Hi again bestie 🖤🖤 since you mentioned the horror fics, that's the snippet you're getting this time!!! This is from the demon!tom fic but it's not necessarily him that the reader meets first, there's a pretty big clue as to who it is though...
Still, you were somewhat curious enough about this boy you had never seen before around campus, that you felt no need to signal to Pansy and her deadly shoes. And so you offered him a slightly shy smile, eyes rolling playfully as you quipped. “My saviour.”
His grin widened. Expression terribly amused, though you weren’t sure why, before he threw his head back and laughed. Sharp and surprised, like you’d unexpectedly delighted him.
It was as confusing as it was endearing.
"Now that’s something I don’t get called often.” He told you, eyes twinkling, whilst he made himself comfortable resting his side against the counter. Your hook still tucked into the crook of his arm alongside his own.
“So you don’t sweep in heroically on just any girl who can’t open her own drink then?”
“Nah, not really my style.” He smirked, reaching out once more, this time to grasp a stray lock of hair that had managed to escape the cursed bonnet. You swatted at him when he tugged them gently. “I’m just forced to make exceptions when the girl is as pretty as you.”
You couldn’t help yourself.
“Yikes. That was terrible, you should be ashamed.” You deadpanned. Trying fiercely not to let your cheeks apple with a silly grin and almost choking on the sip of cherryade you’d taken to prevent it when the boy decided to slap a hand across his heart, as if your light-hearted mockery had mortally wounded him. “No, really, you might want to reconsider the saviour thing if this is your style.”
His eyes shone a fraction brighter, head tilted. “You’re a lot meaner than you look, you know that?”
You scoffed, the sound of it bright and bursting out of your throat, the laughter that followed it uncontainable.
“Why? Just because I’m having to regrettably tell you that your lines are possibly the scariest thing about this party.”
"And yet you’re still here.” He winked, a triumphant grin pulling at his lips that infuriatingly only made him that much more attractive.
Somewhere from deeper within the house, you could hear the music change from Thriller to Heads Will Roll as he took a glass from the cupboard above your head. The leather of his glove flexing when he curled his hand around an open bottle of whiskey on the counter and poured himself a drink before asking.
“What’s your name anyway? I should know it for when I write in my diary later all about the pretty girl who fell for me despite my horrifying lines.”
Your brows rose at that and you had to press the back of your hand to your mouth to stifle an incredulous bark of laughter as you spluttered. “Is that so?”
“Absolutely.” He hummed, his coy smile barely visible behind his glass as he raised the whiskey to his lips. I’ve already planned what glitter pen I’m going to use to draw hearts around it with.”
Hi guys!! I was wondering if you might know some fics similar to Uxor Lucifera by LittleMulattoKitten or some other Demon Mate AUs? Thank you so much 🖤
Hey Anon,
Okay this just became a list. -JD
Demon Tom
Uxor Lucifera by LittleMulattoKitten
E/Ma | WIP | 16k
“Listen, mate,” she started. “I don’t know who the fuck you are, or how the fuck you got into my flat, but you’ve got about two seconds to make your way through that door-” she pointed at the door she’d just entered through “-before I call the cops. After dealing with my cunt of a boss and Cormac and his creepy arsehole friends, I’ve had just about enough bullshite for one night, thanks. He’s being carted off to the hospital hopefully, go rob him.”
Tomione. Smut. Demon Mate AU.
Unholy Trinity by Aneiria
E/Ma | One Shot | 4k
She told herself she had no choice.
No choice but to submit herself, mind, body and soul, to the two demons before her.
She did it to save her two best friends, after all.
But standing at the gates of Hell, she wonders if it was all really worth it...
What do you call a bad man? by Cassiopeia13
E/Ma | One Shot | 8k
Tom Marvolo Riddle is a bored aristocrat, who comes back to Britain to inherit his late father's fortune. During tidying up the book collection, he befriends a certain bookstore assistant, who proves to be a very intriguing little thing.
Demon Lord by WildKitsune
E/Ma | Complete | 6k
Hermione gets captured by the Death Eaters and is about to be sacrificed to summon their Demon Lord. Too bad for him that is exactly where she wants to be, they may not survive.
The Witching Hour by Spork_in_the_Road
E/Ma | One Shot | 12k
“It’s not haunted,” Harry said for the fifteenth time in the past ten minutes alone. “There are no such thing as ghosts.”
“Then prove it.” Draco Malfoy, the bane of Harry’s existence, smirked at them. “One night in Riddle Manor and you’ll change your mind.”
On a petty dare from Draco Malfoy, the Golden Trio agree to spend the night in the old, abandoned Riddle Manor. Whoever can last the longest in the supposedly haunted house without chickening out wins. Hermione doesn’t believe in ghosts, but as the night goes on, she can’t shake the feeling that there’s more to the Riddle family’s deaths than there seems, nor can she escape the feeling of being watched.
The non-magic, modern day, college AU nobody asked for
the best bad girls go to hell by Sighned_Anonymous
E/Ma | One Shot | 10k
Hermione Lovelace, aged 16, experiences her very first Walpurgis Night as a virgin offering.
Fallen by Nekositting
E/Ma | One Shot | 10k
“I will never agree to your terms, whatever they might be. There is nothing that you possess that I could ever want. Not if it comes at the price of my own purity.”
Voldemort released her and stepped away, his eyes never wavering from hers as she spoke.
Then, he smiled. It was thin, close-lipped. His eyes slanted and shrewd.
“Let us both hope for your sake then, Hermione, that that is not the case.”
Demonic Stake by WildKitsune
E/Ma | Complete | 15k
Hermione makes a bet with one of her students on the first day of class. Now she is dragged into a world of demonic intrigue and the best sex of her life. Will she find a way to free herself, or will she end up as Hell's newest queen?
Diabolus Est Cormeum by summersaults16
T+ | One Shot | 4k
Already on his deathbed, Hermione finds out the truth about her grandfather’s past and the price she must pay when the Devil himself pays her a visit. “I am called by many names. To most, I might be known as Satan, while others call me Lucifer, but for now…. You can just call me Tom.”
summary: tom, the king of hell, has no time for love or any woman in his life. he spends his days finding new punishments for the people who deserve it. you spend your days in heaven making everyone happy, never wanting a soul to feel down. what happens when heaven decides to send you down to join tom in hell? why would they send their best angel to the devil himself?
black like his soul by t-holland2080
summary: tom knows it’s wrong to be in love with a human, but he can’t help it when he meets you; he also can’t help his beastly transformation every night. after months of building up a friendship with you, will he come clean about his true form or will he continue to let sunset dictate his life?
cereal & demons by fancyxholland
summary: maybe opposites do attract after all.
garden by astronomyparkers
halo effect by angelic-holland
summary: y/n just wants to save her little sister. what happens when a handsome stranger promises her so much more?
heavenly yours by tomsrebeleyebrow
summary: angels live in a perfect world. in a complete ivory tower. but loving someone else is forbidden. a true sin.
love of my life by hollandroos
summary: there are 365 days in a year and you’re lucky enough to see your love on one of those days. at least they called it lucky – you called it a curse but hey, sometimes you have to learn the hard way about falling in love with demons.
the king by sadchappuccino
summary: y/n is an angel fallen to the gates of hell.
» chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
unholy divinity by imel (ao3)
summary: choosing to spend your eternity in heaven or hell should be easy, right? yeah, not so much.
Y/N just wants to save her little sister. What happens when a handsome stranger promises her so much more?
“I was too busy noticing all of the intricate ways in which the house at 11 Blackthorne Road seemed to collapse in on itself, that I failed to notice the horns peeking through your messy brown curls.”
Word Count: 11.2k
Warnings: mentions of cancer, supernatural elements, demons, hints at a possible mental illness/delusions, talk of death, open ending (take that as you will), psychological horror/thriller (I guess), mild smut
Author’s Note: i deleted this because I adapted it into a play but if people from irl find me here... welcome to my sins!
October 31st, 2019
Your hands shook as you kneeled in the dirt of the road, digging a hole big enough for the small wooden box in your hands. You double check the contents. A polaroid picture of you and your sister, before she got sick, you were pushing her on a swing, her mouth was wide and mid-laugh and you had the brightest smile on your face. A small mason jar full of dirt from the graveyard. A yarrow root. And the bone from a black cat. It took finding the creepiest small ‘remedy’ shop in Salem, but when you told the woman what you were looking for, she was able to sell it to you for a hefty sum. That price didn’t matter. What you would get from this was priceless.
You look around you, the crossroads incredibly obvious, four roads that all met together, all dirt. The city never bothered to pave them, the only thing down one road was a big farmhouse, a run down bar along the other, the road back into the main town of Salem, and then there was your road. Sort of. The dirt road that led to 11 Blackthorne Road. Your house. It was old, built in the 1800s and you swore the entire foundation moved when more than two people were inside the house, but it was yours. You and your sisters. You smile slightly before you bury the wooden box, standing up. You don’t know how long this would take. Almost everything you read about summonings told you that they appeared in an instant. You check your watch, it was a little past three in the morning, the witching hour, the time at which you were most likely to summon one. The moon was high above you and reflects off the glass of your watch. You look around, feeling a slight breeze that sends a shiver down your spine and goosebumps up your arms.
You jump when you see him, his beauty takes your breath away. That definitely should not be the first thing you notice about him. It should be the way that his eyes seem to glow red before quickly disappearing to reveal a light brown. You notice the freckles and a little divot in his chin, the way his nose was just slightly crooked.
“Are you-, you’re-,” you stutter out, eyes roaming the body of the man standing in front of you. He’s wearing dress pants, a matching dark blue suit jacket, a fitted white shirt, shiny black and blue shoes. His hair is nicely done, dark brown curls brushed back out of his face, and his head is tilted to the side. It’s as if he enjoys watching your reaction to him.
“Who else would I be? Who did you summon?” He takes a step towards you.
You take a step back, stumbling over the pile of dirt you created. He catches you before you can fall, one hand on your back, the other holding your hand as he pulls you back up. You feel heat rise to your cheeks as he steps back again.
“You’re the, you’re a crossroads demon?” you ask, raising an eyebrow. He didn’t look like a crossroads demon. From what you’ve read online and in the books they were terrifying. Glowing red eyes and a hideous demeanor. This man, if you could call someone who looked so young, a man, is almost ethereal.
“The one and only,” he holds his arms out and laughs slightly, shaking his head, “not really the one and only, but the one you summoned.”
“Well how would you- did I choose you? How do you decide who gets to, you know, show up?”
You have so many questions, so many curiosities that you almost forgot the reason you summoned him in the first place.
“So you can grant wishes?” You ask, watching as he chuckles.
“I’m not exactly a genie. But I can give you something you want, it will cost you.”
“How much?”
“Your soul,” he answers with a shrug, this was nonchalant for him, a business deal of sorts.
“My soul?” You take a sharp inhale, logically, you knew that was what it would cost. Everyone said it. Everyone that agreed to their deal lost their soul after a specified amount of time. That was how this worked, to get something you had to give them something in return. But none of what you read really had much proof. They could very well have been ramblings of crazy people, much like so many centuries ago people accused ordinary women of being witches in your very own hometown.
“Your soul, not now, no, you can enjoy your soul for, how about one year?”
“Only one?” you nibble on your bottom lip, thinking about how little time one year seemed to you. That is, until you remember that one year for your sister was a lifetime, it was a shot in the dark, something that seemed impossible. Until now. Until a demon was standing in front of you, agreeing to give you anything you could possibly want for something that seemed incredibly trivial in return. You were never quite sure what a soul was. There were lots of conflicting philosophies regarding souls, consciousness, the afterlife. You felt that a soul was only a small part of what made you who you were. Surely your brain and heart were much more important than something without a physical representation within your body.
“I mean, I could just go,” the man begins to turn and you throw your hands out.
“Wait, no, one year, I’ll take it, please don’t go,” you sound desperate, but that was because you were, there was no hiding that. It was 3 in the morning, and you stood, shivering under the pale moonlight, begging someone that shouldn’t exist to take your soul in exchange for something. And it wasn’t just anything. It wasn’t something selfish like so many deals you read about. People sold their souls for money, for power, for fame. Apparently five of the United States presidents only won because they sold their soul for the pleasure of working at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Saving your sister in exchange for you soul wasn’t selfish, right? You aren’t saving her for you, not completely. You want to give her years and years of a life she never got to live.
