. It washes away my irritation in an instant, the television and noisy neighbors forgotten.
“Why are you out here?” I ask stupidly, crossing my ankles together. You loosen up, too, our bare feet pressing against each other as you stretch out.
“My parents fight. Over really dumb things that don’t even make them mad at all.”
My mouth makes a silent O as I glance at the door behind you where muffled talking is never ending.
“Nice people though. I can’t complain. Well, except for the noise. Sorry about that,” you smile, wiggling your toes against mine. I grin.
“How old are you?” you ask me, running your fingers through your hair. It’s short this time. Shorter than I’ve ever seen it. It’s still just as eye catching though. Everything about you always is.
“Ten. . . You?”
“Sixteen.”
“ . . . You’re not gonna wanna . . .” I can’t bring myself to say it. Would you even want to wait for me? This is the closest age gap we’ve shared, and six years really doesn’t seem too bad. I want this. I want you to wait for me this time.
You tilt your head to the side as if you’re considering it. Your smile is back instantly.
“Sure, Lucifer. I’ll wait for you.”
My chest swells and I feel like I’ve just resurfaced from the swimming pool, back when I broke the record with my friends of who could hold their breath the longest.
“Who’s your family?” you ask me after I jump up and sit down beside you.
“Just my dad. He works a lot though.”
“Siblings?”
“None.”
“You allowed to be home alone?”
I shoot you a petulant stare. “I’m ten.”
You laugh and ruffle your fingers through my hair playfully. It’s a friendly gesture that I missed. I lean into your side, tugging at the string on my sweatshirt.
“Do you need a babysitter? Until you’re old enough I can just baby sit you? Or tutor you. Are you still bad at spelling?”
I shove you hard, making you topple over in a heap of chuckles. You’re just as annoying as ever, but I guess that’s what makes you interesting.
You do become my babysitter for the next few years. My dad still works late into the night, so we get to have a lot of movie nights and scary stories. You burn our dinners so we have to order takeout until my dad doesn’t give us any more money with how frequent it happens. You spend your allowance on me then.
Your parents are just as loud when I’m fourteen, but I’ve come to like the noise from your house now. It just means I know you’re close by.
Only four more years, I find myself reciting in bed. It’s close. It’s the best chance we’ve had so far in all our lifetimes to be together the way we want to be.
My heart aches when I remember all the years, hundreds, maybe thousands by now, that age and circumstance kept us apart. But that doesn’t matter now I remind myself.
We have a chance.
Until one morning I wake up to silence.
No knock on the door in greeting. No yelling or bellowing or boisterous laughter down the hallway. Nothing.
I knock on your door, pound on it, yelling something, maybe cursing, all before I notice the note you taped to my door.
Due to some financial trouble your family had been evicted. You said you were going to stay with a relative outside of town and call me when everything was settled down.
I waited for weeks, then months, still never hearing from you.
I lived in wonder of whatever happened to you the rest of my life.
It wasn’t until I found you again a lifetime later when I was twenty and you were fifty that you told me you’d forgotten my number. By the time you were able to come back to town my father had already remarried and moved us.
You had no name to go on. No location.
I laughed so hard I cried, scaring off some of the birds you were feeding in the park. As you stared at me in confusion I simply grabbed a fistful of birdseed and threw it into the air.
We didn’t leave the park that day as we discussed what we’d accomplished in the last life and this one.
I knew I should’ve been sad or angry for missing my chance. But I somehow didn’t feel either of those things.
As you recounted how you never gave up searching for me all those years, all I could feel was grateful.
You still wanted me as much as I wanted you.
XXXX
I’m twenty-eight when it happens.
I’ve always been fascinated with fire. Every lifetime I never seem to shake my interest in the heat.
Sometimes I’d be somewhat of an arson, but most times I’d just appreciate it from afar and ignore my intrigue in the flames.
This is the first lifetime I decide to do the opposite and put fires out.
Firefighting is not something I’ve ever pictured myself doing, but I find it’s something I enjoy. Not so much the saving people or late night calls or sharing bunks with strangers who I have zero interest in getting to know.
But the thrill of the clock when I enter an inferno. I know to be safe, but one wrong step, one minute too long and the fire will take you down. Feeling sweat drip between my shoulder blades and my muscles strain with exertion is the best feeling in the world.
I hear the alarm one night, sending me into flight. One moment it’s the dark chill of the night surrounding me, the next my skin is bathed in heat.
I guess some genius left their stove on or something and I wanna see the look on their face when I let them have it.
I get being stupid, but this has to be Darwinism at its finest.
I’m having the time of my life until I spot your frightened, ashy face peeking up at me from between your sofa and the wall. You look terrified.
My jaw drops open. It’s like a bucket of ice water has been dumped immediately all over my body.
I don’t hesitate as you reach for me, babbling apologies while I lift you up and haul you down the duplex stairs, breathing heavily and gritting my teeth. Your panic is doing nothing to set my now frazzled nerves at ease.
There are dozens of men putting out the flames that by now have probably eaten up most of your belongings, probably some even that have special memories.
You’re sitting in the back of a truck, a blanket around your shoulders and your skin painted in reds and blues. Paramedics and police have already spoken with you. It turns out you really did leave your stove on.
I always told you your cooking was going to kill someone someday.
“You have any pets or anything?” I ask uncomfortably after a long moment. You turn exhausted, curious eyes towards me. I gesture back to the smolders of your house. “You know.”
You shake your head. “No, I live alone.”
I frown. “On this side of town?”
You smile and shrug. “It’s affordable.”
“Yeah, well. You might wanna find somewhere else to stay. Unless you want to fuck up your lungs or something,” I mutter, running my hand over my sweaty face, pushing back the loose strands of hair that’ve come undone.
“How about your place?” you offer. I go rigid, my gaze darting around your amused face as if just realizing something.
My arms shoot out and grasp your shoulders. I lower my head to your eyelevel and feel something welling up inside of me that I’ve tried to push down for years; that I thought I’d gotten over lifetimes ago.
Hope.
“Natalie, how old are you?” I demand.
You blink up at me, really taking in how frantic and desperate I suddenly must look. I feel your fingers slowly carding through the hair at the base of my neck, pulling me forward until our lips meet.
You’re soft, sweet. A distant taste that I’d almost forgotten. Some old love, an old life, that we must’ve experienced at one point – had to have.
It’s only a moment but I’m drunk on it when you pull away from me. You don’t care that I’m covered in sweat and soot as you rest your forehead against mine, humming in delight.
“I’m twenty-six, Lucifer.”
The world around us falls away, and I can only hear the sound of my heartbeat in my ears. It’s finally happened. We’ve finally met.
It’s like the first time all over again.
You let out a shriek of alarm that quickly dissolves into laughter as I take you in my arms and swing you around. I’m yelling with you as you clutch your arm around my neck for support, and I know we have to both look utterly insane to all around us, but I don’t care.
Summary: Dark AU. A follower of Titus takes Satan’s form in the warehouse with Natalie. In the aftermath, Lucifer has to pick up the pieces.
XXXXXX
He didn’t know what was worse. The fact that she went through it at all, or the fact that she thought it was him who had done it.
Of course he was the fucking Devil but this was beyond anything he’d ever do. Jesus Christ.
Satan watched pensively from the corridor joining Natalie’s room to the hallway. It took a lot of self-control not to break things, even by accident. Touching the wall, resting his hand anywhere; tugging curtains to keep the sun out, taking plates down to put food on that would inevitably go untouched.
He was built to be powerful. Satan’s muscles were hard, unyielding. Every tendon and muscle and bone inside of him could wipe out life and civilization without any difficulty. Satan could demolish without putting in effort.
And that’s what was boiling his blood hotter than oil inside of his veins.
Natalie had been aware that his body was a weapon, but it wasn’t until now that she truly understood exactly how futile life could be in his presence.
There was no one who could oppose him.
Of course it hadn’t really been him, but that didn’t make a difference. The damage was done.
It had still been Satan’s image that made her submit; that put this reality into perspective for her. And now Natalie sat, curled in the darkness she’d built for herself, unable to confide in her friends or her father for fear of suffocating in the humiliation of it.
Satan’s stomach clenched.
He wondered briefly, against his will – just a flash of a curiosity that he had no control of – what sort of face Natalie made when she thought it was him who was going to violate her.
If Raphael hadn’t been there Satan wouldn’t have even known. Not for a while, anyway. He had still been trying to locate Natalie – an increasingly frustrating struggle that was seeming to be futile – when Raphael appeared.
Natalie was in his arms, appearing untouched and alive. Satan’s heart skipped a beat. She was alive.
Natalie looked like she was sleeping, really, as he laid her down on her bed and tucked her in. Not a hair out of place on her head or a bruise against pale skin. How had that sick little boy taken her but not harmed her? It was a miracle.
Satan was actually considering offering words of thanks when his brother turned to him, the words dying on Satan’s tongue as the air grew thick. Raphael’s face was grim.
He had saved her at the warehouse Natalie had been confined in; got her out just in time as the raid started to take place.
Satan didn’t see a problem with this until Raphael described her room. The words sort of faded together at that point, becoming white noise in Satan’s ears.
Screaming, panic, blood dripping down her thighs that stained the sofa. Raphael had been forced to make Natalie unconscious before he was able to remove her from the building and bring her home.
He’d warned Satan, however, to be mindful. He wasn’t certain, but from the terrified rambling Natalie had spouted it sounded like someone had done this while pretending to be him.
They had done unspeakable things while wearing his face.
It was like getting punched in the gut. Satan was glad he didn’t have to breathe air or else it would’ve been himself who needed medical attention to resuscitate him.
So Satan watched from outside of Natalie’s bedroom, taking the nonthreatening form of “Stan, the round faced freshman” that she tutored. He watched her sit curled under her blankets, day after day, her curtains drawn and knees brought up to her chin, keeping the world out the only way she knew how.
The one time he attempted to sooth her she’d screamed, lashing out and scratching him across the face. Natalie had buried her face in her knees then and pressed herself as far back against the wall as she could, babbling wet apologies to the air.
She knew. Some part of her knew it wasn’t Satan who had forced her legs apart and pressed her into the cold, unforgiving cement. Natalie knew her friend wouldn’t ever do that to her.
But that still didn’t quell the fear that gripped her body. She couldn’t meet his gaze, even with his youthful features.
And yet Natalie continued to apologize to the best of her ability, trapped in a memory that was sewn into her everyday life now.
This was their life now and it made him nauseated.
“Who do you want me to be?” Satan asked with a voice that sounded foreign to him. It was soft, broken. Had it even come from his mouth?