He pauses, tucking his bottom lip between his teeth, raising an eyebrow before nodding, “Now, I’ve got your soul, in a years time, what is it that you want?”
“My sister, she has Ewing sarcoma, a type of cancer and she’s dying. All the chemotherapy, the radiation, it stopped helping since the cancer spread to her lungs and brain. There’s no-,” you suck in a sharp breath, hope. There’s absolutely no hope, except for him. He was the last ditch option that you thought was a scary story kids told each other. That is, until he showed up and promised to give you something in exchange for your soul.
You don’t notice the way his brain seems to go elsewhere as if he’s looking for something while you ramble. You don’t notice the way his eyebrows turn in and his lips turn down ever so slightly as you continue to talk.
“So we stopped treatment, she relaxes at home now. But she’s in pain, I know she is. She keeps telling me that it’s okay, that she’d rather spend her last few days reading at the little blue cushioned window seat but I know she’d rather have a lifetime of doing that. She deserves a lifetime of that. I want to give her a lifetime of that.”
“So that’s what you want? You want your sister to be healed? No more cancer?” He asks, watching the way you tap your fingers against your thigh, partially hidden by your thick wool sweater sleeves. You are tapping out a tune, a song you would sing to your sister while she was going through chemotherapy years ago.
“Yes, she’s dying. I want you to save her.”
“And what do you need?”
“My sister! I told you! She’s dying. That’s what I need. I need you to save her.”
“You want that. And I will save her. She’s a done deal. But that’s what you want. What do you need?”
“I don’t understand,” you shake your head. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. Maybe you were dreaming and he was actually an angel, a sign telling you that everything would work itself out. That you didn’t need to sell your soul to a demon to make sure your sister was okay. Maybe a new treatment would come out tomorrow and this deal would be for nothing.
“There has to be something you’ve always needed, maybe you were too busy giving everything to your sister to take anything for yourself.”
“I mean,” you pause, shaking your head, “no, this is stupid, I don’t need that.”
“What is it?” the man implores. You don’t step back when he takes a step towards you.
“Love. I mean, I’ve never gotten the chance to do much since my sister got sick at such a young age. It’s dumb right? To want a boyfriend, or something, while my sister is sick? I’m so fucking selfish,” you sigh, rubbing the back of your neck self-consciously.
“Quite the contrary, you’ve taken care of her for so long, you never got the chance to take care of yourself.”
He smiles but his eyes are sad, deep bags under them, he looks exhausted. You wonder if demons slept.
“I guess so.”
“So that’s what you need?” the man asks.
You nod, glancing back up at him, “what’s your name? How does this contract work?”
You have too many questions. You want to invite the man back to your house for coffee and stay up until morning finding out everything you could about him. It is as if you were on a first date.
“I’m Tom,” the man says, holding a hand out, you stare at it for a moment.
“Is that how you seal the deal?” You ask.
Tom laughs, shaking his head, “no, not at all.”
“Then how do you-,”
“A kiss.”
“A kiss?” You raise an eyebrow as he puts his hand back in his pocket.
“Or I could go,” Tom begins to take a step back. You follow him.
“No! Let’s kiss, and then it’s done? My sister won’t be sick and I’ll-,”
“You’ll find love, that’s correct.”
“Okay,” you’re only an inch away from Tom now. He cups your chin, bringing your lips to his. Your eyes flutter shut before you can see the way his eyes glow red and his other hand rests against your hip. It’s warm above your wool sweater and there’s a pain that sparks up your side, seemingly wrapping around your ribs, gently scraping against them.
“Ah,” you cry out as Tom’s lips leave yours.
“It’s the contract, etched into your ribs, an unbreakable bond,” he holds you as the pain begins to subside in one side before sparking up the other.
And then he kisses you again. It distracts you from the hollow feeling inside each of your newly carved ribs. It distracts you from the fact that you just sold your soul to him. Your hands find the back of his head, one holding his lips against yours, the other running through his curls.
“It’s done,” he breathes out as he pulls away.
“Did you want to meet my sister?”
He nods, his fingers slipping easily into the space between your own, “lead the way.”
“You know, I still don’t think you’re real,” you flush as the sleeve of your sweater brushes against his watch.
“You just kissed me, didn’t you?”
“I’ve kissed people in my dreams before.”
“This isn’t a dream.”
“How can I be sure?” you quicken your pace down the dirt road, passing trees with dark red and orange leaves, they seem to turn in on themselves as you walked past. You can only focus on the way the moonlight reflected off of To’s shoes. You pass your mailbox, running your fingers along the chipped paint, over the wooden curves, over the indented ‘11’ of 11 Blackthorne Road.
“Tomorrow morning, you’ll know. Your sister, she’s going to wake up and she won’t feel any pain. She won’t lie about it either, she’ll have the brightest smile on her face.”
“How can I trust you?” you ask, he doesn’t need to know that you already trust him. That he has already given you so much in that one instant with his lips on your own than you could ever give him in return. You forget for a moment that you gave him something priceless as well. You handed over one of the most important parts of yourself without thinking twice about the implications of what you’ve done. A year was a long time. You have 365 days with Lexi that you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.
“When you realize your sister is okay, that she can do things you wouldn’t have ever dreamed she would be able to do before, that’s when you know you can trust me.”
You walk up the four steps to your porch, your hand digging into your pocket to grab the key that would unlock your door. You know Lexi is asleep, so you tell Tom to be quiet. You freeze in your spot when you noticed that the doorknob was on the left. It was odd because the door always swung open to the left, the doorknob has always been on the right. You squeeze your eyes shut for a moment, maybe the man who appeared out of nowhere at the crossroads was a sign that you were dreaming. Why else would the door change like that?
When you open them, the doorknob is on the right, and the door swings open to the left. The foundation doesn’t move when you and Tom walk inside.
All is well at 11 Blackthorne Road.
You and Tom sit at your kitchen table, two mismatched seats on opposite ends of this old rickety table that was at the house when you moved in. His chair is a light blue metal one, yours a dark brown wooden one, three of the five back slats missing. You watch as he wraps his hands around the warm mug, he waits for you to speak as your foot taps against the white tile.
Eventually the silence is too much for him. No matter how many centuries he spent in hell, deafening silence as he was tortured, learning how to make deals, drowning out the quiet with his own tormented screams, this is somehow worse.
You have so many thoughts, so many things you want to say, to ask, but you can’t seem to think of a single one at the moment. You can’t form the questions on your lips.
“How long has your sister been sick?”
The question takes you by surprise, the genuine curiosity in the way his voice raised at the end of the statement. You figured demons were all knowing beings. They could grant wishes that otherwise weren’t physically possible. They could perform better miracles than the Catholic church. But Tom sits here and looks genuinely interested in learning more about you.
“She’s had cancer for a little over eight years. At first it was just Ewing Sarcoma, she noticed it one time, we were on the playground, she was 8, I was pushing her on the swingset and asked a mom who was playing with her little boy to take a picture of us. I just told Lexi a joke, I can’t remember what it was now, but she was laughing so hard when the mom took the photo of us. On the bad days, when she’s in so much pain she can hardly get out of bed, I try to imagine her like that. A little kid, happy, laughing, without a care in the world. But after the woman handed me the polaroid camera, Lexi stood up. She felt this horrible, horrible pain shoot up her leg. I took her right to the hospital. Our parents met us there. The next day she was diagnosed. They started her on chemotherapy, radiation, a whole medicine cabinet worth of drugs. She was in and out of the hospital for so long. One day she looked at me, the cancer spread to her lungs, her brain, she said ‘y/n, I don’t want to live out the rest of my life in a hospital bed. Take me home, let me enjoy the little time I have left.’ So I did, and we’ve been here ever since.”
You watch Tom’s eyes wander along the wall behind you, watching as the moon slowly crept along the horribly ugly wallpaper. It illuminates different parts of it, like a never ending tapestry, it appears to tell a story. When it shone on the curve of the darkened yellow, it is a bulging throat, full of unspoken words dying to get out. As the night progresses the moon shines on the part where the dark yellow drew in. The words came easier and easier and the throat is cleared.
As the sun replaces the moon you hear Lexi’s footsteps come padding down the stairs. Her cup of peppermint tea waiting for her in between you and Tom. You count the steps as she comes down. Thirteen.
“Lexi! There’s someone I’d like you to meet!” You call out to her.
She isn’t out of breath as she enters the kitchen like she normally is.
“Good morning,” she smiles brightly, raising an eyebrow at the unexpected guest sitting opposite of you.
“This is Tom, he’s a friend of mine.”
“Well hi Tom, friend of y/n,” Lexi smiles, picking up her mug.
“How do you feel?” You sit up, glancing at Tom excitedly.
“Great actually, I don’t have a headache, my leg doesn’t hurt. I think I’m going to open the window and listen to the robins sing while I read,” she smiles as she walks past you and you ruffle her hair.
She slips out of the kitchen and makes her way to the living room. You turn back to Tom, a wide smile on your face as a tear slips down your cheek.
“She’s really okay?”
He nods, his gaze still caught on the wallpaper an inch above and to the left of your head.
“And so are you,” he responds.
“I don’t know how to thank you.”
He shakes his head and chuckles, it bounces off the walls and echoes around his empty mug, he taps his ribcage. You’re reminded that he isn’t a doctor or a miracle worker. He isn’t an angel or a god. He is a demon and you sold him your soul for this. You would’ve gladly done it all over again.
You hear Lexi quietly reading her book, humming along to the song the robins sang.
You tell Tom you have to head into work later, at the Salem witch museum, the job you’ve had since high school.
“Is it alright if I head into town with you? Maybe pick up some clothes?”
“You want to stay?” You ask, face lifting up into a smile as Tom nods.
“If you’ll have me.”
“Sure, there’s this great thrift shop next to my work that has all types of clothes, you’d probably fit in best around here if you wore something other than that fancy outfit.”
“Business deals require business casual,” Tom stands up. And you remember that this was business as usual for him. Maybe he is just going to stay the night, to make sure you didn’t try to turn back on your deal. Maybe he’d be gone before the moonlight could force more words out of the ugly yellow and bloated throats that rise and fall on the wallpaper.
“Right, I uh, I’ll show you where the store is, and Lexi can let you in since you’ll be back before I’m out of work. I’ve only got one key.”
You change and Tom sits on the thirteenth step, feet tapping against the floor until he hears you coming down the stairs.
“Bye Lexi! I’ll be back by dinner time!” You call out to your sister and she calls back, she tells you she loves you and you call out a quick love you before locking the door behind you and Tom.
Your hand slips easily into Tom’s. It was as if your fingers were hand carved and crafted to fit between the space of his own. You point out different parts of town as you walk towards it. Even as the wind and cold bite your skin, he keeps you warm. Just his gentle hand in your own keep a fire burning low in your stomach. When you get to Main Street you point out the thrift shop, Tom squeezes your hand once before slipping inside. You smile, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear before opening the door to the museum.
“Hi Sally,” you wave at your boss who’s sitting at the information desk. You’re about to walk towards the employee room when she stops you.
“Y/N, I didn’t expect you to be here today. You can take the next few weeks off, I uh, I should’ve called you, I’m sorry. Why don’t you see about coming back on November 15th?”
“I’m here though, I can work, I uh, I’m okay to work.”
“It’s okay honey, really, go home, rest.”
“Okay? I guess I’ll see you on November 15th.”
“And if you need more time that’s okay as well,” Sally rests her hand on your shoulder but it feels cold. You nod, walking backwards out of the door and meet Tom inside the thrift shop.
“I thought you were working?” He asks, a bundle of winter clothes in his arms.
“I forgot I took some vacation time off the next two weeks,” you shrug, “I have such a scatterbrain sometimes when I’m running around trying to take care of Lexi.”
The weeks passed and the other shoe never dropped. Lexi’s left leg no longer ached, her migraines that used to keep her in bed all day were gone. You go back to work on November 15th like you told Sally you would. She greets you with a warm hug and Jeremy, the boy who you went to high school with, smiles when you sit down at the information desk with him.