He sat with his knees up to his chin, mirroring the figure under the blankets in the dim light across the archway.
Natalie didn’t say anything. She didn’t acknowledge him.
Satan waited a few minutes before he realized she wasn’t going to say anything before attempting to speak through the lump in his throat again.
“I’ll be anyone, Natalie. Give me a face. Please.” It sounded like begging to his own ears, but that’s probably because he was. He wasn’t above begging.
If Natalie wanted him to, he’d get down on his knees and put his forehead to the floor at this point. What else was there to do?
Satan had almost resigned himself to the silence when Natalie finally shifted. She stretched her legs out, the fabric rustling gently.
He strained his eyes in the darkness to find her face. It peeked out of the fringe of the quilt she was hiding under, her eyes downcast and dull.
Natalie chewed on her lip, running her tongue against a cut he hadn’t noticed that started to bleed as she irritated it with her teeth.
“My . . . book. Can I have my book?”
“Book?” Satan parroted quietly, leaning forward but refusing to get up in fear he’d scare her off.
“My bible . . . the one you gave me when you said you’d protect me.”
Natalie looked up and their eyes met. She held his gaze only for a short moment until her face crumbled and she hid in the blanket once more.
“Michael.”
If he hadn’t felt like shit before he undoubtedly did now.
Satan’s face had begun to change, soft brown hair unfurling from his scalp to rest against his forehead as he stood up. His voice was a murmur as he entered the room, reaching for her bookshelf in his defeat.
“OK, Natalie. I’ll read to you.”
XXXXXX
He wished he was able to sleep more than ever after Natalie came home. At least then it would give him a little bit of relief, as selfish a thought as that was. Because as much as he wanted to be there for her, listening to the nightmares was his own personal form of Hell.
It was like he was being punished for something he hadn’t even done.
No was a word he came to hate. Stop was a word that he abhorred. Please no longer had a meaning. It was a damaged, petrified sound that cut him open and bled his heart out all over his chest every night.
Raphael had been brief in his explanation, perhaps to show Satan some sort of mercy in the moment. It wasn’t like it was easy to tell someone you’d somehow desecrated your friend without even knowing it.
But Satan had started to see it as a cruelty. What had happened to Natalie was just one word, but it didn’t have an impact until it came down to the nitty gritty of it.
Piece by piece, as Natalie relived whatever had happened in that room before she had been rescued, Satan grew to understand the events. She told a story, fragmented and patchy, night after night.
It had been a joke proposed by that greasy, putrid boy. Her life had gotten fucked up over a joke.
“If you like him so much then why haven’t you guys fucked? Here, you can practice on him. We’ll help you practice, Natalie.”
He tasted iron on his tongue but willed himself to sit still, listening to Natalie tossing in her bed. Waking her up didn’t help too often, no matter who he looked like.
“You’re not doing me a favor. . .” Natalie breathed, tangling her legs frantically in her sheets.
Satan pinched the bridge of his nose and counted to ten. She hiccupped and rolled over.
“Don’t want to . . . off me . . .” Natalie gasped and it sounded like she’d been held under water for too long. Her body shot straight up, curving almost painfully in the light of the moon, gulping down air like she’d just finished a marathon.
Sweat stuck her shirt to her collarbone, her bangs to her forehead.
Natalie looked around the room with glassy eyes, almost like she didn’t see the baby blue walls and makeup on her dresser. When her breathing settled down she noticed Satan sitting there at the foot of her bed.
The blue of his eyes glowed as she held his gaze.
“You were dreaming again,” he said sympathetically with a voice that tasted strange in his mouth. Natalie blinked at him, as if finally registering where she was and who he was.
Well, who she wanted him to be at the moment.
“I’m sorry,” Natalie choked, a bubble of laughter clogging in her throat. She ran her fingers roughly over her face, through her sweaty hair.
“It’s OK. These things happen.”
Is that what Michael would say here? Satan had no clue, suddenly wishing he’d stayed in touch with his brother enough to know how he’d act in emergencies.
Natalie shook her head, pressing her palms to her eyes.
“These things happen . . .” she muttered, smiling even though her voice belied amusement. “I guess you’re right.”
Natalie swallowed and looked carefully at Satan. Her voice was clumped together when she spoke. “Did I deserve this for ignoring you?”
His chest felt tight, like there was a balloon inflating behind his ribs that would force them to tear through his skin at any moment. Satan moved forward, his hands hovering in front of Natalie when she flinched away. He dropped them and pursed his lips.
“It’s not your fault people are bad.”
Natalie nodded but didn’t look convinced. Her voice cracked, and Satan felt his nose starting to sting when Natalie pressed a wet cheek to her knee and shut her eyes.
“I don’t want to hate him.”
He prayed that night, for the first time in forever.
It’s OK if she hates me, just help her, Dad. Just help her.
XXXXXX
The idea of being alone in a room with Satan made a cold sweat drip down Natalie’s back. The idea of being in a room alone with a man in general kept her alert.
Jericho haunted her nightmares, even when she was awake. The warehouse and the smell of coffee whoever that guy was had drank as they’d proposed the offer gave her headaches. Migraines that made her sick.
Natalie asked her dad if he could stop making coffee for a while. Blamed it on the flu and a sensitive stomach.
She shut her eyes and rubbed her wrists, wondering how they could’ve been so accurate.
Satan had picked her up, grabbed her arm, let her flop herself against him many times before she’d been abducted, so Natalie knew what his grip felt like; how big his hands were, how firm his chest was, the feeling of his skin.
“How, how, how?” she breathed, not expecting an answer in her empty bedroom.
The man Jericho had teased morphed right before her eyes. The spitting image of Satan. And when he reached for her it felt like him. It honest to God was too real because it felt like him.
Some part of her brain used to daydream about what it would be like if they’d’ve kissed. It was just a passing sort of fancy. It wasn’t like Natalie ever expected Satan to kiss her. He was kind of stubborn and reckless and didn’t seem like he’d want to kiss anyone that much. . .
But that hadn’t stopped her from considering it. For curiosity sake. She’d thought about kissing a lot of people, like a lot of girls did.
But having him hold her that rough, smile against her neck with fangs that could end her with one cut to an artery – that was something she’d never considered.
He was hard. Everything about his body was hard, completely different from hers, and he demonstrated that fact as he tore right through her.
It hurt and he smelled like coffee and ash and he pushed her so hard into the ground Natalie wasn’t sure what hurt worse; her insides or her outsides.
She’d caught Jericho’s eyes briefly sometime during the haze of this assault. That was something that stuck with her.
He’d looked shocked. Almost like he hadn’t expected it to go this far. But he still watched as he trembled against the countertop, chewing at a hangnail on one of his fingers and tapping his sneaker against the concrete.
Yellow eyes glowed above her and Natalie clenched her eyes tighter at the memory.
“Mom. . .” she whispered into her knees.
Warm arms slowly enveloped Natalie, causing her head to jolt up and look into the face of the very woman who had given birth to her.
Carla nodded and smiled.
“What is it?”
Natalie willed her body to unwind from how tightly she was coiled. She gently grasped onto her mother’s shirt and breathed in.
“Have you ever wanted to hurt someone, mom?”
Silence.
“Like the guy who cut you off? You know, that night when you died?” Natalie asked, curious. Carla didn’t say anything so Natalie leaned back, looking at the now blank expression of her mother.
“I want to hurt Jericho,” Natalie admitted, feeling scared for even saying it out loud. Like that would make her a bad person. “He thought it was funny. I think he liked it, actually.” Her tone became hard, angry.
“But the worst part is he made it so I can’t look at my best friend anymore. And that’s . . . I don’t think I can forgive him for that.”
“I can hurt him for you,” Carla spoke, her voice level. Natalie cocked her head to the side. “I can make him go away, Natalie. Just say the word and it’s done.”
Natalie stared for a long moment before leaning in and putting her face to Carla’s shoulder and breathing.
“You can’t make him go away, mom. He’s made a home in my head and he’s never leaving.”
Satan rubbed Natalie’s back as she fell back asleep, cursing himself more for not finishing the job earlier at the karaoke parlor.
Summary: Raphael and Uriel decide to kiss for the first time.
XXXX
“Are you nervous? Cuz you look nervous.”
Raphael sat as still as he could, stopping the jiggling of his leg and the tapping of his fingers. He hadn’t been aware that he was fidgeting until Uriel pointed it out.
Looking up at Uriel, he tried his best to convey confidence, but judging from the snort he received it didn’t look like he was convincing enough.
“You don’t have to be, c’mon. It’s just a kiss. It’s not like it’s going to hurt or anything,” Uriel reassured, giving his friend a pat on the shoulder. Raphael tensed at the touch but closed his mouth and nodded.
“I apologize if I’m making this out to be bigger than it is, but it is, in a way, a large deal to me. For me.” His mouth felt dry suddenly and his hands felt clammy. Was that normal? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Gosh, was he messing up already?
“Haven’t you ever been kissed before?” Uriel asked, surprisingly genuine as he raked his eyes over his friend. He looked like he was going to throw up. As much as Uriel understood what he agreed to try, he still didn’t want to have an accident that they both couldn’t recover from easily.
It was Raphael’s turn to snort, though it was not in amusement. “Who would kiss me, Uriel?”
“Don’t undersell yourself. Have some confidence,” the blonde berated.
Raphael blinked up at him in confusion. “Hm? Oh. Oh, no. That’s not what I meant. I meant to say that I’m usually attending to matters in the hospital. I never had time to go out and . . . Well, you’re aware,” he gestured vaguely between them, lowering his eyes again.
Some part of his brain knew he shouldn’t be embarrassed about this, but that didn’t stop him from feeling like he’d been missing out on some momentous thing.
Uriel laughed and it sounded like wind chimes, sending goosebumps down Raphael’s arms. “No one’s ever thanked you with one?”
Raphael shook his head. Uriel put his hands up in surrender, letting the subject die.
In the following silence Raphael debated whether he should pry or not, deciding his curiosity was too much to bear.
“You have kissed.”
“Huh? Yeah, I have.”
“With Zadkiel. Can you tell when it’s . . . bad?” Raphael asked, his voice soft to hide his nerves. He could hear Uriel’s clothes rustle as he shifted the weight of his feet in consideration.
“There really isn’t a bad way to kiss when you like someone I don’t think.”
Raphael wetted his lips with his tongue, turning his gaze upwards towards his companion. Perhaps it was the buzzing in his ears in anticipation, but Raphael let himself be bold in this rare moment.
“Would kissing me, then, be . . . bad”
Uriel stared at Raphael a long beat of silence, his expression unreadable. His eyes jumped to the left before focusing back down. Raphael worried that his stomach was going to make him pass out if it kept squirming like that, waiting for his answer.