“How are you?” He asks.
“I’m good, how was your Halloween?” You strike up casual conversation, never quite finding it easy to talk to Jeremy during the dull time in between visitors.
“Pretty good, how was yours? I mean, nevermind,” Jeremy shakes his head, looking disappointed in himself for asking. Before you can ask what he means, a family walks in.
You greet them, they ask you different questions about the Salem Witch Trials. They are visiting from Wisconsin and are really into the haunted history of your town. You walk with them throughout the exhibits, falling into the easy routine of telling the history of the trials, pointing out different artistic depictions of the time period. It felt easy, you’ve been giving the same speeches for over seven years now.
When you get home that night you fix up Lexi’s favorite sandwich, turkey and cheese on wheat bread. You set it down next to her, she hums and thanks you. She hasn’t quite gotten her appetite back. You figure it was only a matter of time before she did though. She’d beg you for apple cider donuts and you’d have to fight the box away from her before she ate them all and made herself sick.
And Tom stays. You didn’t think he would. But he did. He didn’t quite explain himself, but you didn’t mind. You want him to be here. He likes to ask you questions. While Lexi was too busy buried in her book, sitting up against the frosted glass window, Tom talks to you at the kitchen table. He sits in the blue metal chair. You sit in the wooden one. Just the other day it was missing 3 slats. You stand up and looked at the chair, counting the slats and the holes where the slats should have rested.
One.
Two.
Three.
There are only three slats total, two missing. You sit down again, maybe you aren’t looking at it right, you feel one slat against your back so you close your eyes and sit so your back doesn’t touch the wood. Your thigh almost falls off the chair, it has to have been smaller than the last time you sat in it.
“I said have you always lived in Salem?” Tom asks, distracting you from the way you felt like the edges of the table were closer together than they were when you sat down.
“Yeah, I uh, yes, we have,” you nod. Your fingers tap against the wood of the table. It feels hollow.
***
Tom doesn’t sleep. You figure as much when he would keep you up very late asking you all sorts of questions. You’d lay on your side of the bed, the homey indent felt safe. He found a spot next to you, and slowly, as slowly as the frost hardened the grass and snow began to fall from the sky, his side of the bed became indented as well.
The next morning you wake up, your head finds his chest and his hand finds your shoulder. He presses a burning kiss to your forehead, you appreciate the gesture at 11 Blackthorne Road, for it has no heating and as December is drawing to a close, you are getting colder and colder.
“You don’t sleep do you?”
“Hmmm?” Tom asks as you sit up, swinging your feet off the edge of the bed and standing up. You pause as you listen to the fifth floorboard creak underneath you.
“Do you sleep?”
Tom stands up. The floorboard under him doesn’t make a sound.
“No,” he begins to get dressed for the day, you didn’t care for an explanation. It all seems routine now, he would change in the bathroom, you would change in the bedroom. Then you’d knock and join him to brush your teeth. The bathroom is always twelve steps to the left of your bedroom. Today you only took eight. When you see Tom smiling widely at you, toothpaste and all, you convince yourself you just took bigger steps to get to him quicker.
He kisses your cheek, leaving a toothpaste stain which you wipe off with a grimace. You playfully scold him until he wraps his hands around your waist and sets his chin on your shoulder.
“You look really pretty when you frown darling,” he kisses your cheek again.
“I feel like I look better when I’m smiling,” you begin to brush your teeth as Tom smiles against the skin of your neck.
“You always look great,” he shrugs. You can’t help but wonder if the mirror in front of you is smaller than when you walked in.
***
You’ve never had a better Christmas than this one. Honestly, the last good Christmas you can recall was when you were 15 years old. It was the last Christmas before Lexi was diagnosed. It was the last Christmas you spent with your mom, your dad, and her in your small apartment above the laundromat on Main Street. Every Christmas since then was spent in a hospital room or here, alone, with Lexi too sick to get out of bed. She is in somewhat of a bad mood, but you convince yourself that with a cup of peppermint tea she will be feeling better.
Tom laughs and pokes your side as you pour a glass of eggnog for you and him, “maybe she’s finally going through the angsty teen rebellion era now that she’s better.”
That shouldn’t make you smile as big as it does, you couldn’t help but break out into laughter as you bring the glasses down the hallway towards the living room. You laugh so loud you almost don’t count the 28 steps it should take you to get there. You freeze at the door, it only took 20 steps.
You shake it off when you hear Lexi’s gentle hum from the windowsill.
“Could I get some more tea?” she asks, sticking out her empty mug.
You look at it, bright yellow bumblebees painted along the old white ceramic.
“Sure let me grab you a new mug and I can wash this one later-,”
“No!” Lexi snaps at you as you take the mug from her hand.
“What is it?” You ask, raising an eyebrow at your sister. She crosses her arms over her chest and huffs out a sigh.
“I don’t want a different mug.”
“You can use mine, the one with black cats on it, I’ll wash this after we open presents and-,”
Then Lexi does something you’ve never seen her do. She stands up and she gets angry.
She’s been angry plenty of times before. Angry at the world for giving her cancer, angry at a God she didn’t know if she believed in, angry at the snow that fell that one December five years ago, obscuring your parent’s vision on their drive to the hospital and taking them away. But she’s never been angry at you.
“I don’t want another mug! I can’t have another mug!” She screams, eyebrows knitted together as she almost dares you to do anything but decide to walk the 28 steps to the kitchen and wash her mug.
“Why don’t you and Tom relax while I go clean this then? Tell him about the different ornaments on the tree,” your voice shakes as Lexi rolls her eyes but sits down on one side of the tree.
Tom gives you a gentle smile before sitting down next to Lexi. You smile back, watching as he asks her about the witch sitting atop the tree in lieu of an angel.
You count only 17 steps to the kitchen. You walk to the sink as tears blur your vision. You know this is Lexi acting out, acting like the teenager she never previously got the chance to be. It still stung that she is as cold as the winter. It sends an uneasy shiver down your spine, you clean her mug, smiling at the bumblebees, three of them painted in light yellow and a strikingly contrast black.
When you get back to the living room she smiles when you hand her the mug. But then she is upset when you try to give her a present, it’s just a book. An old copy of The Awakening that you found at the thrift store a few days ago.
“I don’t want the Awakening! I like reading Frankenstein! Can’t I just read Frankenstein?”
“Of course! You can read Frankenstein! You can read whatever you want, I was just giving you something you might like.”
“Well I don’t want it.”
“Okay,” you set the book down by your side, she doesn’t even touch it.
You were never one for getting gifts, she doesn’t get you anything. She doesn’t have to. She gives you her time, she gives you warm smiles and humming by the window even though it is all too cold. She gives you a purpose in life. What use would a silly Christmas gift be?
Tom gives you a beautiful satin black nightgown. You almost cry when you take it out of the bag and run your hands across the material.
“It’s beautiful,” you smile through teary eyes. You don’t expect the reaction from Lexi that you get.
“So now all of a sudden you want presents?” She crosses her arms over her chest.
You take a deep breath before looking out the window. You notice that no matter how wide and expansive it once was, it was now no bigger than a normal size window. You see the snow falling on the ground. You wish you and Lexi could make snow angels. A gentle squeeze on your hip from Tom and a snide comment from Lexi brings you back to reality.
“What does he give you that’s so special? Do you love him more than me?” She stands up and you drop the nightgown, standing to chase after her.
“No! Enjoy Christmas with Tom, he clearly means more to you,” Lexi storms out of the room, slamming the door behind her. There is only six floorboards where there should be nine.
You don’t drink any eggnog and Lexi’s peppermint tea gets cold.
Tom carries you up the stairs, your head tucked into his neck, the nightgown clutched in your hands.
Because you aren’t walking up the steps, you don’t notice that there are only twelve instead of thirteen stairs.
That night you don’t do anything routine. He doesn’t change in the bathroom, you don’t kiss his cheek with a toothpaste smile.
Instead you cry while he helps you change. And he calls you beautiful even while you have tears running down your cheeks and the moon reflects the redness in your eyes. He feels that they almost glow red like his own. There is something deeply intimate in the gentle touch of his hands on your skin, taking your sweater off, unzipping and pulling down your pants. He is a gentleman, keeping his eyes on your face the entire time, kissing your forehead as he stands back up. He helps you hold your hands up and pull the nightgown on, kissing the palm of your hand to your inner elbow. Every touch sets your skin on fire. It distracts you from the aching in your ribs.
“I’m scared Tom,” you whisper.
“Why darling?” He asks as he pulls the covers over the two of you, letting you rest your head on his shoulder and a leg over his own. It isn’t needed, he keeps you so warm there is a fire that burns incredibly deep inside of you, you can’t help but feel terrified that maybe it is filling your lungs with smoke. But even so, you would gladly let him.
You cry into Tom’s shoulder, “I think something’s wrong with Lexi.”
“And why do you think that?”
“Because, I feel like she’s changed.”
“Changed how?”
“Her personality. Like she’s harsher and she gets very angry easily. I don’t know, she’s different.”
You can’t help but notice the change that blanketed over 11 Blackthorne Road and its occupants. The way that there isn’t the right number of floorboards or the way Lexi snaps at you, the way the mirror is smaller than when you first moved in or the way you allow yourself to cry for the first time in years, and the way the window seems to draw smaller and smaller each day or the way the newest occupant never seems to move the foundation of the house.
“I know you think she’s different, but she’s 16 right?” Tom asks and you nod.
“Darling, like I said earlier, maybe she’s just being a moody teenager, I wouldn’t think anything of it.”
Tom presses a burning kiss to your forehead and you fall asleep in his arms in your new nightgown. You almost don’t notice the way that you have to huddle close to Tom because the bed is getting smaller and smaller.
***
As the snow melts and the trees begin to perk up with beautiful green leaves, Lexi seems to be happier. At the very least she is eating. She insists on making her own meals, she always ate at the window before you wake up or when you are at work, but you notice the dishes from her food piled in the sink. She even makes grocery lists for you. You ask her if she wants to go with you one day. It is April, it’s been about two weeks since it last snowed.
You are standing at the sink, making small talk about an upcoming exhibit with Tom. You’re washing the dishes, he is drying them.
“Why?” Lexi crosses her arms over her chest and even though you aren’t looking, you know she is rolling her eyes.
“Just thought it would be nice for you to get out of the house, but if you don’t want to, you don’t have to. Are you feeling okay?” You turn, nervous now. Maybe she is starting to feel sick again. Maybe she would feel another pain in her leg and you’d go to the hospital and the doctors would sit you both down and say ‘I know you thought you were cancer free Lexi, but cancer has a funny way of showing up at the most inconvenient of times’. You glance at Tom wearily, he rests the dish towel on his shoulder and moves a gentle hand to your waist.
“I don’t feel up to it today,” Lexi shrugs.
“Okay, anything else to add to the list?” You dry your hands on the dish towel, setting it back on Tom’s shoulder.
“Could you pick up those apples? Not the green ones, the like almost yellow ones?”
“Of course,” you nod and are taken aback when she hugs you, arms wrapped tight around you. You smile until you feel how cold and skinny she is, you pull back, “Why don’t you put on a sweater and close the window before you go back? You’re freezing.”
You hurry Tom along at the grocery store, afraid if you take too long and if you leave Lexi alone at 11 Blackthorne Road for much longer that she will sink into the blue window seat and never be seen again.
***
It is July and you take Tom to see the fireworks down at Salem Willows. You ask Lexi to come with you, but she shakes her head and says the noise would give her a headache. She blows up on you.
“Can you stop trying to get me to do things?” Lexi crosses her arms over her chest.
“I just miss all the fun things we used to do together Lex, don’t you? If you’re better now, why can’t you come with us?” You feel tears in your eyes.
“Just let me go when I’m ready! It’s not up to you if I feel up to going places! Why don’t you just forget about me and run off with Tom? You hardly pay attention to me anymore anyways.”
Lexi has to know that that wasn’t true. That you spend every single day waiting for the other shoe to drop, that you are terrified of this change that has crept inside of Lexi’s heart and makes her cold.
But you don’t want to argue with her. You will gladly let her yell at you now if it means that at some point in the future she would get the courage to go outside. See the fireworks, walk around town, visit you at work, go apple picking.
Tom guides you out of the house, you only count three stairs down the front porch. He keeps walking too quickly for you to stop and count them again.
Tom holds your hand as you walk through town, thumb rubbing soothing circles into the skin as you say hello to various people in town.
“It’s so nice to see you y/n,” your old high school English teacher hugs you, pulling back to smile at Tom, “and who might this charming young man be?”
“Name’s Tom miss, I’m y/n’s boyfriend,” he smiles as he slips his hand back into yours.
The word feels amazing coming from his lips, and spread a huge grin on your own as you lay out the blanket. Tom kisses you under the fireworks, his hand rests on your ribcage over your tank top, you cup his face, fingers brushing over his freckles.
You walk back home with your head on Tom’s shoulder, your hands intertwined and swinging between you. You don’t notice as you walk up two steps to the front door instead of four.
***
The leaves are beginning to change colors again, from crisp green to soft reds and oranges. People flock to the town of Salem at this time of year, the museum was always busy with tourists wanting to learn all about the Salem Witch Trials. It keeps you busy. You are starting to enjoy the times you aren’t at 11 Blackthorne Road. When you walk through the exhibits of the museum, telling people all about the history of your town. When Tom and you walk hand in hand to the grocery store, he likes to kiss you in line at the check out, one hand on your hip, the other gently curled around your side, gliding up your ribs. You look forward to your grocery store trips.
When you walk home later that night, after a particularly long shift, Tom is sitting in the kitchen, you can smell peppermint tea and you shiver as you slip your shoes off by the front door. You pass the living room door, pausing when you notice the window is open. Lexi is probably going to catch a cold if she is sitting at the window the entire day, the cold air isn’t good for her. You tsk, attempting to rub warmth back into your arms as you count the floorboards to the window seat.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
There is supposed to be nine. You furrow your eyebrows, shaking your head as you shut and lock the window. You promptly turn and count the floorboards as you walk back to the door.
Nine floorboards. You exhale as you walk to the kitchen. Tom is sitting on the wooden chair, you sit down opposite him in the blue metal one.
“How was work?” Tom asks, taking a sip of his tea.
“Not bad, very busy, all these kids wanted to know if the Bloody Mary myth was true, I had to explain to them that it wasn’t. They kept asking me if all of this paranormal stuff was real, ghosts, demons, I had to bite my tongue,” you let out a laugh as Tom reaches his hand across the table and traces a line in your palm.
“Probably not the best idea to tell them that demons are real,” he smiles, biting his lip.
“Yeah, then they’d try to steal you away from me.”
“Never,” Tom trails his fingers up to the crease of your inner elbow and gently taps at the skin.
“Want to get ready for bed?”
“Sure, let’s go darling,” Tom rests a hand on your hip and follows you up the stairs. You don’t realize there are only twelve instead of thirteen steps.
You both brush your teeth in the bathroom, and he places a toothpaste covered kiss on your cheek, which you groan at and wipe off. You return the favor before rinsing your mouth out and making your way back to your bedroom.
You change into your nightgown, the black satin one Tom got you for Christmas almost a year ago. You have a warm smile on your face as Tom opens the door and walks towards the end of the bed, the moonlight casting a shadow across his face. It doesn’t scare you when you can’t see him fully and completely, it only brings a warmth to your belly when he stands right in front of the bed, the moon shining high above his head now.
“You keep saying that I’d find love Tom, but love was right in front of me this entire time,” you watch as he gets closer and closer to you.
You sit back against the headboard. You ignore the way it seems to warp against your body. You ignore the way his shadow on the far left wall is inverted and shorter than it should be. Or maybe it’s the wall that’s shorter? You scan the green wallpaper, the very top corner curling in on itself, shrinking.
“You love me?” He asks, kneeling at the edge of the bed. Your legs are stretched out in front of you, his knees almost touching your toes.
“I mean, I didn’t want to admit it for a long time, but you were the person I found love in. Is that such a bad thing?”
Tom smiles and shakes his head. “No, because I love you too.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“No actually, after you said your sister was better, I figured I could leave. I would let you fall in love with that nice boy who works at the museum with you. He’s had a crush on you since high school you know?”
Heat rises to your cheeks and you shake your head. You have no idea Jeremy even gives you the light of day. But he doesn’t matter. You love Tom. You love the way the moonlight curled around the side of his face, whispering up his jaw, across his cheek bone, trailing up his hair to rest gently above his head. It stands out against the green wallpaper, Tom’s biceps standing out against his white T-shirt, for a moment you swear the moonlight turns into a ring and sits atop his head like a halo. You gasp as his warm hands gently run up your legs and he settles between them.
“I love you too, I love you because of your selflessness. I love you because you let me into your life, a big scary demon, and you accepted me for that. You didn’t love me because of that. You didn’t love me despite that. You loved me as a completely separate entity from the worst quality I have that I can’t get rid of. You are the first person I’ve met in centuries of deals that has ever made me feel anything at all.”
“Tom,” you feel tears well up in your eyes as you sit up. The headboard stays warped and you cup his cheeks in your hand, bringing his lips to your own.
“I love you because I can’t picture spending eternity anywhere but right next to you, on top of these blue sheets, making peppermint tea and eating apple cider donuts,” he admits when he pulls back slightly.
“I love you Tom,” you smile, focusing on his eyes instead of the way the wallpaper continues to curl in on itself, then the wall, slowly the door is closer to the bed than it should be. The moon reflects off the very top of the door instead of the corner of the room. He helps you lie back on the pillow. The headboard is smooth again.
“May I?” He asks, running his hand up your thigh, watching as you shiver beneath him.
“Please,” you nod, his fingers brush against the edge of your black nightgown.
He pushes the satin material up past your waist, kissing across the skin of your thigh, passing your underwear, trailing soothing kisses along the skin of your stomach, his chin lightly pressed against the top of your panties.
“You’re beautiful,” he mumbles and you whimper as his fingers inch higher and higher, hooking into your underwear, “may I?”
You nod, giving him permission with a breathy moan.
Tom can’t help but notice how bittersweet you taste.
You can only focus on one curl brushing down in front of his eyes, and the way one of his hands tightens on your thighs, leaving fingerprint bruises as you cry out his name. You are gasping for air when he brings you to completion. You are utterly overwhelmed by the feeling of his fingers inside of you and the way the moon reflects over the white door to your room.
But that isn’t where the moon should be. You glance over at your clock as Tom kisses up your body. It is 3am. The moon should be right in front of you, staring back at you. You close your eyes as Tom’s lips press against yours. You feel his fingers brush against your ribcage and you whimper as you remember the contract etched into your bones.
“Do you want me to stop?” His lips wet and red against your neck.
“No, please, I need your love Tom,” you feel hot wet tears on your cheeks and then his burning kisses taking them away.
“You have it,” he whispers, kissing you as you run your hands under his shirt, across his stomach to rest against his beating heart.
He sits up, helping you take his shirt off. His skin seems to be on fire, blotches of red patches stain his chest, you stare in awe as he helps you take your nightgown off.
“You’re so beautiful darling,” Tom whispers as he presses a kiss to your forehead.
He takes off his sweatpants and underwear and when you wrap your legs around his waist and he fills you so completely, you swear you feel the edge of the bed creep up against your shoulder. You have to close your eyes as he buries his face in your neck because you’re afraid if you keep them open the bed will be reduced to something so small neither of you will fit. And you don’t want this moment to end because 11 Blackthorne Road decides to grow smaller in the most inconvenient way.
So you keep your eyes squeezed shut. And you don’t notice the hazy red glow of Tom’s eyes. You don’t notice the way the upper corner of the wallpaper curls away from the wall, revealing the old stained wood and insulation. You don’t notice the way the back legs of the bed scrape against the twelfth floorboard instead of the eighth. You don’t notice that the floorboards get thinner and thinner, that even though they seemed to multiply, the room continues to shrink.
You gasp into his mouth as you come, his hand seems to curl against your side, almost past your skin, past the muscle, like his fingers whisper against the bone, tracing the words he put there what seemed like so long ago.
You’re cold after everything. You thought Tom would’ve set your insides on fire like he always does, and he did, from the time his lips attached to your own and his hands ran up your sides. He reached inside of you with red wispy tendrils of fire. You are still cold. His arms are tight around your bare middle, but you are freezing cold.
You both clean up, he lets you wear his grey sweatpants after you pull the covers over both of you and you are still shivering in just your nightgown. Then you take that off and change into a sweater. When you open the closet to grab it, you falter for a moment. Your hand collides with solid wood where the doorknob should be. The doorknob is always on the right. The door swings open to the left. But now the doorknob is on the left. You close your eyes. You think of Tom’s fingers whispering hidden universes into your sides and his lips breathing beautiful smoke into your lungs. You allow the fire to settle in your stomach. You open your eyes and the doorknob is exactly where it should have always been. The door swings open to the left. You pull your sweater on and climb back into the homey indent your body made, curling up next to Tom. You rest a head on his bare chest and he maneuvers an arm around your shoulder.
All is well at 11 Blackthorne Road.
****
October 31st, 2020
You wake up with your head resting on Tom’s chest, it is peaceful, the sun shines in through the dull green curtains, illuminating the freckles and bumps and grooves in his skin. He is lying awake, his mind elsewhere until you speak.
“You know, sometimes I think you’re really an angel,” you smile into Tom’s bare chest as he runs a hand up and down your arm.
“Why’s that?”
“You gave me everything I could have ever wanted. You gave my sister the miracle of remission. You gave me love. Besides, I read about it. Demons are only supposed to give someone one thing in their deal. I’ve read about deals between humans and demons they’ve documented. None of them are given more than one thing in their deal. Tangible or otherwise.”
“What makes you think I gave you anything else?”
“What?” You sit up, pushing your back against the headboard and staring down at Tom. He rests his hand under his head and raises an eyebrow at you.
You feel a warp in your headboard that wasn’t there a moment ago. The wood seems to bend to the shape of your body and you pull away from it, standing up and scrambling to grab your bathrobe, pulling it over your suddenly all too cold body.
“What is it?” Tom asks, running his hand along the bedspread, the indent where you were just laying.
“What do you mean by that?” You ask, stepping back, the floorboard is supposed to creak here, it always did when you stepped on it. The house is all too eerily quiet. You step forward, not because you want to go back towards Tom, but because you need to hear the tiny squeak that the floorboard always makes. It is the 5th floorboard that makes that noise.
There’s a sharp pain in your ribs as you stumble back, “what’s happening?”
“I couldn’t tell you,” Tom’s voice is laced with pain as he sits up and the bed groans.
“Couldn’t tell me what?” Tears sting your eyes as Tom stands up. You glance at his side of the bed. The headboard isn’t warped. There’s no homey indent in the soft blue sheets. He takes a step towards the end of the bed, towards you. The eighth floorboard squeaks. Or is it the seventh? Your eyes wander to the faded green wallpaper, scanning to the baseboard running along the bottom of the wall. You count the floorboards with bated breath.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
Tom is standing on the eighth floorboard.
When you first inherited the house, after your parents died and you and Lexi packed up your things and moved to this old plot of land that belonged to your mom’s family for centuries, you felt like this room was the largest room in the entire house.
It has a huge lovely window opposite the door, dusty green curtains that to this day, no matter how many times you washed them, still collected dust easier than it reasonably should have. You should have known though. Nothing in this house is reasonable. Not even yourself.
Now the window seems to be hardly the size of a piece of paper. You could barely look out of it. You notice how the curtains would make a lovely scarf.
The dark oak floorboards were wide and ran horizontally from the window to the door.
Nine.
Ten.
Eleven.
Twelve.
Thirteen.
Fourteen.
Fifteen.
The floorboards seem to get thinner and thinner. Even as you counted them, a watchful eye inspecting their change down to the millimeter. They are sneaky. But they shrink anyway.
Tom shifts his weight from one foot to the other. The 8th floorboard creaks again.
It doesn’t make sense, it is your side of the bed that has the creaky floorboards. And it isn’t the 8th, it is the 5th, it was always the 5th. You close your eyes and take a deep breath. On the exhale you shift your weight and the floorboard under you creaks
Your eyes dart to the baseboard and you begin to count again.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
You look at the floorboards underneath your feet, just as wide as when you dragged this old bed up here years ago. The fifth floorboard creaks underneath you.