Uriel finally smiled and placed his warm palms on either side of Raphael’s face. “No, I don’t think it would be.”
Suddenly the world fell away, falling out from beneath Raphael’s feet, only Uriel’s gentle touch keeping him grounded. The coiling in his abdomen was just as distracting as before, but it shifted from fear to excitement. He was suddenly hyper aware of his senses; how Uriel smelled, the feeling of his skin against his own, the stars in his eyes that glittered like dew in the early morning.
Raphael’s breath stuttered, his body tensing without his permission. Uriel’s grin turned softer, running his thumb along the curve of his cheekbone.
“You still want to?”
His answer came out breathless, Raphael nodding to the best of his abilities in Uriel’s hold. “I do.”
“OK. I don’t want to alarm you, but I’m going to kiss you right now.”
Raphael nodded again, feeling like he was suffocating when he didn’t even need to breathe to live in the first place. His eyes squeezed shut, waiting patiently for Uriel to make any sort of move.
When the silence dragged on and Raphael was almost certain Uriel was just teasing him with this whole kissing thing, something soft pressed lightly against his lips.
The tension in his muscles did not dissipate even as Uriel pulled back, peppering another chaste kiss against the corner of his mouth, then the other side.
“You look like you just ate something sour,” Uriel laughed, his nose brushing against Raphael’s. “Open your mouth a little. It’s better if you kiss back, too.”
Raphael nodded dumbly, taking a breath through his nose as he opened his lips. When Uriel’s mouth returned to his own it was a completely different feeling. Their lips slotted together and Raphael’s heart shot into his throat.
An involuntary gasp sucked into his lungs, his body leaning forward on instinct. He could feel Uriel smiling against him - against his face - before tilting Raphael’s head with his hands and easing his mouth open again.
Uriel tasted like peace. He tasted like sunshine and nature and a quiet studio to himself on a cloudy day; like everything good in Raphael’s life.
He tasted like happiness.
The muscles loosened in his neck as Raphael reached out, fisting his hands in Uriel’s robe and pulling him closer. The air was alarmingly different now, a static between them that made Raphael feel frantic; like if he let go or even moved wrong that Uriel would pull away - that he would stop this. And Raphael never wanted it to stop, if Uriel agreed to it.
No one ever conveyed to him exactly how kissing could make you feel like you’re dying.
Gauging Raphael’s reactions, Uriel decided to be bolder and was rewarded with a gasp and a soft groan as he slipped his tongue into his mouth.
“Uriel . . . What - what do I . . .?” Raphael tried to ask, feeling lightheaded between kisses. Uriel smiled again, pressing their lips together once more.
“You’re doing good,” he breathed, one of his hands reaching around to the back of Raphael’s head and carding his fingers through his hair.
Raphael blindly tried to mimic his friend and did the same. He was rewarded with a noise of approval that made him feel dizzy.
Was this what he had been missing out on? The soft push of someone’s lips; the smoothness of someone’s tongue. How sweet someone’s breath tasted.
“Oh, shoot! Did I bite you too hard or something?” Uriel blurted, pulling back when he noticed the shaking Raphael was doing wasn’t something pleasant. His eyes were starting to go red, his lip quivering.
The sight of Uriel’s eyes nearly bulging out of his face would’ve been humorous if he hadn’t felt so embarrassed. Raphael made to look like he was wiping his face with his arm but took comfort in the brief moment he was able to hide away there.
“I apologize. I didn’t mean to make this weird. I just -” Raphael managed quietly, unsure of exactly how he could word the thoughts and feelings going around his head.
Uriel was silent a while until he reached out with a hand on Raphael’s shoulder, drawing his attention as he ducked his head to get a better look at his face.
“Just to be clear, you weren’t going to cry cuz you didn’t like it, right?” Uriel asked. Even though he sounded only curious, Raphael noticed the weariness in his eyes.
“I liked it, Uriel,” Raphael spoke, intent on assuring his friend that his worries were pointless. “Perhaps a little too much . . .” he admitted reluctantly, his throat trying to close on itself.
“Then I guess that’s a compliment,” Uriel laughed, throwing himself beside his friend and nudging him with his arm. Raphael blinked down at him owlishly. Uriel grinned back.
“I’ve never had someone like me so much they cried.”
Raphael managed a surprised smile after a moment, shaking his head slightly.
“Uriel, if you don’t think this is too forward of me,” Raphael began, lying back and looking at the clouds, shoulder to shoulder with his friend. He turned his head and met his gaze. “Was kissing me… bad?”
Uriel smiled. “There’s no such thing as a bad kiss when it’s with someone you like.”
Perhaps it wasn’t just Uriel who was given the power of light, because at that very moment, as he smiled so wide it hurt his face, Raphael felt like he was shining.
Summary: Soulmate AU. Natalie and Lucifer don’t like each other, even if some mark on their hands says otherwise.
(Chapter 1 here)
Chapter 2
Natalie had never expected Lucifer to be what even the lowest form of a romanticist was, but she expected more than just a walk in the sunset.
In an empty field God knows how far outside of town, she found herself walking in uncomfortable silence with her neighbor. Natalie glanced at Lucifer in annoyance, his neutral expression causing irritation to flare up inside her.
“This is it? This is supposed to make me like you?” Natalie asked finally in a moment of incredulity.
Lucifer stuffed his hands in his pockets, glancing around the field. “This kind of shit is romantic, right?”
“No. No it isn’t.”
He rubbed harshly at the back of his neck before surveying their surroundings. Lucifer stopped abruptly, picking out a flower from a tall patch of grass and holding it out to Natalie with a lackluster expression pointed at her.
“I have allergies,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief.
“Look, I don’t do this whole dating thing, alright? I usually just jump right into – nevermind,” Lucifer amended in a hurry when Natalie blanched at him, tossing the flower away. “Cut me some slack and give me a little help, would you? There’s no one out here for miles. Fuckin’ just tell me about yourself.”
“We’ve lived next door to each other since forever. You know me already.”
“Not – I don’t think so. I know your embarrassing shit, like how you sing too loud in the shower or when your granny panties got caught in the tree you were jumping out of when you were ten. Give me a reason to let you be my soulmate.” His face soured at the thought, but Natalie could see a small form of earnestness in his face.
Huffing quietly to herself, Natalie watched her shoes against the dirt trail and considered what he was asking of her.
“I bake,” she admitted quietly after a long, drawn out pause. Lucifer said nothing so she took that as her queue to continue. “I’m not very good at it, but I really like doing it. Sweet things only. For some reason, they’re the only ones that end up edible. Everything else just . . . burns?”
Lucifer side eyed her as she laughed awkwardly.
“Define edible.”
“It doesn’t give you diarrhea or anything.”
“You’re really setting the bar pretty high here, kid,” Lucifer grumbled, running his fingers roughly through his hair. “What else you got?”
Natalie frowned, kicking up dirt against his pant leg. Lucifer scowled down at her.
“Why the heck do I have to prove I’m good enough for you? You should be proving yourself to me! Last I checked I don’t have a police record.”
“That’s what you base your relationships around?”
Natalie gaped. “It’s a big part of it, yes.”
Lucifer stopped, watching Natalie continue for a few paces until she noticed and turned towards him with curious eyes. He grinned at her, spreading his arms wide as if to say ‘What you see is what you get’.
“Then I guess we’re done here.”
Natalie hesitated, glancing at the sunset soaked field then back to Lucifer. “The date?”
“The everything. I can’t go back in time and change shit, girl. If that’s your flat standard then we’ve got nothing more to talk about. You just keep covering that mark up and I’ll do the same. Hell, it’s not like I’ll die if I don’t grow old with you.”
At that moment Natalie was unsure why, but the tone in which Lucifer spoke to her now left a small twinge of pain in her gut. It was nonchalant with a hint of bitterness. Like she’d just insulted him by stating a fact. It didn’t sit well with her, but as she opened her mouth to say something he was spinning on his heels, heading back towards his car.
“Follow me or don’t, but I’m not waiting for you. Get another ride if you want.”
The guilty knot did not subside as she followed after him.
“There’s no cell service out here. I don’t have much of a choice.”
XXXXXXX
It was petty and it was stupid and Natalie didn’t know why she even noticed, but Lucifer avoided her after that evening in the field. And avoiding someone when you live directly next door to them is a feat in and of itself.
Where they’d run into each other throwing out trash or catching a glance on the way to school or even just seeing him casually smoking on his porch, that had stopped.
When the weeks started to blur together and Lucifer had still not showed up in her life, Natalie hated to admit it but she was worried.
Alright, worried is a hefty word, Natalie reminded herself as she awkwardly knocked on Lucifer’s door.
Guilty would be more suited to her current sleepless nights.
She cupped her hand against the name that wouldn’t stop throbbing on her wrist, in its own way crying out with her guilt.
When no one answered Natalie knocked a little harder, ringing the doorbell a few times.
“I have no idea what I’m even going to say, so why am I doing this?” she muttered to herself.
Silence.
Natalie frowned, moving towards the window and cupping her hands against her face, squinting and peering inside the dark house.
“I can’t see crap.”
When she bobbed her head up she heard the faint titters of giggling. Natalie twisted around in time to see a very bodacious woman being helped down from Lucifer’s bike. She smiled and leaned forward when she hopped off, her cleavage trying its hardest not to fall out of her shirt.
Natalie ignored the urge to cover her own chest with her arms in self-consciousness.
The woman and Lucifer were whispering something to each other, her breasts pressed up against him as she stood on her toes to speak by his ear, too busy to notice Natalie standing in the porch light of his house.
You can leave now. Save yourself some embarrassment and leave. He hasn’t seen you yet, Natalie’s mind advised her.
A jolt up her arm caused her wrist to flare up when they kissed. Natalie gripped her arm tighter, feeling more mortified than ever to be watching this.
Sure, she’d kissed people, too. But nothing like this. They were sweet, slow things; kisses that melted in your mouth and loosened your muscles.
This – Natalie had never been kissed like this before. Desperate hands, gasping breaths, shaking knees – there was only one word to describe a kiss like this.
Dirty.
Common sense dictated to give them privacy and leave. After all, Natalie was intruding on a very intimate moment. She was a logical person to boot. The right thing to do would be to leave.
“What are you doing home so late?” Natalie asked, her voice deceptively inviting as she walked down to greet them.
Lucifer didn’t flinch as this woman jumped back, startled. But Natalie could see in the glint of the streetlight that he was surprised.
Maybe he really hadn’t known Natalie was there.
Natalie felt her stomach clench. Fat chance, if her wrist was anything to go by; throbbing and angry, hot like warm blood leaking out of an open wound.
Could he not feel that?
“What’s it to you?” Lucifer asked, appearing dissatisfied as he regarded Natalie’s smile. His tongue darted out to wet his lips. Natalie tried not to stare, but they were the same shade as this woman’s lipstick.
“Is this your… sister?” she asked after an uncomfortable silence. She threaded her fingers through her long hair and tried to seem casual.
Lucifer and Natalie shot her a disgusted glance.
“My neighbor. Who’s going now. Goodbye.” Lucifer put his hand on Natalie’s shoulder, turning her in the direction of her own house.
“Is that any way to treat someone who was worried about you? It’s almost nine at night, Lucifer,” Natalie teased, slipping out of his grip and pouting at him. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
“You think you’re cute, don’t you?”
“Kinda.”
“Should I go? I feel like I’m interrupting something. . .” the woman interjected, clearly uncomfortable as she tried to figure out this exchange.
They turned to her, Lucifer saying ‘no’ just as Natalie said ‘yes’. He scowled at her, deciding to reach out for his companion’s arm, leading her towards his own house.
“Let the grown ups have grown up time, kid. Maybe someday someone will want to try this with you, too. You know, if you find a blind, deaf guy.”
Natalie frowned, a sudden frantic sense of anxiety washing over her as she watched them retreat to his porch. She didn’t know why she did the things she did, and Natalie was going to blame it on the scorching heat at her wrist, but she stepped forward and pulled up her sleeve, the words leaving her mouth without her permission.
“He’s cheating, you know. On me. I’m his soulmate.”
She could see the way Lucifer’s back muscles tensed beneath his shirt as he stopped. His date turned her head and looked at Natalie’s raised arm. She stepped back and leaned forward as Natalie gave her a better view of it.
Her eyes widened, then turned to Lucifer.
“You said you didn’t know your soulmate.”
Natalie flinched when she glanced behind this girl to see Lucifer staring at her, his eyes almost glowing in the darkness. He didn’t even spare his busty companion a glance, his gaze locked solely on Natalie.
He was pissed.
“Must’ve slipped my mind.”
A disgusted, saddened noise climbed up from her throat before she stomped off his lawn, nearly tripping in her wedges. She whipped out her cell phone and sat down on the curb.
Natalie vaguely registered hearing her making arrangements for someone to pick her up when a grip almost tight enough to hurt drew her attention.
Lucifer loomed over her, a muscle in his jaw flexing as he tried to stay composed.
“Can we talk? In private.”
“I –”
“Good.”
Lucifer dragged Natalie to the side yard between their houses. It was a narrow, dark place with old car parts and bikes from when they were younger.
Natalie winced when her back was shoved against the wall, the feeling of Lucifer’s body hovering, almost pressing her down, giving her goosebumps.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he demanded, his breath hot on her face. It was distracting.
“Well, it is the truth. I am your soulmate,” Natalie muttered.
“No, you’re not,” he denied, letting his fingers slide down Natalie’s arm. He grabbed her wrist and held it up between them.
Lucifer’s fingers against the mark sent a buzzing in her head; her mouth felt like it was full of cotton balls.
“This. This right here is just some scribbles. It doesn’t mean we’re dating.”
“I never said I wanted us to –”
“It doesn’t mean we’re in love.”
“I don’t –”
“And it certainly doesn’t mean you can cockblock me when I’m about to fuck someone whose tits are bigger than her head,” he sneered.
Natalie averted her eyes with a repulsed grimace.
“I don’t know why I did that, OK? It was just an impulse,” she muttered under her breath, still unable to identify the sensation inside of her that made her act that way. She silently blamed it on the distracting heat filling her wrist. It was messing with her judgement.
“Your impulse just cost me my night.”
Natalie winced. Yeah, that was on her.
“What do you plan to do about it?”
“Do about it?” Natalie parroted, looking up in a silent astonishment, the words dying on her tongue when she caught his gaze. His body heat, his presence, his cologne – it was all much too overwhelming now. She was suffocating in air.
“You wanna be in my business so bad, what do you intend to do about it?” Lucifer asked, his eyes maintaining the same cold anger he’d displayed on his porch, but a smile toyed at the corner of his mouth. He was messing with her.
“Were you suggesting you take her place? I mean, isn’t that what lovers do?”
His leg wedged between her thighs while his thumb stroked across the skin of her arm. Natalie tried to recoil, her face warm with what he was implying. To be under Lucifer while he pushed her into the bed, making sounds like that woman did when he kissed her by his bike – this image was horrifying yet oddly thrilling.
Natalie looked up in time to watch Lucifer’s gaze leave her lips and meet her eyes again. He was calling her bluff. He was being a dick. But more importantly, he had left himself open unintentionally for Natalie to probe.
She turned her gaze to her arm, where his hand was still keeping hold of her wrist, the letters of his name partially hidden. She stared a moment until she knew what she wanted to ask.
“You don’t feel that?”
Lucifer raised an eyebrow.
“Feel what?”
“When we fight it . . . It just lashes out. It’s always going to do that, isn’t it? I don’t think we’re allowed to fight it,” Natalie said, watching him carefully. The smirk he had slowly downturned until Lucifer didn’t look amused with the situation anymore.
“My arm burned when you kissed that girl. Didn’t yours?” she asked in complete curiosity.
Lucifer withdrew his grip, stepping away from Natalie abruptly. The heat from his body left her and she wrapped her arm around her torso, feeling somehow exposed.
“You can’t avoid it forever.”
“Where do you get off telling me what I can and can’t do?” Lucifer sneered. He was angry again, but there was a small form of panic Natalie could sense about him.
These marks were a prison. A shackle binding the two of them together. Natalie had no idea where Lucifer had been the past few weeks, but she could see it now by the look on his face.
Their marks cried out to each other in the absence. It was impossible to ignore.
“Go on a date with me.”
Lucifer started, his eyebrows furrowing. “What?”
Natalie squared her shoulders, suddenly accepting her fate in this realization. The more she fought it the harder it was going to tug. Maybe doing it this way would be easier. It was worth a try after all.
“Go on a date with me. I want to try a date with you, Lucifer.”
He snorted and it was an ugly, bitter sound. “Yeah, cuz that went so well last time. If I remember correctly, you have some previous predilections I can’t do anything about.”
“In public,” Natalie blurted, clenching her hands at her sides. Lucifer stilled. “In public, with people around to see us. I won’t – I’m not going to act like I’m ashamed to be seen with you, I promise. Not this time, OK? One date. I know you find me annoying, and I think you’re unnecessarily mean sometimes, but I wanna try it. If I fight it, it’s just gonna be worse. So how about it? We’ll be strangers meeting for the first time. I don’t know you, you don’t know me. What do you say?”
Natalie jutted her hand out, waiting with a heart beating against her rib cage for Lucifer’s answer.
Before she had biases and boundaries she wouldn’t cross. Maybe that wasn’t the way to go about this whole soulmate thing, if the burning in her arm was anything to go by. But if she just pretended, even for one day, that she didn’t know anything about Lucifer, she’d be giving this a fair chance.
His eyes lingered on her hand, then her face, then her hand again. Natalie swallowed.
“Well?”
Lucifer heaved a sigh that dropped his shoulders, running his fingers roughly through his hair. He shot his hand out and took hers, shaking it once, twice, then she was pulled hard into his chest, a question on her tongue that never had a chance to leave before he kissed her.
It was painful when their teeth clacked together, but his lips soothed it away just as quickly.
It couldn’t have been more than five seconds before he pulled back, taking a little bit of amusement in her wide eyed, slack jawed gaping.
“I don’t shake hands with my dates. Fine, I’ll do it. You pick the place and I’ll show up, just this once.”
Lucifer released Natalie and shoved his hands in his pockets, walking back towards the front of his house. Natalie watched him in silence, fighting the urge to press down on her wrist where a pleasant warmth oozed up her arm.
Lucifer glanced over his shoulder as he paused at the end of the walkway.
“If I don’t know you, you’re going to get treated like my dates. Just letting you know.” He grinned, his teeth flashing. “Goodnight.”
Natalie took a moment to compose herself, patting down her hair and smoothing out her shirt. She walked out of the side yard and unlocked her front door, heading up to her bedroom.
When she sat down on her bed, there was only one image in her mind. The image of the busty girl kissing Lucifer by his bike. The way her spine bent and her face looked like she needed a release from something that only Lucifer could grant.
His date.
“I’m going to get treated like his dates . . .” Natalie breathed, touching her lips and shivering.
Summary: Soulmate AU. Natalie and Lucifer don’t like each other, even if some mark on their hands says otherwise.
Chapter 1
Natalie was four the year her family moved next door to Lucifer. So, technically speaking, Natalie knew Lucifer, the Devil incarnate, her entire life.
Thinking back on it, she couldn’t think of a single moment where she enjoyed his company. The caramel skinned boy with unruly hair had been a constant hazard on the neighborhood throughout their elementary school years, anywhere ranging from terrorizing dogs to straight up vandalizing property. He had a foul mouth and little respect for authority.
Natalie had known they were not going to get along from early on. Lucifer was the kind of person who was going to end up in prison or alone, she was sure of it.
One day Natalie had told him as much while she’d shaken the spider out of the back of her shirt with a shriek.
“I feel bad for whoever your mark is!” Natalie exclaimed through gritted teeth over the cackling of the boy nearly keeled over on the grass. “You’d be lucky if you even get someone to love you if you keep acting like that!”
Lucifer wasn’t fazed by the ten year old’s bitter words. He grinned at her, all teeth and gums in glee. “Mark? Who needs it anyway? You’re one to talk, Miss Naked Arms over there. I don’t see Prince Charming’s name. Go on, show me. Where is it?” Lucifer taunted, moving forward to inspect the backs of Natalie’s hands. She yanked them away, mortification heating her face.
“I’ll get my mark soon,” Natalie argued, though she couldn’t keep her own lack of confidence from warbling her words. Lucifer keened his neck back and grinned at her, a telling look in his gaze.
“Everyone’s got one already, kid. Everyone but you.”
Natalie sucked her lower lip between her teeth, her eyes starting to sting. “And you!” she hissed.
Lucifer leaned over her, using his newfound height to his advantage. He pretended to inspect her face. “I don’t want one, so it doesn’t matter one way or the other to me. But it looks like it matters to you.”
“It doesn’t.”
“You’re gonna be alone forever.”