“Y/N, what’s going on?” Tom’s eyes are nothing but full of concern as he joins you on the fifth floorboard, resting his hands on your shoulders so he could look you in the eyes.
“What couldn’t you tell me Tom?” Your voice raises as your hands shake at your sides.
“The last good day,” he breathes out, as if saying that lifted this incredible weight off his shoulders.
“What do you mean? Come on, don’t talk like that, just say what you mean to say.”
“Your sister, her last good day. October 29th, 2019.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It was her last good day. She sat on the window seat, it was still worn down and indented from how often she would sit in it. She drank peppermint tea and read Frankenstien. It was an old copy, one you found at a bookstore on Main Street when she begged you for new books to read during chemotherapy. She’s had to have read that book hundreds of times. It was one of the only books she read.”
“Stop, Tom, what are you saying?”
Tom just smiles sadly and continues, “You went to give her her pain medication, she just smiled at you and said she didn’t need it. That she wasn’t in pain. She said that maybe later that day the two of you could go apple picking. You laughed, it seemed like a ridiculous request, she hasn’t walked without a walker or stepped foot outside of the house in over a year. She wanted to go apple picking? And then she looked at you and shook her head, she said that ‘today, y/n, I can do anything I want.’ You ruffled her hair, and she scowled but she secretly loved it. You agreed with her, said that you could drink apple cider and eat apple cider donuts, that maybe you couldn’t pick the apples, but the apples could come to you instead. Then you told her you were going to run to the store, you needed to pick up those groceries. She said she loved you, and you said ‘love you too Lex’.”
“Tom, stop,” your lower lip trembles as bits and pieces of that day come flashing through your mind.
You remember a skip in your step as you walked back to the house, a bag of apples in one hand, in the other were a box of apple cider donuts and a half gallon of apple cider. You were going to be sick of apples after that day, but you didn’t mind because Lexi wanted apples. You remember the way the police sirens signaled to you the end of the world. You remember the way the red and blue ambulance lights reflected against the trees lining the dirt road up to your house. You remember dropping the apples, stumbling over them and crushing one underneath your foot. You remember dropping the apple cider and donuts, the cider splashed against your pant leg as you took off in a sprint towards your house.
You remember the noise you made, the high pitched scream as your knees collapsed beneath you and they told you she was gone.
“Lexi,” you gasp, pulling away from Tom’s hold and running out of the room, you run down the hallway, it seems to narrow, the area where the staircase was is now a small pin in the distance. You keep running. You’re out of breath by the time you get to the stairs. You count them as you gasp for air.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
Nine.
Ten.
Eleven.
Twelve.
You stumble and fall to the wooden floor, there is supposed to be a thirteenth stair. There has always been a thirteenth stair.
Tom’s footsteps tumble down the stairs behind you as you struggle to stand up.
“Y/N, please, wait!” Tom shouts as you run towards the living room. You run right past the door. It’s supposed to be here, you stop and turn, face to face with the light yellow wallpaper that wraps around the hallway down towards the kitchen.
You take two steps back, why is the door here now? Tom watches your confusion. Is the house getting smaller? Each pass down the hallway the living room door seems to inch closer and closer to the front door.
You throw the door open, eyes landing on the empty blue window seat. The soft indent where Lexi usually sat is no longer worn down, you run to it, almost colliding with it. It should be nine floorboards away from you but it is only six. You fall to the ground as your fingers grasp at the soft material of the seat.
“You only gave me one thing,” you gasp for air, trying to smell the familiar scent that seems to seep into the walls of 11 Blackthorne Road. Peppermint tea. Golden apples.
“I couldn’t have given you what you wanted,” Tom says, kneeling down next to you.
You feel tears drip down your cheeks as you remember.
You signed your sister’s body over to the medical examiner, Lexi always insisted her body be donated for science when she died. You had to give her what she wanted. You almost didn’t sleep that night, you curled up on the blue window seat with her Frankenstein book. That very next morning, you woke up to a gentle nudge on your shoulder.
“That’s my seat,” Lexi smiles at you, snatching the book from your hands.
“I couldn’t give you Lexi’s remission. She was gone when you decided to summon me.”
“You’re lying,” You shake your head, “that was a nightmare, the next morning she was there, she took the book from my hands and sat back down in her seat. She asked me for her pain medications and her peppermint tea. I knew I had to help her, help her more than I ever had. And I did! I found you! You made her better! You took away her pain!”
“Where is she now? If she’s alive where is she now?” Tom asks, he’s pleading with you.
“She’s gone for a walk, she wanted to, she wanted to go apple picking. You know what? She’ll be back soon, I should make her some tea before she gets back,” you brush Tom’s hands off your shoulders and stand up. There’s an indent where Lexi sat. You busy yourself counting the steps towards the kitchen. There should be twenty eight. Exactly. You catch yourself before you can almost walk right out the back door. You turn and walk back to where the living room door is. Then you walk towards the kitchen again. Sixteen steps to the entrance. You don’t have time to recount, you know what 11 Blackthorne Road is doing by now. You know it is closing in on you. But you don’t have time to fret. Lexi would be back soon. You have to get her tea started.
You turn on the stove, setting the kettle on top of the flame. You step one foot to the left to grab the peppermint tea from its spot in the cabinet, you tilt your head because the cabinet isn’t there anymore and take a half a foot to the right. Was the cabinet always this skinny? It seems to stretch upwards for a mile, you have to reach up on your tiptoes to grab the box. It is empty.
“Tom! I’m going to run to the store to pick up some peppermint tea, turn the stove off when the water finishes boiling!”
You count twenty eight steps to the living room door. You slip off your bathrobe and hang it on the staircase, slipping into your shoes. You tug at your wool sweater, the sleeves hung at the tips of your fingers and as you shut the door to 11 Blackthorne Road behind you you have to wrap your arms tightly around yourself. The autumn breeze nips at your skin as you kick a rock down the old dirt road. You pass the crossroads where you met Tom all that time ago. You continue walking as goosebumps rise on your skin. You buy three boxes of peppermint tea. It’s best to stock up, that way you won’t have to leave Lexi alone too often. The woman ringing you out smiles sadly as you tell her your sister is out apple picking and you are going to make her a nice warm cup of tea for when she comes home. You kick the same rock back down the dirt road. You pay attention to that rather than the billowing smoke rising up from 11 Blackthorne Road. You look up, red embers reflected in your irises.
Tom stands amongst the flames, hand outstretched, beckoning, inviting.
You drop the paper bag from your hand.
You watch as the house gets smaller, the wooden shingles of the roof burn, the wispy green curtains seem to evaporate, the porch steps engulfed in flames, fire whispering up the sides of Tom’s dark blue dress pants.
You run your hand along the wood of the mailbox, fingers tracing the ‘11’ of 11 Blackthorne Road. A jagged piece catches your thumb, tearing the skin. You watch the blood drip onto the dirt in front of you.
You notice there are only two steps up to the porch. You squeeze your eyes shut and think of the flames that Tom’s fingertips always seemed to draw out from your ribs. You think of the way his lips felt on your own. You think of the hazy red glow in his eyes that you ignored. You think of the moonlight shining over his head, etching along the green wallpaper of your bedroom as he showed you how much he loves you. You think of the words that tumbled easily from your mouth and the bulging throats of the yellow wallpaper of your kitchen. You think of how much you love him, the curl of his fingers against your ribs, the gentle brush of his lips against your skin, the soft brown curls that always managed to fall into his eyes so you could brush them away, the toothpaste kiss he would press to your cheek. You open your eyes again. There are four steps leading up to Tom, like there always were.
How easy would it be to slip your fingers into the space between Tom’s. How incredibly easy would it be to let him press a burning kiss to your forehead. How terribly easy would it be to collapse in on yourself as the house at 11 Blackthorne Road collapsed in on you.
All is well at 11 Blackthorne Road.
***
Tagging people who liked my post about this: @kickingn-ames // @littlekidsteve // @parker-holland-osterfield // @rebekkah4766 // @mysmileyspideyboi // @beelzebubsgirl666 // @sexytholland // @definitely-not-black-cat // @goofycactusbear // @truly-y0urs // @bombing-daisies // @hollandcreep // @bi-infinity
A/N: Wow I’m actually writing!!! What a concept!!! Anyways I had a random stroke of inspiration so i’m riding it as hard as I can before it fades again. As I’ve said before, this series is in a non-linear order, and intended to be able to be read as one shots instead of a progressive series!! However, feel free to go through the koh!tom masterlist (linked below) to read some of the other parts I’ve written. If you liked this part, please let me know! And don’t worry, I have more parts coming. I’ve already started another part (that may or may not contain some smut 👀) and then I have another part (about an event that’s been mentioned in a couple different parts) coming after that!! Do you guys like this non-linear one shot style of fic??? I’m finding it works better for me because I don’t feel committed to a progressive storyline, and it’s easier for me to write parts while also working and going to school full time!! Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy this, and I can’t wait to hear from y’all!
{koh!tom masterlist}
{masterlist}
The rose on the pillow next to you had become a familiar sight. Although the appearances of the flowers had surprised you at first, you now expected them to be the first thing you saw when you opened your eyes. A small smile tugged at your lips as you picked the flower up, inhaling its sweet scent as you threw back your blankets and got out of bed. You carried the flower to the vase on your vanity, tucking it in with the roses from previous days. They were all wilting from the atmosphere of hell, but with a light breath from you, they began to perk up again. You fixed a few petals before sitting down at your vanity and touching your hair.
Morning tea was already sitting in front of you, as it was every day. You poured yourself a cup and added some cream and sugar, taking a small sip of the hot liquid. Although your first few weeks in hell had been rocky, you were beginning to adjust.
Well, adjust might be a strong word. At the very least, you were beginning to learn how to act and what to do there. You still ached for the surface, and for the fresh air that every angel craved, but you were no longer in fear for your life every moment of the day. Now that you had been there for a few weeks—maybe even a month—you were almost entirely sure that tonight’s dinner menu wouldn’t include you.
You had even grown used to the king of hell. Tom was a fearful thing to behold, but you stood your ground whenever he was around, and he no longer tried to test you. Of course, he did have requirements for you, but they weren’t the worst things in the world.
Once you finished your tea, you dressed and made your way down to the dining hall, where one of the requirements was waiting for you. Although you had originally taken all your meals alone, Tom requested your presence at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The first time he asked this of you, you had been terrified. However, now you knew that it typically meant eating in silence while occasionally catching his gaze when you looked up. His stare was always intense and purposeful, and while it was originally a source of anxiety, you now thought he stared at you in curiosity.
That breakfast was no different. A servant pulled out your chair, allowing you to sit across from Tom. A glass of water was poured for you, along with another cup of tea. Tom raised his own glass to you, a dark liquid in it that you couldn’t identify. Instead of dwelling on the question of what he drank, you simply raised your own glass in a quiet greeting before taking a sip.
Breakfast was brought out on gold platters and set down in front of each of you. Tom had finally begun to provide for your preferred diet, so your breakfasts mainly consisted of eggs and toast, as well as a bowl of fruit that, despite appearing to be fresh, had a slightly strange taste to it that came with being in such an unnatural place. Tom’s breakfast, in contrast, was much like his other meals: dark with a large piece of protein, usually steak, and various sides.
Throughout breakfast, you could feel his eyes on you, watching your every move. You ignored it as always, taking small bites of your food. However, when your plate was almost cleared, the usual routine began to change.
Tom cleared his throat after a sip of his drink. “Did you sleep well?”
You looked up in surprise, turning and glancing around before looking back at him. You were certain he wasn’t talking to you, but there was no one else around. “Are you talking to me?”
“Aye.” He nodded tersely, his voice low. “Who else is here?”
“I just—I didn’t think you’d ask me something like that. Or ask me anything at all.” You shrugged a bit.
“Well, I am.” His voice had a tinge of annoyance in it. “Did you?”
“Sleep well?” You clarified. When he nodded again, you mimicked the action. “I…slept as well as I could, given the circumstances.”
“Given the circumstances.” He repeated. “And the circumstances are…?”
“That I’m in hell?” You didn’t mean to sound like you were asking a question, but you couldn’t keep the confusion out of your voice. “It’s not exactly a comfortable place for an angel.”