Natalie felt her heart beating violently against her ribs in the agony inflicted by his words. “I’m a late bloomer, my dad said so . . . I’ll – I will –”
Lucifer leaned in to whisper against her ear. “Your daddy’s a liar, little Natalie.”
Despite the three years and the foot of height he had over her, Natalie managed to hit him so hard in the gut that Lucifer reeled back in pain. She’d ran home and cried into her stuffed animals the rest of the night.
Natalie hated Lucifer. She hated how he seemed to get off on tormenting others. But most of all, she hated how good he was at picking the exact things to say that would make her heart break.
It was true that everyone got a mark when they were young. Most people had a name show up on their hand in kindergarten, but Natalie hated to admit that she remained markless. No clue, no hint. Not even a freckle, for goodness sake!
The idea of remaining alone scared her to death, and Lucifer knew it. Natalie knew the reverse was true though for him. Her frightening neighbor’s hands also had remained markless, even up to his fourteenth birthday. But it wasn’t a fear of being alone that Lucifer suffered from.
He despised being tied down, and a soulmate name etched under his skin was the concept he detested the most.
Natalie didn’t believe it was fair for a person like Lucifer to get what he wanted while she suffered. She really did hope that he would get a mark someday, but the fact of the matter was that not everybody had a soulmate.
Lucifer lucked out.
XXXX
When Natalie entered high school, the day the clock struck noon on the last day of summer break, she heard a scream so loud it shook the plate out of her hand.
Rage; that was the only word to describe this sound, and it was coming from the house next door.
“Pumpkin, be careful!” Alex McAllister panicked, hopping over the shards of glass and macaroni on the floor. He scrambled to get a broom and dust pan but halted when seeing Natalie’s face, frozen in shock. “Natalie?”
Natalie knew she must’ve looked frightening in that moment, pale and rigid with eyes as large as lily pads. But the tingling against her hand – like the feeling of walking through a spider web – kept her full attention. The air left her lungs and stole her thoughts.
Mr. McAllister approached his daughter and followed her gaze, gently reaching out and taking her hand to see in letters that looked as red as flames against her skin.
“Oh dear . . . It’s finally appeared for you,” he spoke softly, eyeing Natalie’s horror stricken face with a carefulness he knew only as a single father.
They didn’t get a moment to discuss it further when violent pounding thundered at their door.
Natalie jumped, feeling as though she were a deer in the headlights when her father answered the door to reveal a chest heaving, disheveled looking man with daggers in his eyes. Natalie blinked, swallowing the lump in her throat and feeling sick to her stomach when she noticed the raw fury on Lucifer’s face.
The tendons in his neck were prominent. Around his eyes were red and puffy. A hand fisted at his side looked raw and pink, almost like he’d been scratching at the skin or scrubbing or . . .
“No,” Natalie finally spoke in disbelief at the orange font on his own skin. “You’ve gotta be kidding me . . .”
Lucifer gave no warning before he stormed into the house. He bared his teeth in anger and growled. “You’re fuckin’ dead!”
Natalie scurried back on instinct, making sure to place the table between her and her raging neighbor. Lucifer tried to walk around it but Natalie was too quick. He attempted to move the other direction, only to have Natalie mirror him, before he violently shoved the offending object away. Natalie winced at the shrieking the table legs let out, putting her arms up as a barrier between her and Lucifer when he approached.
He threw his hands on either side of her head against the wall, causing her to wince. At this length Natalie could feel the hot breaths panted against her face; the anger rolled off of Lucifer’s body in waves.
When he didn’t speak after a long beat of silence, Natalie chanced a peek and looked at him through a wince. His glower was blistering.
“Explain this,” Lucifer demanded, his voice eerily level for how irate his body language was. Natalie blinked up at him before turning to the wrist he was holding up.
Against the tan of his skin, almost invisible in its light shade, was her name. The letters looked like ribbons flowing across his skin, woven around his wrist like vines.
Natalie McAllister.
Disbelief brought bile to the back of her tongue.
When Natalie remained silent Lucifer let out a growl, slamming his hand against the wall to get her attention. She flinched, turning to look back at him with uneasy petulance in her own expression.
“That’s a nasty prank,” Natalie said, but her words quaked. Even to herself she couldn’t believe that, let alone convince Lucifer of it. Her response only fanned the flames in his eyes.
“It won’t rub off. What the fuck is this? Out of nowhere – out of fucking nowhere – this fucking thing showed up and started itching. What the fuck is this, Natalie?!” he barked.
A hand on his shoulder stopped Lucifer’s yelling, effectively silencing his tirade.
“Now, now. Not everyone likes the outcome of this, but that gives no reason to fight or frighten my daughter,” Mr. McAllister said, his words gentle, but something clearly protective under his tone. Natalie recognized it instantly as his “Dad Voice”. There would be no more fighting while he was present.
Lucifer huffed, quietly collecting himself for a long moment before he shrugged the hand away, nodding and pivoting on his feet in the direction of the exit. “Sorry for the intrusion,” he muttered before storming out the door.
Natalie watched until his back disappeared before her knees gave out, her back sliding down the wall until she hit the floor. Alex was there in a moment, hovering hands and worried questions spilling in her direction.
She barely heard anything he said, Lucifer’s words still ringing in her ears. Her fingers gingerly wrapped around her own wrist.
Lucifer’s name was hot under the touch.
XXXX
Natalie felt a sweat drop roll down the back of her neck and slide passed a shoulder blade. She grimaced but tried to ignore it. Of course it was 100 degrees today. Technically it was still summer after all.
“Why are you wearing that?” Laila inquired, her dark eyes running down the sleeves covering Natalie’s arms. She adjusted her backpack and watched her friend silently as Natalie smiled and wiped more sweat from under her bangs.
“I like this shirt. Can’t I just wear it?”
Laila considered that a moment. “But it’s hot out.”
“I don’t think it’s too bad,” Natalie laughed, twisting her head away to hide the obvious falseness of her smile.
Of course she thought it was hot. Of course she didn’t want to be wearing a long sleeve shirt on the first day of school when everyone else was wearing shorts and t shirts. But this was the better alternative, she told herself. Anything was better than letting people know whose name was tattooed on her hand.
First thing in the morning Natalie had made sure to take the biggest band aids out of the medicine cabinet and covered Lucifer’s name to the best of her ability. The patchwork was bulky and intrusive, but she managed to hide it pretty well under the length of her sleeves.
Natalie felt the sudden urge to pick at the itching adhesive.
While it was only her third year of high school, everyone at her school knew who Lucifer was. He had attended the same little school in their tiny town two years previous, and in that span of time he had been unofficially proclaimed the school board’s worst nightmare. Foul language, excessive fighting, possession of illegal substances, and even an incident of arson that almost got him expelled – Lucifer’s name wasn’t exactly something that was forgotten overnight.
It was a wonder he wasn’t rotting in a prison somewhere, selling cigarettes to inmates and practicing not dropping soap bars in the shower.
There was no way Natalie was going to let anyone in this town know whose name was bound to her. Just the thought of it made her feel ill.
“Are you OK?” Laila’s voice brought her back down to earth, a small, almost unnoticeable crinkle appearing between her friend’s eyebrows in concern.
“Of course!” Natalie instantly lied, keeping the cheer in her voice. “I just hate the first day of the semester. You have to find all your classes and the lunch room is so crowded and so much homework. It’s awful!”
Laila winced when Natalie’s laughter got louder, but she nodded regardless. “If you say so. You just look like . . .”
“Like what?”
Laila shrugged. “Like you wanted to say something.”
Natalie gulped, fixing her gaze on her converse shoes. She pursed her lips. “Nope.”
They walked in silence, Natalie knowing Laila long enough to tell that she understood. The silence wasn’t awkward or strained. It was supportive, as weird as that sounded. It was something only Laila was probably capable of; speaking without speaking.
“If you ever want to say something, you know where to find me.”
A small coil of guilt wound around Natalie’s heart for keeping this from her friend. But then Lucifer’s face flashed in her mind’s eye, pompous grin and a cruelty reflected from deep within his eyes, reaffirming her decision. Natalie squared her shoulders and opened the classroom door.
“Thanks, dude.”
XXXX
The first few days after the incident in Natalie’s kitchen passed in a blur.
Natalie found herself distracted in class, her mind drifting off to unspeakable places without her consent. If Lucifer really was her soulmate she’d have to live with him at some point, right? She’d have to put up with all the horrible things he did to others, all for the sake of his own merriment. She’d have to clean up after him and eat dinner with him and touch him intimately –
Her fantasies always died there, goosebumps pimpling down her skin at the thought of letting Lucifer touch her in that way. The idea alone made her nauseous.
When the detestable thoughts of her presumed future weren’t plaguing her mind, Natalie threw herself into her schoolwork, chores, activities; anything to distract herself and not allow reality to sink in and take root.
She was doing pretty successful at keeping these thoughts at bay, until one day when walking home from school Natalie froze where she stood when she peered up to see Lucifer waiting at the foot of her driveway. He was staring off at a flock of birds resting on a telephone wire, casually smoking a cigarette, when he noticed Natalie was watching him.
Lucifer said nothing before stubbing out the cigarette on his shoe and flicking it in her lawn. Natalie’s nose crinkled in annoyance.
“Look at you, getting that education. That’s my girl,” Lucifer teased, smiling in her direction. His eyes crinkled around the corners, but Natalie could tell he wasn’t in a good mood. It was the first time he’d shown himself to her since his outburst, and while he looked considerably less furious, Lucifer’s body language still radiated anger.
Natalie knew better than to say anything.
Ignoring him, Natalie cut through her grass, intending to go inside and work on homework. His arm shot out so fast that she almost screamed, fear prickling her skin at the prospect that he was going to hit her. Natalie took a step back at Lucifer’s sudden closeness and frowned at him. He was blocking her path.
Lucifer no longer looked amused as he watched Natalie with a cold sense of detachment down the bridge of his nose. He seemed to be considering something, appearing like he wanted to change his mind and leave before deciding against that and just going for it. Lucifer wet his lips with a quick flick of his tongue before he spoke.
“Go out with me.”
It took a long moment of staring at each other before Natalie realized she’d been holding her breath. His words registered all at once then, causing her body to jolt.
“No way,” she blurted instantly. Lucifer didn’t seem bothered or surprised by her reaction. “Why? Why should I?”
He was asking her out? Had he finally lost it? Only five days ago they’d both shared a mutual loathing of each other. Where was this coming from?
“Don’t flatter yourself, carrot top,” Lucifer elaborated quickly, seeing that Natalie was already looking for a new path to get into her home. “Nothing’s changed. I still hate this fuckin’ thing.” He promptly pulled up his hand and displayed a blood stained gauze wrapped around his hand.