“I’ve given you a place of comfort, angel.” Tom took another bite of his steak. “A comfortable room, a bed, the freedom to roam—”
“But I’m not supposed to be here. This place, it….” You shivered as you thought about it. “It’s rejecting me. The sulfur in the air burns my nose when I breathe in, and it irritates my skin when it’s exposed to it. There’s no light, no fresh air…it leaves me feeling sick.”
Tom picked at his food, silent for a moment. “I see.”
More silence followed. You waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t, so you did it for him.
“Does that surprise you?” You asked, taking a bite of your eggs.
“I suppose not. I just hadn’t…considered the atmosphere here for you.” He looked down. “Are you in pain?”
If you were surprised before, you were just plain shocked now. “Does that matter to you?”
“Answer the question.”
“Answer mine.” You retorted. “The night I was dragged down here, you threatened to pluck the feathers of my wings one by one. Now you’re asking if I’m in pain? Do you want me to say yes?”
“I want you to be honest with me.” Tom muttered. “Are you in pain?”
“I…” You contemplated the responses you could give. If you said yes, would you be able to convince him to send you home? Did he have enough humanity left in his monstrous soul? “It’s…manageable.”
Tom said nothing more, and neither did you. When breakfast finished, he excused you like every other day, and you left the dining hall, taking refuge in the library like usual.
However, the usual patterns broke once again when lunch was brought to you in the library. A servant brought in a tray laden with drinks and a salad, along with a few biscuits and butter. You looked at the tray with confusion. “Does the king not require me in the dining hall for lunch?”
“The king is currently indisposed.” The servant replied, setting the tray down on a small table. “He asks that you’ll excuse him until dinner tonight.”
“He asks, does he?” You couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped you. “Since when does he ask me for permission?”
The servant straightened up. Some servants had grown fond of you, while others didn’t take too kindly to waiting on an angel. This one appeared to fall into the latter category. “It’s a figure of speech…miss.”
“Oh.” You felt a chill run through the room, despite the lit hearth behind you. “I see.”
“Please be sure that you’re on time to dinner tonight.” The servant bowed their head again and left quickly.
After lunch, you continued reading until the late afternoon before retiring back to your room to get ready for dinner. You dressed in a long dress that you found hanging on your closet door, assuming that Tom wanted you to wear it. It was a midnight blue colour, with a sheer overlay over the bodice and skirt. You added no jewelry, only wearing the bracelet on your wrist that Tom had slipped on you when you arrived. It was impossible to take off, and kept you from summoning your angel blade. You touched it, lost in thought before the chime of the clock brought you back to reality. You pinned your hair back from your face quickly before going down to dinner.
Dinner was always more formal than breakfast, even when it was just the two of you. Despite the strangeness of the day, that night was no exception. The chandeliers were dimmed, and candles lined the table to compensate. As usual, there was a goblet of wine next to your water. You had tried to refuse it the first few nights, but the next night, you found it next to your plate again. Finally, you stopped arguing, and simply left it alone.
Tom was already sitting at the head of the table, drinking out of his own goblet. Normally, you would wait until he acknowledged you, but it was an abnormal sort of day.
“Hello.” You said softly after you sat, your hands clasping together in your lap.
Tom set down his goblet, licking his lips as he looked you over. “Hello, angel. Did you have a relaxing day?”
“It was the same as usual.” You replied. “I read in the library. I took my lunch there.” You ran a finger over the silverware next to your plate. “You were absent from lunch today.”
“Aye, I was.” Tom nodded, his face closing off. “I had business to attend to.”
“Oh.” You looked down when he failed to elaborate more. “What sort of business—?”
“The kind that doesn’t concern you.” He cut you off, giving you a long look.
You restrained yourself from giving another remark, simply waiting for the servants to bring in dinner. You started with an appetizer of salad, followed by a pasta dish for dinner. Finally, they brought in a delicate looking chocolate cake for dessert, portioned and plated for each of you individually.
That was when Tom chose to raise his voice. “I have something for you.”
You paused with your fork in the air, ready to take a bite of the cake. “You do?”
He nodded, wiping his mouth and standing up from his seat. He walked over to you, setting down a box wrapped in black paper in front of you. He then returned to his seat, taking a sip of his wine.
You looked down at the box, touching the matte paper before looking back at him. “What is it?”
“Open it.” He muttered, his eyes on his plate as he picked up his fork.
“Is something going to jump out at me?” You asked, your voice uneasy.
The corner of Tom’s mouth twitched, but just barely. “No. Just open it.”
You lifted the lid off the box, and the scent of the contents hit you before you could see them. The smell of the fresh flowers and herbs mixed together, filling your senses as you inhaled deeply for the first time in weeks, finally without pain. “What is this for?”
“Burn the flowers and herbs in your bedroom’s fireplace to help with the smell.” Tom explained. He watched you intently, gauging your reactions. “There’s more.”
You lifted out the flowers carefully before your fingers touched something smooth. You pulled out a crystal bowl, opening the lid slowly. Inside was a white cream that seemed to sparkle in the candlelight with the freshest scent you’d encountered in hell.
“It’s a sort of…balm.” Tom sipped his drink. “You said the sulfur was bothering your skin. Applying this twice a day should help stop that.”
“Where…” You dipped your fingers into the cream, and the subtle stinging of your skin immediately went away. “Where did you get all of this?”
“Had it made.” Tom shrugged casually, but his voice grew a tone softer. “That’s what I was doing today, when I was absent for lunch.”
“You had it made…just for me?” You replaced the crystal lid on the bowl. “But…why?”
He shrugged again, but this time, he seemed more embarrassed. It was a new feeling for him. “I…I thought you’d like it. You do, don’t you? Like it, I mean.”
His voice was nervous now, which was new for him as well. He hated how eager he was for you to say yes, but didn’t hate it so much that he could stop himself from wanting your approval.
You nodded slowly. “Yes, I do like it. It’s a very considerate gift.”
Tom hummed as he took a sip of his drink, but you could still decipher the corner of his mouth lifting into a satisfied smile.
You packed up your gifts and placed the lid back on the box carefully. “Thank you. Truly.”
Tom just hummed again as he continued to eat his dessert.
You, however, just stared at him with a puzzled gaze. You had never heard of a demon, let alone the king of hell, doing anything to make an angel comfortable. Giving you a chamber to sleep and a rose every day in was one thing, but gifts like this? Gifts to keep you more comfortable here? That was unthinkable. You couldn’t figure out his motive behind the move.
Once dessert was cleared away, Tom reached into his suit jacket pocket and pulled out a cigar, lighting it quickly. “You’re excused from dinner.”
Normally, when he said that, you hurried away, but tonight…something drew you to remain sitting. “Would it be alright if I stayed?”
Tom pulled the cigar out of his mouth; it was his turn to be puzzled. “You want to stay?”
You gave a small nod. “If that’s alright with you.”
“It—it is.” He cleared his throat. “Yes. I would…like that.”
“Alright.” You took another sip of your drink, silence filling the space between you two once again. You were beginning to realize, however, that the silence wasn’t one of not knowing what to say. It was more…comfortable. And comforting.
With another glance at you, Tom exhaled cigar smoke in the opposite direction.
Summary: Who would’ve assumed that heavens little angel was the king of hells soulmate?
Words: 5.4k
Warnings: Violence, some indications of past abuse.
Collaboration with another author but she deleted, so I took to editing it and changing a few concepts so bare with me!
THIS CHAPTER WAS EDITED / PARTS WERE REWRITTEN AND REPOSTED ON 15/06/2019
This entire chapter is dedicated to @sithskywalkers ok
The castle was vast, with hidden corridors that led to more rooms then you assumed you’d be able to count on both hands and feet – and yes, even if Hell, if you explored far enough you’d reach bone-chilling cold.
That was probably why Tom didn’t go down there much. That, or the fact that no one dared to provoke him. People were far too afraid to taunt the king, wallowing in their fears of one day getting on his bad side from their assigned spots in the underworld.
But now, Tom stared down at the two fallen angels who looked scared out of their minds. Good. His heavy footsteps had woken them from a deep, most likely uncomfortable sleep against the concrete flooring and pulled them up abruptly, wings stiff and standing in a defensive stance. Though there was no point, they had no power down here.
“This can go one of two ways.” He begins, refusing to look the two petrified angels in the eyes. “You can tell me what I want to know and leave with your wings still attached to your flesh, or you can stick to your confidential bullshit and remain down here with the rats and let me tell you… they haven’t been fed in a very, very long time.”
The words slip from Toms' mouth with such ease. He could’ve gone on if he really wanted too, but Tom was already agitated enough and impatient as it was. He wanted answers and he wanted them the second you had arrived. Now, it had been three days and he was still as clueless as before.
The angels tremble in fear, lips wobbling as the demon paces.
One swallows, his blonde hair stuck to a sweaty forehead. “What do you want to know?”
“I want information about a certain angel and I want to know everything that you know. Don’t hold back, because I surely won’t if I decide you’re dragging this out.” Tom clicks his tongue, wanting to escape the eary cold. “Y/N Y/L/N, tell me about her.” The angles freeze, trembling halting and their eyes widen. Tom smirks to himself. “You know something and I want to know what, then you can go.”
“We can’t–”
Tom seethes, his eyes growing a sick shade of grey – damn near black. “Heaven didn’t want you, they spat you out and expected me to kill you, to rip the feathers off of your back and make you beg for mercy. But instead, I took you in, fed you and provided you shelter. I didn’t do so much as touch a hair on your neck. Do you really think that if you keep your mouths shut they’ll come running back because you proved your loyalty? They don’t want you.” Tom was being truthful and he watches carefully, seeing their faces shift. “Now, tell me and you can go. It’s as easy as that.”
They share glances, cold fingers forming clenched fists. Tom knows that he’s got his way – in fact, he had no doubt in his mind that he’d get his way the second he marched down concrete steps.
With parted lips, the angel speaks. “We don’t know much but they were always scared of her.”
Tom interrupts, “Who’s they?”
“The council.” They reply hastily, wanting to get back to the homes they had been provided. For a moment there’s silence. The beating of their hearts can be heard over the eary nothingness. “They would keep her isolated, exclude her from things and just make sure she never felt like she was a part of anything. We were never told why but… they made sure we never got too close.”
Tom didn’t blame them for wanting to leave. This floor was cold and dreary. Every sound could be heard from the halls across and maybe Tom had heard the rats scurry across the floor just a couple minutes ago. He resists the urge to shudder.
Checking for any sign that they’re lying or holding anything back, Tom decides that he can’t find anything and groans – but it comes out as more of a low growl. Sharp teeth pierce the skin of his lip, drawing blood.
“What else?” He demands, knowing there must be something.
The one that was yet to speak opens his mouth and Tom leans forward, waiting intently. “She was engaged for a bit but he wasn’t very nice, a right asshole if I’m being honest.” The angel looks down, his cheeks tinting red. You were never allowed to swear in Heaven, but Hell was another story. Glancing up, he looks at Tom for a split second before glancing back down at the floor. “Is she here?” He hesitates.
Tom nods his head once, a stern look on his face as the angels await an answer.
“She is.” Tapping an impatient foot on the rocky floor, Tom clicks his tongue once. “Is there anything else you’re not telling me?”
“Be careful… with her, I mean.” The dark-haired angel– whose name Tom hadn’t bothered to learn swallows sharply, choking on his own words. “For whatever reason, the council didn’t want her to escape and they always kept her under lock and key but I swear – that’s all we know. W-we were never allowed to ask.”
Tom grunts, finding out that he didn’t know much more about you then before. He wanted to know about every moment of your life in Heaven. From the size of the house you lived in and what your favourite breakfast item was – the one you’d rush to every morning without fail He was itching to know about whether or not you had a pet, like a dog or a dove and if you named them.
But he did learn that you had a fiance. And one he wanted to meet, at that.
The stupid prophecy had him wrapped around your finger. Some kind of soulmate shit that made him screw his face up. Now he saw what Harrison was talking about.
-
You move around the dark hallways, your ragged wings moving behind you. Shadowing your every step. They were healing slowly, but they were still sensitive to the touch. You were never used to using your wings much anyway, giving them the ability to heal slowly and at their own pace.