Natalie’s gaze traced it, her mouth going dry.
“Don’t even try cutting it off, kid. It’ll just grow right back.” Lucifer’s words were soaked with a bitterness Natalie only recalled hearing once in her life; the weekend where his brother kicked him out of his house.
“I’m not following. If you still don’t want a mark, then . . .?”
“You’re right. I don’t want a mark or some soulmate or whatever,” Lucifer said, spitting out the word soulmate like it put a bad taste in his mouth. “But this thing will not go away, no matter how hard I try to get rid of it. So I figured I’d give it a shot and see.”
“A shot?” Natalie parroted skeptically. Her hackles rose when Lucifer cast a toothy grin in her direction, very much like a shark before its meal.
“Let me see if you’re anything special and not just some brat with a flat chest and head in those gay romance novels.”
Natalie frowned once more and shook her head. “I don’t want to go on a date with you Lucifer. I already know you won’t be special to me. If you haven’t been by now then I don’t really see the point.”
The corner of his grin lost some of its height, but Natalie did not see any genuine hurt across his face from her words.
“I don’t really remember asking if you wanted to or not,” he said, reaching out and taking her hand. Natalie yelped as he proceeded to drag her off of her property before being deposited in the back seat of his car.
“You can’t just kidnap someone like this!” she yelled, shooting her leg out and kicking the back of his chair. He let out a raucous laugh, all the while peeling out into the street before Natalie could even open her door to retreat.
“Stop being so dramatic. It’s not like I’m going to go dump your body in the woods.”
Lucifer stopped laughing and looked significantly more annoyed when she continued to kick his chair, his body jerking forward every time her foot connected. An arm snaked around and grasped her ankle, abruptly ceasing Natalie’s tantrum.
“You destroy my car and I’ll change my mind about that.”
Natalie settled back into her own seat, reluctantly, not wanting to challenge him when his irate gaze caught her eyes in the rearview mirror. When she silenced, Lucifer released her leg, putting his hand on the steering wheel and focusing on the road.
Natalie folded her arms across her chest, trying to ignore the way his name heated up under the bandages on her hand when his skin touched her. It was almost like the marks were calling out to each other.
She silently wondered if he’d felt it as well.
Natalie looked out the window and watched as their small town disappeared in the distance. She rested her forehead against the glass and sighed, the fog of her breath blocking her view.
Whether she liked it or not, Lucifer was taking her on a date.
~Ooh would you do a first kiss between Gabe and Anthea? Also, your writing is prime.
Title: Better than Expected
Fandom: Satan and Me
Pairing: Ganthea
Rating: SFW
Word Count: 559
Summary: Gabriel and Anthea share their first kiss together.
“You look nervous,” Anthea commented, her calmingvoice not having the same effect as it normally did. Gabriel looked up, wipinghis sweaty hands against his robe, to see her smiling at him. “Are you nervous?”
“I apologize for coming off this way,” Gabriel said,laughing apprehensively. “It’s just – I’ve never kissed anyone before. I’venever had the urge to, until …” His words died off, forcing himself to look awayand clear his throat in a probably very unattractive manner.
Anthea’s chuckles, on the other hand, were soft andreassuring. Gabriel always wondered at her voice; how she could always make himfeel at ease. Never in his life did he think he would fall for anyone less thanelite – it was just one of those unspoken expectations for higher ups.
And yet when Anthea took his hands in her and broughthis knuckles up to her lips, Gabriel knew she was the one. His soulmate.
“I’ve never done this before, either,” she admitted, abit more confident now that she was hiding partially behind their hands. Hercheeks were dusted with the same shade of scarlet that he assumed his face was.
“O-oh. Well then,” Gabriel chuckled, wanting to rubthe back of his neck in a nervous habit, but his fingers remained caged byhers. “Should we just – go for it?”
Anthea nodded, and he felt her breath hitch againsthis hands.
“Yes. I think that would be a good idea.”
Her fingers loosened around his own, giving him enoughroom to maneuver them to her cheeks, her jaw; to cup her face and pull ittowards his own.
Michael had told Gabriel once what kissing was like.He said he’d done it with one of the higher ranking officers in his troop aftertheir insistences had gotten on his nerves over the years. Gabriel rememberedthe words Michael had used when he’d kissed that girl.
Weird.
Wet.
Awkward.
He said it felt OK, but it wasn’t anything to writehome about. Gabriel had been a little disappointed, because at the time his mindhad been full of thoughts of what kissing Anthea could be like. But if it wasjust something boring or awkward, then now the excitement he had bubblinginside of him had stopped. It just left him feeling nervous instead.
But now, as their lips came together and Anthea’s headtilted to the side, a pleased hum rising up from her throat, Gabriel knewMichael was a liar.
Just a simple contact like this of their lips had hisstomach filling with butterflies, his heart trying to leap through his ribcage,goosebumps rising up his arms. Nothing about kissing Anthea was terrible. Hewanted to do this all day until the world ceased to exist.
After a moment she pulled back. Gabriel did not wantto lose the distance between them so he simply placed their foreheads together,watching her.
“Wow,” she breathed, smiling up at him.
Gabriel couldn’t keep the thrill from his voice as hegrinned back at her. “Yeah.”
“That was … nicer than I thought it’d be.”
“Yeah.”
Anthea’s eyes darted away a moment before looking backat him. She raised an eyebrow. “Would you – would you like to do it again?”
He was already leaning down before she could finishher sentence.
Can you write some possessive,possibly insecure Natan/Satan ?
Title: Green is Not Your Color
Fandom: Satan and Me
Pairing: Natan
Rating: SFW
Word Count: 1442
Summary: Satan struggles with the realization that he may have a problem with boys being around Natalie
It comes as a little more than a shock when Satan seesNatalie run her hand down a boy’s arm.
She’s smiling as he speaks, stopping to tip her headback in a laugh. Even from where Satan is sitting, unmoving from the benchunder movie posters, the smell of popcorn permeating the air, he can see asmall flush on the skin of this boy’s cheeks. He thinks she’s attractive. It’snot hard to tell.
He remains silent and watches the exchange as Nataliepays for their beverages and waves goodbye. The brunette’s eyes linger on herback as she starts walking towards Satan, almost like he wants to dash over andask for her number. His eyes flick up and catch Satan’s. Satan stares him downand watches with soundless amusement when he sees his will crumble under hisoverwhelming gaze.
“Here you go!” Natalie announces, handing a soda toSatan as he stands up.
“Took you long enough.”
Natalie sticks her tongue out at him, but otherwisethe exchange dies there. They continue the rest of their evening watching thecomedy Natalie picked, catching a bus home while ending the night with a kiss.
XXX
A secret relationship is what Natalie calls it.
Nothing with commitment, nothing with a label, butmore than booty calls and friends with benefits. It’s something tangible, yetcan be brushed off at any time. Satan agrees to this easily enough, but itisn’t until he starts to see other boys flirting and touching Natalie that hestarts to question her reasoning.
Sure, they’re all casual exchanges, just enough todisplay interest, but Satan notices nonetheless. It’s only then that he startsto question Natalie’s insistence on a “secret relationship”.
Satan’s never advocated for a commitment. He’s neverbrought it up; never feeling like he has to. But when Natalie comes home andtosses a stray number into the garbage can, telling him of the freshman who was“cute” for asking her out, he feels something twist low in his gut.
A twinge of insecurity.
Satan’s repulsed with this realization.
His experience with Michael and his Father hastarnished any real confidence and self-worth he had at the time. He doesn’tthink he can fix that, but the least he can do is hide it with bravado andsarcasm. How is it possible to feel jealous over a random teenage girl?
He comments on it one afternoon while Natalie is doinghomework.
“Your head’s starting to get a little fatter.”
Natalie casts him a confused glance.
“I didn’t know you were so popular,” Satan explainscasually, his feet propped up against the coffee table as he eats a chocolatebar. Natalie takes a moment to understand what he means before smiling inunderstanding.
“I’m really nothing special,” she denies with a laugh,and Satan frowns deeper.
Yes,yes you are.
“I don’t do anything different than anyone else to getthat kind of attention. Besides, I see how girls look at you. You’re not doingtoo bad yourself.”
Her cheeriness grates on his nerves.
This information does not quell the jealous knot tyinginside of him. He feels like he’s about to turn green right in front of her.Those people see a superficial side to him – a purely physical and carnaldesire. But Natalie . . . Satan can see the way she lights up a room. Men aredrawn to her laughter, her whole presence.
Satan can never captivate someone in that way.Suddenly, as if being pressed under Michael’s domineering foot once more, Satanfeels like Natalie’s company overpowers him.
He feels small.
“I suppose you’re right,” Satan says on a whim,standing up and moving to leave the room. “I forgot to mention I won’t be freetomorrow night after all. I’m meeting someone.”
Even though he’s not looking at her, Satan can feelNatalie’s gaze tracking him.
“Someone else? Who?”
“A woman.”
Silence drags on as he mentally kicks himself,dismissing himself before he can change his mind.
Natalie doesn’t meet his eyes when he leaves the nextnight.
Satan spends it feeling like a jackass in a grocerystore parking lot.
XXX
If he had known the chain reaction his lie would haveset off, he wouldn’t have said it in the first place.
Natalie accepts a date.
She drops this bombshell on him when she emerges fromher bedroom in a black and red dress and white nylons, the smell of perfumepermeating the air around her. Satan can only watch with a set jaw and stiffshoulders, keeping his face impassive the whole exchange of words they share.He makes an effort to seem indifferent towards this, but as the front doorshuts behind her he goes to the backyard to tear her tire swing apart.
Why is he like this? Why does he always do this? Hisown stubborn behavior is starting to make him physically ill.
When Natalie comes home the house is quiet. Her fatheris at work late grading tests tonight, which only leaves Satan. She peeks herhead into her bedroom to see the shape of furniture, but no horned outlineperched on his favorite beanbag chair.
Natalie wanders around the house until she reaches thesliding glass door to the backyard. There she sees not only a shredded tireswing – What the heck? – but theperson she’s been looking for for the past five minutes.
Satan’s on the grass on his back, his arms up so hishands are behind his head, watching the clouds and the stars. Natalie comes upbeside him and looks down at his face.
“It looks like you’ve kept busy,” she comments, asmile in her voice.
Satan snorts, continuing to ignore her as she sitsbeside him, her knees drawn up to her chest.
“What’s up? Spill it, big guy.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
His mind screams, Liar.
Natalie hums to herself, uncurling her spine so sheplops onto the grass, mimicking his pose before rolling onto her side andpropping her chin in her palm. Satan feels the pressure of her gaze as she mapsout his face. There’s really no point in lying to her when they’re connected somuch from their time spent in contract together.
“How’d your date go?” Satan blurts, immediatelyregretting it. He really doesn’t want to hear it.
Beside him, Satan can feel Natalie shift as sheconsiders his question.
“It was fine. He was nice, and he paid for my food. Igot to hold his hand, and he kissed me at the door,” Natalie recounts. Satanflinches beside her, unable to mask the bitterness welling up out of him, likewater in an overflowing container.
“But . . . ,” Natalie pauses, sounding almost wistful.“If I’m honest, I have more fun just sitting around the house with you.”
Satan twists his head against his palms to look ather, shocked to find Natalie looking breathless with a flushed face, a grinfrom ear to ear.
What? What is this? What is she saying so suddenly?
Natalie laughs, reaching out to pinch his nose. Satangrowls and slaps her hand away. She catches his hand in the process, threadingher fingers through his experimentally.
“I’m not interested in much, Satan. I don’t even thinkabout dating or boys that much, if I’m honest,” Natalie explains softly againstthe skin of his knuckles. “But I know that it’s only the most fun when I’m withyou. And I wanna keep it that way. Can we?”
The way her eyelashes flutter, a plead in her eyesboring into him, there is no way Satan can deny her. He nods silently.
“Did I make you mad?”
“You didn’t,” he admits. “Those jackasses toting afteryou did.”
Natalie smiles. It’s soft and comforting and makesSatan feel at ease . . . until she smacks him hard on the forehead.
“So did that girl you canceled movie night over. Nomore girls!”
Satan pulls her hand away, gritting his teeth andglaring at her, bringing her closer to him.
And there, under the stars in a suburban house in themiddle of a meaningless city, Natalie laughing and staring at Satan like heholds her world in his hands, something falls into place. There is a bug in herhair and dirt on her cheek, but that look on her face solidifies it and quellsthe jealously down in his ribcage.
He leans over her and kisses her, then, taking comfortin the way her arms seamlessly wrap around his neck.
Warnings: Suicide mention, but nothing really dark.
Summary: They don’t know how or why, but suddenly Satan can sleep
Natalie comes home to find Satan asleep on the couch.
She believes her eyes are deceiving her at first, but as she steps forward and removes her backpack from her body, she can clearly see that he’s asleep. There’s no denying it.
His face is smoothed out into an expression she’s never seen before. Satan’s face is always marred with scowl lines and hard edges. But as he lies on her couch, his long eyelashes fluttering every now and then, his breathing even and rhythmic, an almost serenity present on his face, Natalie actually think he looks young for a moment. Centuries of hardship and stubbornness are melted away in this instant.
She hesitantly reaches out and runs her finger feather light through his hair before sitting cross legged on the floor beside him. She smiles and lets him rest, watching him the remainder of the afternoon.
XXX
“I thought you said you can’t sleep.”
Satan barely glances up over the edge of his book, the only indication that he’s even listening to Natalie being the small twitch of his large ears. She spreads her fingers and cogs them between her toes, watching Satan with a sense of awe and excitement for him.
He can sleep.
“I don’t know what happened either, so don’t go pestering me like I’m keeping some huge secret from you,” says Satan, turning the page he’s on, appearing disinterested. Natalie can tell, though. She can see it with how he’s been holding himself since his cat nap. Satan’s excited about this, too.
“Well, I’m happy for you,” Natalie says, and she genuinely means it. “If there’s anyone out there who needs their rest, it’s you.”
Satan hums, appearing noncommittal to this conversation, and it dies there.
They don’t know how or why, but Satan was asleep. The static in the air to know if it can happen again remains.
XXX
It does, indeed, happen again a week later.
Natalie walks in from her shower and teeth brushing to see the Devil leaning against the wall, cross legged and arms folded, his head slumped forward and eyes closed. Natalie makes a thrilled squeal in her throat and patters over to him, inspecting his face. He’s snoring, but not in a loud, obnoxious way. It’s soft, a little whistle with every other breath.
He looks kinda . . . handsome, Natalie thinks before she can stop herself. The thought surprises her and she straightens up. Natalie stares down at the man below her in silence for a minute before stripping the top blanket off from her bed. She drapes it over his body before clicking off the light and crawling into her bed.
“Goodnight, Satan.”
Natalie doesn’t sleep well that night, her thoughts too active. They are all about the man sleeping across the room from her.
Her chest swells and Natalie recognizes the feeling as happiness.
XXX
Satan sleeps a lot. Like, a lot.
Natalie finds him dozing off over his food, slumped against furniture, and even a person once when they take the train to the city.
She doesn’t know if this is something normal or something to be concerned about.
Well, he’s never slept before in his life, I don’t think, Natalie mulls over in her mind as she watches Satan’s eyelids drooping during their movie. Maybe this is him catching up for lost time?
There’s no way to know or confirm this though, so Natalie keeps these thoughts to herself. She catches his head shooting up out of the corner of her eye, Satan blinking rapidly and narrowing his eyes at the television screen, as if it personally wronged him and made him tired.
For a brief moment Natalie considers asking Kristi to call Michael down. Perhaps he’d know about this. She decides against it in the end. Even if Michael does know, it’s not like he’s the kinda guy who would tell them something if the end result benefits Satan.
So Natalie keeps quiet and carries on. It’s not like he’s dying or anything.
XXX
“You look sick,” Satan comments one afternoon while Natalie is leaning over the same math problem she’s been on the last thirty minutes. Natalie turns her neck to acknowledge Satan’s presence. He’s perched on the side of her dresser, thumbing through her old yearbook.
Golden eyes flit up and catch Natalie’s gaze.
She smiles. “Sick? I feel fine.”
Satan frowns. “You’ve got bags under your eyes. Are you sleeping alright?”
Normally, he’d know this, but since he’s been sleeping so much he really doesn’t know what Natalie’s sleep schedule is like anymore.
Natalie feels a headache pulsing in warning behind her eyes. She fiddles with her pencil and shakes her head. “No different than usual.”
It’s a lie, one that Natalie isn’t sure if Satan buys or not with the way he stares her down. For some reason she’s been plagued with insomnia, barely sleeping at all at night, no matter how tired she feels. She makes a mental note to buy some sleeping pills at the store later if this persists anymore.
Satan drops the subject and goes on to insult nearly every student in her class for one reason or another.
Natalie nods, but she barely can hear him.
Just the pound, pound, pounding in her skull.
XXX
Natalie yells at Satan for falling asleep when her dad comes home.
She’s irritable most days now, constantly plagued by the white noise in her ears. Satan doesn’t appreciate her jabbing at him, warning him of the different things that can happen if her dad sees him without his disguise.
Satan ends up dropping it in favor of a tense silence, but not after calling her bitchy, among other things.
Natalie opts for fresh air and goes for a walk. She gets to the grocery store down the street and buys some pills. She’s going to sleep tonight whether her body wants to or not. It’s starting to be nauseating.
Satan is passed out on her beanbag chair when she returns.
With a huff, Natalie stalks to her bathroom and tears open the bottle. She takes two pills and climbs under her sheets, waiting for slumber.
XXX
For a moment Natalie believes that the pills had worked, that she had slept. Her mind is fuzzy enough, and the world is black, save for the white ring around the edge of her vision.
Distant screaming makes her realize this isn’t the case as something is shoved sharply against the back of her throat and she’s throwing up. The world spins as Natalie’s senses return. Her gut is sore and her palms feel clammy, her face drenched in sweat. Or is it water? She can’t tell. She barely knows what’s happening.
“Are you insane?” she can hear someone yelling, their voice rough around the edges, like they’ve been yelling for a while. Natalie realizes it’s Satan as she squints an eye up at his blurry form. “Do you want to die?! Is that what this is? Your cry for help? Jesus, you’re an idiot!”
“What are you talking about?” Natalie asks, her voice tiny even to her own ears. She wipes the bile from her lips, the confusion still lingering.
Satan’s face starts to focus and she sees how angry he looks. His horns are glowing in the dark of the bathroom. More importantly, Natalie notes the fear etched into the rough lines of his face.
Satan looks terrified. She didn’t know he could feel that.
In response, he thrusts a bottle of pills at her. She doesn’t catch it, but only a few fall out. It hits Natalie then.
“I- I don’t . . .?” She looks up at him with wide eyes.
“Why’d you take so many?” Satan demands. There’s sweat lining his brow. He must feel the nausea brewing in Natalie’s gut as well. She’d apologize if not for the haze lingering about her mind.
“I only took two,” Natalie protests. It’s true. She only remembers taking two.
“Like shit you did. You do that from two sleeping pills?” Satan sneers, jutting his arm violently towards the mess she’s made of the toilet. “What is so bad that you had to do – this?”
He sounds suffocated. Angry. Lost.
Natalie feels all these things with him.
Her mouth hangs open but she doesn’t have an answer. She feels like she’s losing her mind. It’s been so long since she’s slept more than an hour at a time.
Satan’s white knuckles and silence are all she remembers from that night.
They don’t speak the rest of the evening.
In the morning Satan looks tired from keeping himself awake.
In the morning Natalie looks like a ghost. She just wants to sleep.
XXX
Satan hovers.
It’s a bizarre concept; Satan, Lord of the Damned, keeper of Hell, hovering over a teenage girl. But it isn’t a lie, and Natalie is forced to live with him as a shadow.
She wants to laugh, knowing they both look like crap. He neglects sleep for her. Natalie still can’t sleep.
After that mishap the other night, Natalie doesn’t see any evidence of the pill bottle or the vomit. She wonders if it even happened at all, but Satan’s constant presence is enough to know it did. He’s rigid and grumpy, breathing down her neck at all hours of the day.
At one point Natalie yells at him for trying to follow her into the bathroom.
“I just need to pee!” she complains, slamming the door on his face.
“You’ve got 45 seconds!” he yells back through the wood, a loud bang following suit as he no doubt leans against it in wait.
Natalie is not suicidal. Not in the slightest does she have the urge to do that. But no matter how many times she tells Satan that that unfortunate incident was a mistake, an accident, Satan doesn’t seem to believe her. He doesn’t say it outright, but she knows it in the worried, lingering glances he gives her.
She can only tell him that she just wants to sleep so much before it’s useless wasting precious air.
And so this is their routine for the next week; a sickening waltz of two reluctant participants.
XXX
It was bound to happen, and Natalie can’t tell if she’s satisfied or bitter about it, but Satan eventually runs out of steam.
Satan falls asleep.