Everything was dark and a thin layer of dust lined the single window you managed to find. It was somber, really, or at least this part of the castle was. Everything else you’d seen had been done to perfection – walls painted dark hues without a dent in sight and there wasn’t a speck of dirt to be found on the floorboards. For the king of the underworld, Tom surely kept his kingdom tidey. Even the way he held himself was spotless. There was never a single crease adorning his raven suit.
You’d learnt by now that he never wore colours besides black, grey and red. And that he always had his hair styled. The curls were mostly always slicked back.
Your eyes catch the fire burning on the candles that line the walls, creating an orange shadow all the way down the hall. Continuing your journey, your fingers run through the flames much like they had the other day. You enjoy the warmth, feeling that familiar rush of power rush through you.
It’s addictive.
The feeling can only be described as the one a child gets when going down a slide of the first time, a comical smile taking over their features as their arms fly over their heads. Or even the moment you take your first bite into a Cadbury's bar and feel the smooth, milk chocolate melt against your tongue.
The feeling floods your veins and you let it. Slowly but surely, you were starting to feel less like the weakling Heaven had made you out to be. Transitioning from the person they had turned you into and more like a member of the King's palace – even if it was only a temporary stay.
"What the hell do you think you’re doing?"
The source of the voice lets out a growl behind you and your wings stiffen, the pain as a result of the fall making a sharp ache run through your spine as they stand in a defensive stance and you turn around, almost knocking the candle down as you move hastily.
That wasn't Tom, no. His voice was softer – at least when he spoke to you. Just two days ago he’d spoken with ease from his place at the dinner table, politely offering you what foods he had. You had been shocked to find that your mouth hadn’t burst into flames upon taking your first bite.
This person's voice wasn’t like Toms. Instead, his dripped with venom and hatred, sounding as putrid as nails on a chalkboard and before coming to Hell, you hadn’t known what to expect when it came to demons. You had relied on stories and teachings, but truth be told there wasn’t exactly a clear way to prepare yourself – and there was never a reason to up until now.
Demons weren’t all the same. Just like humans and angels, their eye colours ranged from brown, blue and green. Only switching to a bloody red or raven black when they feel threatened or exasperated. Demons had hair much like humans and angels too. But their wings were definitely hard to miss. When they were out, the things seemed to loom over your head engulfing you in a dark shadow – the charcoal feathers standing threateningly close to your form.
Demons, much like angels, could blend in with humans and no one would think twice.
“I’m exploring,” You reply, taking a careful step back as to keep your distance from the stranger whose teeth bared, greasy hair slick and stuck to his scalp.
“Angels aren’t meant to explore here.” He speaks bitterly. “Angels aren’t even supposed to get past the front gates, let alone explore inside the castle.”
You stand politely, hands intertwined at the front and muster up the courage to speak. “The king let me, he said I could go wherever while he had some business to attend to.”
“Bullshit.” He snarls. You grimace, feeling warm spit hit your cheeks. “I thought angels weren’t meant to lie.”
Shaking your head, you feel your patience wearing thin. “I told you, Tom told me–”
Upon hearing his King's first name slip past your lips – a major sign of disrespect, the demons fists clench. Still, the only thing that overcame the shock he was feeling was the pure excitement for whatever reward was to come for finding the angel.
“Tom? You have a death wish.” He tells you, the corners of his lips curling up wickedly. As he reaches for your arm, you step back, only just escaping his grasp. But sharp nails make contact with your skin, just scratching the surface.
“I wouldn’t touch her if I were you.” Harrison snarls the last word, eyes flicking to a threatening shade of black. “The king wouldn’t like that.”
The demon ignores the fact that this was his king's right-hand man and chuckles darkly. “The King wouldn’t like an angel being nosey around his castle. Believe me, mate, I’m doing him a favour.”
Harrison didn’t like being spoken back to. In fact, he hated it.
The entire time this was going down, you were backing away slowly until your back hit the wall with a thud, earning the attention of both Harrison and the demon. But neither cared to look over as their dangerous gazes linger on one another.
“Crickey, mate, you just don’t want to listen to you?” He replies with grit teeth and anger coursing through his veins. But he was a demon, he always had anger racing through his veins at a wicked pace. It was anger that he could turn to power. And power he could use to ruin this son of a bitch.
All the right-hand man has to do is tilt his head for the demon with slick black wings, smaller then other demons you’d seen to be gasping for breath, hands wrapping around his neck as he tries to release an imaginary grasp. But nothing was happening – at least not for you, because the demon continues to kick and wince and screw his eyes shut in shock in pain.
“Let me go, what the fuck!” He wheezes, face turning a deadly shade of red as the air is pulled from his lungs.
Your throat runs dry as you attempt to form a proper sentence for the first time since stepping into that hallway. And there’s nothing. Nothing but racing thoughts running through your head. As much as this guy made you uncomfortable, you didn’t want someone to die.
That was the angel in you, the part that wanted everything to be good and pure and serene. But there’s nothing good about this as the life slips away from the male ahead of you – and Harrison's wild smirk grows. No one was going to die today – at least not because of you.
“Enough!” You boom, voice echoing down the hall. It’s the loudest you can muster and luckily, it gains the men's attention just fine.
Though, you must’ve done something else because in an instant the creature that’d been up against the wall, gasping and flailing as if his life depended on it… which it had, is now on the floor in a ball of pure fear. He’d been thrown, but Harrison hadn’t done anything. In fact, the king's friend turns and gives you a curious look and all you do is try and sink back into the wall.
“Please, enough.” You let out a breath, looking down at your feet instead of into the demon's eyes. “Let’s just forget about this, can we?”
Glancing down at the cradled form again, Harrison nods his head. Only this time the man doesn’t begin gasping for breath. This time, he scrambles to his feet after one single word slips from Harrison's lips. The word is go – and boy does he go. He races down the hall, still struggling to regain his breath but sprinting for his life nonetheless.
There’s nothing left but the distant pitter patter of desperate feet as you turn to the other demon and you intake sharply, feeling your hands quiver.
“I’m Harrison.” He says once the other man is out of sight. The boy was acting normal, as if he hadn’t just cut off another demons air supply and even hesitates before extending a hand, offering to shake yours.
“Y/N.” You reply, feeling your name slip so easily. You take his hand, smaller one clasped tightly in his.
“I know who you – ouch, fuck.” He hisses, retracting his hand at such a speed you jump back slightly. “Tom was right, you’re hot. I mean your hand is… it’s hot.”
You watch your hand, clenching your fists. The heat burns but only for a second before it’s bearable. For you, at least. “Is that normal?”
Harrison shakes his head, “Nothing about you is normal to me, you’re an angel to begin with but this…” He holds his hand out and flames instantly dance in his palm, bright hues of red and orange attracting your gaze. Harrison nods his head and you extend a hand, fingertips tickling the flame. “This gives the word ‘strange’ a whole other meaning.”
-
Tom was on a journey, slipping behind his palace gates and exploring the depths of hell. A place he admits he hated exploring. Tom felt safer behind his walls – more in control of his kingdom.
He made his way to the small shed he'd refused to enter for a long period of time maybe it’d been centuries, if he remembered correctly. Which he always did.
No one dared to talk to the king, all simply bowing in his presence and in return, Tom would flick a curt nod before moving on with one goal in mind. To reach the prophet, to ask about his love. So maybe, he could find out why she arrived when she did and why she didn't feel the connection that he did.
Tom was drawn to the girl. He wanted to be close – arm in arm and hand in hand. Tom was filled with a nearly sickly amount of love. It floods his veins, consuming his mind at all hours of the day. But she didn’t seem drawn to him and it frustrated him to no end.
Hastily, he knocked on the door, wanting to get this over and done with so he could get back to his place of solitude and comfort. Hauntingly enough, the door opened itself with a bone-chilling creek and Tom stepped inside. The man could feel a presence beside his own and oh god – the smell. The wallpaper was peeling and fading, the floor and sickly stains painted the floors.
Spinning around, he meets the elder's dark eyes that ran on like train tracks. So many secrets were hidden behind those eyes, that man knew more than he'd ever let on and it frightened Tom to no ends.
The prophet spoke first, his grim lips parting.
"My king, what can I do for you?"
Tom wants to ask why he’d even bothered to ask that question – because of course he was already aware of what Tom wanted. He was aware of every aspect of the universe.
"I think you know." Tom begins. "The girl-, Y/N. The angel."
He had gotten all too used to saying that word lately. Angel. It troubled him less then it once had.
"I felt her the second she arrived, she's a strong one, I'll tell you that." The prophet spoke wearily. His frail figure struggled to reach the couch, but Tom put all of his trust in this man.
Tom knew that he spoke the truth, she was strong if anything. Despite her almost weak exterior and the way she'd acted around him so far, (afraid, fragile and on edge.) that inside she was strong, holding a power that others would go insane trying to earn.
Tom sat down on the dusty, century-old couch, arms folding across his chest. "If you feel her energy then you must've gotten word about why she's here now of all times, and..." He trailed off, finding the words stuck in the back of his throat.
"You have another question, my boy. What is it?" When Tom didn't speak up, the prophet continues. "Speak, Thomas."
He was weary, not wanting to express that actually-, he had feelings. The king of Hells seemingly nonexistent heart swelled at the thought of the angel that'd only days ago, found herself in his kingdom. "Why she doesn't feel the same?"
The older man stares down, confused.
"I knew the second I saw her that she was the prophecy but she doesn't know me, it's like she feels nothing and-, it's like she's scared of me."
The prophet cleared his throat, squeezing his eyes shut and remembering all of the thing's he'd been told. "She knows you, Thomas," Tom furrowed his brows. "Everything you feel for Y/N, she feels for you. She feels it, I promise it."
"Then why-," Tom was cut off.
"She’s been hurt. Give her time, space. But be there and eventually, she’ll return every ounce of love you wish to receive.”
"What do you mean." He stares in confusion, beginning to feel frustrated with his lack of answers.
"I can't tell you anything else, but it will all work out in the end.”
A low growl escapes the back of Toms' throat as he stands up in anger. The prophet's words made no sense. Tom knew the angel had been hurt-, maybe not the full extent but he had an idea.
Why didn’t you show that you felt the same?
-
Tom sits at his desk, the papers in front of him containing jumbled words. Nothing he could make any sense of as he stares, squinting.
It’d been at least thirty two hours since he’d opened the thing and his back was beginning to ache from leaning forward in the leather chair, muscles begging him to stop and walk around after hours of straining. His foot had been tapping annoyingly against the floorboards, bothering those who were on the floor beneath him but the king was frustrated and tense and his negativity could be felt from outside the gates.
There’s a creaking and a heavy huff that pulls him from his endless thoughts. While Tom doesn't say it straight away, he’s grateful for the distraction. He turns, his gaze finding a figure at the door. ar.
Tom lets out a swallowed breath at the sight of you and the fire in the palm of his hand that lights up the words, helping him see disappears. The crisp book pages fade as your eyes move toward Tom's.
"I'm," You swallow. "I'm a little hungry." You state, stomach growling to back you up. "I didn't know who to ask." You look away, eyes floating around the office.
"You could have asked one of the cooks." Tom stands up, the wooden chair creaking against the floorboards. "They can make you anything you want, my love." He speaks carefully, far too afraid that he'd snap again and scare you away once more.
Your cheeks grow hot at the small nickname. You’re still unaware of why the King is so infatuated with you, and why the mere sight of him could send your wings into a fluttering frenzy. You deny everything you feel towards the King, ignoring your bodies signals and turn your head the other way.
The small signals you were becoming a pro at ignoring went right over Toms' head.
"I wasn't sure." You reply, silently admitting that just coming to his office door had taken enough courage to last a lifeline.
There’s a thick pause while Tom looks away.
He wet his lips. "I'll get something for you."
Tom moves through a mighty stack of books before stepping past you, nodding his head for the angel to follow which you do, making sure to keep your distance from the man who both terrified you and intrigued you. Your eyes search his black wings as he moves down the steps, his thick, black boots thudding with every step-down.