Natalie sits, crouched in front of him with a glazed look in her eyes. She moves closer, inspecting his face. What once had made her think of beauty and tranquility now makes bile rise to the back of her throat. Why should he get to sleep when she is so desperate for it? Is this how he felt all those nights in her room, watching her dream and drool on her pillow?
“I get it now,” she mumbles to herself, running her fingers down his cheekbone, over his lips. “I get why you’re always so mean.”
XXX
They’re in the park, sitting on a bench and watching stray kids swinging and running when it happens. Satan falls asleep again, but he doesn’t wake up.
It’s bizarre, and Natalie doesn’t know what to make of it.
She watches as his eyes close, his breathing turns rhythmic, he slumps against her shoulder and breathes against the crook of her neck. The children go one by one. The sun sets. Natalie remains still as Satan sleeps, listening to the sounds of the crickets around them.
Even as her muscles tense and his weight becomes a burden, Natalie does not move. She lets him sleep, trying to remember what that feels like as the night carries on.
Morning comes and Natalie decides then to try and stir him.
No matter the shakes or her verbal coaxing, Satan does not open his eyes. She stares at him blankly a moment before leaning back against the bench.
Ah, well, he’ll wake up when he wakes up.
Satan continues to sleep until the days blur together.
Natalie remains awake.
XXX
“Well, I’m happy for you,” Natalie says, and she genuinely means it. “If there’s anyone out there who needs their rest, it’s you.”
Banana: So this came in my inbox today OMG I fuckin’ knew this would happen. I did not write this someone edited my fic lmao
I have never written mom’s spaghetti like this before, so, uh. This was the best I could offer.
Title: Natalie’s Spaghetti
Fandom: Satan and Me
Pairing: Natan
Rating: M
Word Count: 1729
Summary: Natalie likes their usual arrangement in the kitchen, but this time she wants to try making the spaghetti.
“I changed my mind. I don’t want to do this anymore.”
Natalie’s head popped up from the foot of her bed, spaghetti written clearly on her face. “Huh? Why not?” she whined, gripping the bottle of sauce in her hands tightly and shuffling towards Satan. He cringed as she leaned over him.
Natalie had no real Italian in her, but suddenly her presence seemed so foreign.
“Why do you think?” he countered, frowning deeply. “You gave me too much spaghetti to consider this. So now I don’t want to bake it anymore, girl. Just put that away and we’ll cook spaghetti like normal.”
Satan reached out and grabbed Natalie’s spaghetti noodles with the tongs, flipping them over so that he was the one with control over the noodles. Natalie blew an unamused gust of air from her lips, placing her hand over Satan’s face and pushing him back when he moved to kiss her.
“What now?” he barked, his mood growing sourer by the minute.
“You can’t do that. You promised.”
Satan gave a drawn out pause to the annoyance that so rarely etched itself onto Natalie’s face. True, he did promise this to her. Frustration bloomed inside of him. Why would he promise to do this with her? He couldn’t even remember what he’d wanted from her if in return he said this would happen.
“I’m the Devil,” he replied haughtily, jutting his chin up. “I lie all the time.”
“You promised.”
“Well, now I’m un-promising.”
“You promised.”
“Would you stop it with that?”
“You pro –”
Satan gripped Natalie by the cheeks and squeezed, grinning down at her with no real mirth in his eyes. “Are those the only words you know?”
“Lucifer, it’s not even a big deal. You said you don’t mind new recipes,” Natalie argued quietly, gently jutting her knee into his groin for emphasis.
Satan batted her leg away. “You’re not a good cook. No amount of spaghetti can dissuade me from that.”
“I don’t understand. Why is it a big deal if I wanna make the spaghetti? I’m sure you’ve had –”
“Stop right there.”
Natalie smiled, easing his hand away from her face and reaching for the tongs. “Then what?”
Satan scowled, narrowing his eyes at the girl standing before him. He glanced to the side without moving his neck to see the sauce and recipe sitting against the wall on the counter. Like they were mocking him or something. Fuck those things.
“Hm? Hmmm?” Natalie continued in an obnoxiously sweet tone. Satan sighed and slumped his head. “What’s that?” Natalie asked, holding up her hand to her ear and leaning in curiously. “I can’t hear you. You’re all muffled.”
“I said,” Satan growled and gave the redhead a scathing look. “It’s different if it’s your cooking, OK? I just can’t see the idea of you cooking like that with me and – I like what I cook now. I don’t want you to take control.”
Natalie bit her lip. “Is that all?”
“You got a problem with that?” he snapped. Natalie would’ve guessed he was angry if she hadn’t spent the last seven months with him at almost all hours of the day. But the flush that was creeping up his neck was enough to indicate his embarrassment.
“It’s just one time. Then you can go back to your normal take charge self,” Natalie reassured, patting his shoulder. Satan huffed and she grinned. “So can we just cook this already?”
What other choice did he have? He had promised, after all.
XXX
“It’s so strange from this end,” Natalie said in awe, amazed to see her hands holding the spoon. She felt her face warm up from the steam, looking up to grin at Satan. His eyes darted away before he put his elbow over his face with a sigh.
“Just get on with it.”
Natalie caught the quake in his voice and swallowed. She gently pushed the spaghetti around and the bubbles boiled up of their own accord.
Despite complaining like a baby earlier, Satan couldn’t lie to her when she looked up to see the results of her ministrations. His stomach liked this, at least. She swirled the noodles around and he flinched, his breath stilling. Natalie breathed out an intrigued noise, twisting her wrist and watching his face. She couldn’t see his eyes, but she took note of the way his chest was rising and falling quicker now, his lips pressed into a thin line.
“Does this look good?” she asked, withdrawing, before putting the spoon back in.
Satan remained silent.
“How am I supposed to know if I’m doing this right if you don’t answer me?”
Silence.
Natalie ran her free hand through her hair and shook her head. OK. So he wanted to pout. That was fine. She could still find a way to enjoy this. With her hand still working the spoon, Natalie reached out and firmly grabbed the sauce jar. His eyebrows raised almost immediately, a small sound climbing up from his throat. She smiled to herself. There, he couldn’t ignore her cooking even if he wanted to.
“I think it’s good to go now. Though I guess I’m no expert.” Natalie awkwardly started opening the jar over the pot. Even at the smallest of shakes the red substance plopped into the pot. She gulped, pulling the jar up for a second. “I’ll just be really generous with this stuff.”
“Fine,” came his clipped response.
There was a light flush on his chest, coloring the skin of his neck and his ears. Natalie was sure if he moved his arm, it would be on his cheeks as well.
The pot holding the spaghetti was adjusted before Natalie situated the jar over the pot again. She casually shook the jar over the pot, watching him for a reaction. He remained silent, but the tenseness in his shoulders belied his anxiety.
“It won’t suck. I’d stop if it looked bad.”
“You’re incapable of cooking well.”
“I just thought I’d have a positive attitude.”
“Get on with it if you’re going to.”
Natalie gave a noise of approval before easing the jar up with one quick snap of her wrist. The red sauce disappeared into the jar immediately, causing Satan’s mouth to water as he gasped.
“What are you doing?” he demanded, finally removing his arm to glare at her, a bit frantic. Yep. His cheeks were red, too.
Natalie bit her lip and gave an unsure chuckle. “Too little?”
He glared at her, propped up on his elbows on the counter. Satan looked angry, but Natalie knew him better than that. She could see the subtle nuances in how he held himself; with his expression. She bit her lip to keep from smiling and inciting his wrath on her. Satan liked this, she could tell.
“When have I ever done that with you?” he asked, reaching out to smack her halfheartedly on the arm.
Natalie apologized, adjusting her posture near the stove and making sure she didn’t make any sudden movements to let him adjust. “I’m new to this. Well, from this side. I’ll be nicer, I swear. But you gotta let me know what I’m doing right and what I’m doing wrong.”
Satan cautiously stood taller and smoothed out some of the angry wrinkles around his eyes, around his mouth. He stared stubbornly at the ceiling but didn’t go back to covering his face. Natalie took that as a good sign. After a moment, letting Satan’s breathing even back out, her own heartbeat calming down, Natalie screwed the top back on before pushing the spoon back in.
She was slow, and she was gentle. Natalie tried to recall the way Satan moved when they did this together, trying to replicate it onto the spaghetti. Her fingers adjusted on the plastic of the spoon to get a better purchase, using more force as the minutes piled up.
Natalie heard panting, looking up to watch Satan’s chest rise up slightly before falling back down. He was breathing heavier, his lips parted somewhat as his brow furrowed. But she registered that the sound of breathing wasn’t coming from Satan.
It was a small curiosity that had Natalie proposing making spaghetti with Satan like this. She never thought watching her own hands stirring the noodles would actually excite her; certainly not this much.
“Is this fine?” she asked, trying her best to keep a rhythm.
Her response was a reluctant, but genuine groan as Satan squeezed his eyes shut. Natalie wondered to herself the last time, if any at all, that Satan had experienced something like this. She shook the thought out of her head, not exactly wanting to imagine previous cooking buddies he’d had. She didn’t want to know.
It was then that Natalie heard her name, caught on a choked gust of air leaving his mouth. She thought she’d imagined it, but then when she looked up, he was making the noise again. He pressed his hand against his cheek and sighed, reaching out and grabbing one of her wrists as a lifeline.
Even someone as stubborn as Satan could lose himself in the spaghetti occasionally, she reveled.
“Go ahead,” Natalie muttered, speeding up. When had her own voice started to sound so breathy? The sight of Satan’s stomach actively growling next to her was too much apparently. Her head was fuzzy. “I won’t tell anyone, so go ahead,” she reassured, leaning to the side and kissing his shoulder.
She watched as Satan unraveled beside her, his grip starting to hurt when his stomach growled again.
Natalie burned the image into her head, but hoped with Satan’s supervision, she wasn’t burning the spaghetti.
“Get out of the way,” Satan muttered halfheartedly when he caught his breath, pushing at Natalie’s body. She nodded, sliding to the left and settling back by the stove.
“Look better?”
He frowned at her, but there was no sting to it. Natalie smiled.
“I’ll take that as a job well done.”
“Stop talking, girl. You’ll ruin the mood,” Satan groaned, turning off the stove and running his hand through his hair. His face was still red, his ears drooping. Even after reaching out and using Natalie’s spoon to stir the spaghetti a little more, she couldn’t help but lean forward and kiss him. It lingered a moment until she pulled away.
“I wanted to do that the most!”
Satan shook his head, but pulled her close. “Next time not so slowly. I almost fell asleep.”
Natalie grinned against his neck.
“Next time?”
Even the Devil could lose himself in spaghetti sometimes. Natalie McAllister knew that the best.