Tom moves through his hallway with ease, hands at his sides and every step causes his tee to budge. From behind, you can make out the tufts of hair that haven’t been slicked back or styled in any other way then what was natural. They’re a beautiful shade of brown, like an acorn or an oak tree. Maybe you expected the king to look different – ugly even, with wicked sharp teeth and hollow eyes. Maybe you expected sharp tufts of hair and wings that could cut.
But Tom was pretty.
He was pretty like the roses that snaked themselves around the gates outside, and pretty like the array of glimmering dresses lining your wardrobe you were yet to so much as lay a hand on.
You two reached the kitchen and with a nod from Tom, the staff in gear the colour of ash disappear out the door with their heavy wings trembling behind them, merely giving their king a nod as they move hastily.
The kitchen is huge – truly a kitchen for a king. Treats line one side of the marble bench, other discarded items sit untouched. There are hardwood chopping boards and fancy cutting knives and a ginormous stack of spotless plates. There are grey walls adorned with splashes of blacks and reds and you’re instantly in awe of the place, plush (yet still healing) wings flutter in joy and excitement.
Toms' eyes roam over the pantry, cursing to himself when he has trouble deciphering one food from another. They all looked utterly different then the one before it and he scratches the top of his head in confusion. There were cans and bags and little pieces of fruit. Tom tended just to eat whatever was served to him, never paying much mind as long as it was checked by his tester but actually glancing into his pantry was something else.
"Look, darling-, I really don't know what you do and don't eat." He laughs softly, inching away from the open door that extends into an array of food. "Why don't you jump up and make yourself something? take whatever you want."
Of course you'd cooked before, you use to cook for your fiance all the time but you'd never actually cooked for yourself... the suggestion seems wild and you stared wide-eyed which doesn’t go unnoticed by Tom. Your mouth begins to water at the sight of so much food – mind reeling with all of the things you could make and experiment with.
Already you could see foods you’d never seen or tried before. His cupboard was giant.
"You don't have to. I can easily get the cooks to make you something-,"
"No!" You interrupt, somehow forgetting all the manners they taught you up in Heaven. "Sorry, no, It's okay." You tell him, coughing to regain yourself. "I can cook, I'd love too."
You walk behind the counter, popping away into the pantry for a moment. Tom takes a seat on one of the bar stools and watches intently as you pull out foods he'd never seen before. His reading was forgotten, the words he’d been so desperate to indulge in sitting at the very back of his mind because watching you make food sounded just that much better.
The food was colourful, orange, green, red etc and he adored the way your face lit up when you examined the objects. What you'd seen and experienced earlier was forgotten. You seemed in awe, feeling that sense of freedom that came with being able to do things for yourself. Who knew Hell could be... good?
"Do you enjoy cooking?" Tom asks, folding his arms and leaning forward to watch as you looked through the drawers.
"I do." You began. "I use to cook a lot in Heaven for my-, my partner at the time, but I didn't get to try new things if you know what I mean?" Your voice was soft, competing with the knife as it hit the chopping board.
Toms' nails dig into his hands, piercing the skin of his palms. "Partner?"
"Yeah, Ryan." Your voice was cool, casual. You even shrug. As if even just mentioning his name had no effect on you but on the inside, you were drowning in sudden nerves.
"What was he like?" Tom had to remind himself not to snap or grow too angry. You were with him. Maybe not in the way he'd like, but you were in Hell.
You think for a moment, trying to come up with the right words to say. "He-, he wasn't very nice. He was on the council though and none of them were very nice." You sigh. "If I were still in Heaven I think we'd be married by now."
"Did you love him?" Tom knew exactly what made him ask, his jealousy.
You shake your head vigorously, adding a few ingredients into a ceramic dish. "Gosh-, No, not at all. That’s… gross.”
Tom chuckles
You used the word gross to describe your own ex-fiance. The laughs erupts from his mouth before he can stop it. Tom feels a sense of relief wash over him, some of his anger melting away and seeing him laugh makes you smile, the corners of your heavenly lips curling up. There’s no frustration or pressure. You both just find the placement of the word amusing – or at least Tom does. You find the laughter slipping from the Kings mouth fascinating.
“Then why were you with him?" Tom asks, coming down from his high.
He had slipped into the habit of forgetting that you had a life before this. That you probably had friends and family up in Heaven. Loved ones you may be missing and a fiance who had kissed your skin, muttered gentle words and even loved you before him.
“We just had to wed, I don't know why though. But he was a real twat, if you know what I mean." Your gaze remains on your dish, senses reeling at the sight of a hearty meal. You snort and Tom chuckles.
To Toms surprise, you sit next to him. So close that he can hear the racing of your heart in your chest – each thump more prominent then the last. He vividly smells the lavender perfume on your neck as you knock his leg with yours, the slightest contact causing him to tense up.
Stupid heightened demon senses.
"That looks disgusting." Tom screws his face up in distaste, and you let out a small, barely audible giggle.
"Have you ever tried vegetables?" Tom shakes his head, indicating no.
You place a little on the edge of the fork, moving it close to his mouth. "Try it, it's good."
"I..." Tom trailed off, looking at you with a soft smile. "Doesn't look good." He remarks, screwing his nose up.
"I promise it is." You bite your lip in anticipation and Tom swears he can’t say no, not when you look hopeful that he’ll at least try your food. Until you arrived Tom hated trying new things. Now here he was, allowing you to place whatever slodge you claimed to be so divine on the centre of his tongue.
His mouth closes around the fork and Tom expects to gag. He has a napkin ready to spit the food out and screw his face up in the utmost distaste.
What he doesn’t expect is for an array of flavours to erupt in his mouth – the perfect combination of sweet and sour. It’s smooth, the flavours gliding across his taste buds and suddenly Tom swears he wants you to make every meal – not that he’d ask. No, that wasn’t your job.
He hums, eyes closing in delight and a proud smile takes place on your face because Tom looked stuck in a state of pure bliss, savouring every flavour that dances on his tongue.
“Good?” You ask, showing off your pearly whites.
“That was incredible.” Tom beams. “How did you– what, how?”
The king feels his heart swell slightly when you hand him a fork, shoving your bowl over a little bit offering him more of your food without hesitation. He surely wasn’t going to say no, in fact, his stomach growled, hinting it wanted more.
“I’ll teach you one time if you’d like,” You offer, taking a forkful of the food and eating it yourself. You hum and Tom waits, watching. “If you don’t mind! If you’re not into that then that’s cool too.” Your cheeks run hot, hands balling themselves into awkward fists when you realise that this was still the king you were talking too.
Tom ignores the fast-paced beating of his heart. “I’m sure I could find the time.”
He was positive he could find the time – absolutely certain.
The two of you go back to eating, taking turns to take fair bites in an easy silence. Tom finds himself coming to a realisation. He notices that you carried bits of Heaven – the very best bits. The parts that weren't corrupt and wrong. It’s there in the way you speak so gently, and how you move without a step out of place. Delicate wasn’t the right word.
And you'd finally seen a side to Tom that didn't terrify you, or put you on the edge of the seat. Without hesitation, you relax, allowing the heat to comfort you. Not the heat from the endless torches or the dress enveloping your figure, but his supernatural body heat.
Tom stares lovingly, adoration and desire flooding his eyes as he looks down at the angel that seemed to suddenly be comfortable beside him. Him, the King of hell.
He asks himself how anyone could dislike such a being-, one so pure and utterly kind and he almost felt... blessed, to have you be his gift from the gods.
"What is it?" You asked, cheeks heating up under his almost burning gaze.
"Nothing," Tom murmurs, shaking his head. "You're just really special.”
Here’s my ask box - send feedback or maybe reblog if you’d like!!
A/N: Kind of based off of Murder House and a previous AU I wrote
He was always there, watching and waiting for when you were most vulnerable. No name, just an apparition that stood over your bed night after night.
When you were little, you thought it was a sibling or parent just watching, staring, waiting. Never an answer. Silence with wide eyes. Then vanished. It took a few separate occasions to realize that wasn’t family, it was worse. You’d never been harmed, just mentally scarred. Every shadow in the daylight was a playground for panic attacks, and it was murderous.
He knew it too.
While you got ready for bed, taking a few melatonin to hopefully avoid the next meeting, Tom watched. Behind the shower curtain, near the towels in the corner, in your shadow, he took notes. Shaky hands. You forgot to take a puff of your inhaler this time. Wearing socks to bed? Gross. Since when did you do that?
You rolled into bed, grasping at your weighted blanket and spraying lavender around the spread. He watched as you put your eye mask on, knowing it’d fall off after the first hour of drifting. You looked at every corner of the room, checked the night light and lamp before trusting instinct and rolling over.
Tom wished he could tuck the hair in your mouth behind your ears. Instead, he waited. Watching your chest rise, stutter, and fall once again. Occasional snore, spasm, or squeak. He looked at the clock. Showtime.
The lights in the room cut. You rolled to your right side, left again, then on your back. Planted. Chained down to the bed. Like always. Tom ghosted his fingertips along your covered body, wishing he could press kisses to your head instead of nightmares, but whatever made you see him was good enough.
You jerked awake, knowing what was going to happen. Keeping your eyes pressed shut, you started counting to ten, praying to a different god every time you would gain mobility once again.
1...2...3...4...
“(Y/N)”
This is just your paralysis playing with you, keep going. 4...5...6...
“Open your eyes for me, angel.”
Fuck off. 6...7...8...9
“Counting won’t help. Only I can. Look.”
You opened your eyes. The lights slowly flickered on, one at a time. You saw him fully. He looked with caution. Clenched fists and a tight jaw with gentle eyes. Tearful eyes. “Hello, gorgeous.”
He became blurry with salty tears, falling down your face. Even though you tried talking, only whimpers came out. “I know, shh. This is awful I’m so sorry. This is the only way I get to see you. I’m breaking so many rules for doing this, shit. But, this has been going on for too long. I can’t sit silent anymore, right?”
Tom looked down at you, watching you have a silent panic attack in bed. You couldn’t move, talk, do anything other than weep. He sighed heavy. “Please calm down, I don’t have much time. We were meant for each other, I’ve watched you grow from the moment you were born. You are my destiny and I was sent to keep you safe until we can be together.”
You started crying harder, struggling against the invisible bonds holding you down. “It’s okay, we can talk later. Please don’t be scared of me anymore, you are safe under my watch.”
A blink later, he was gone. You whipped to sit up, grasping at your chest for air. Wheezing, stuttering, frantically looking for any trace of this really happening. Nothing except a panic attack.
After that singular night, daily occurrences happened slowly but surely. Your songs would shuffle to one’s you’d never heard of. Computer tabs with little words and quotes on them showed up. That’s how you learned his name. And death in your house.
Coping was hard, knowing someone was over your shoulder every waking moment. Changing and showers became nerve-wracking, yet he promised he never looked, only when you turned 18. Then that was an occasional thing, to make sure you weren’t hurting yourself.
Tom watched as you slowly stopped doing common tasks. You stopped the melatonin, no more sleep masks or weighted blankets and lavender, he hated that smell. As you woke up night after night, you grew less anxious and more happy to see him. While you couldn’t talk, he could see a small smile forcing a way onto your face.
He fell in love with your pain.
Tom somehow found ways to communicate before you got stuck. You used Google to type questions, wrote them on paper and left them on your nightstand, and even scribbled them in the fog of your showers. Those were your favorite, he would write back, too. Tom has lovely cursive.
Yet, with every conversation and lingering thought, it made you go insane. Instead of fearing the shadows, you waited for them. You sat in the dark, kept searching his name and information, thought of ways to actually feel him. He could only keep you trapped for long before you wanted release.
You needed his pleasure.
It was snowing white while driving down a backroad, the radio was buzzing with static. You believed the electricity would help Tom communicate, and if you focused hard enough it would. Last night was your longest conversation yet. With the snow falling and the lack of sleep taking your mind, it didn’t take long to forget you were driving.
Tom tried to jerk the wheel. He reached over, but his hands slipped through as you flew forward.
You saw red. It was dripping down your face, into your lashes, and coated your tongue with bitter copper. Blinking was hard, your eyes couldn’t open. Tom sat in panic, screaming your name. It was daytime.
You heard him in the sun through the snow and blood. Somehow you turned on the airbag, looking at the crumpled passenger seat, listening to his wails. You smiled while he cried. “You’re okay, stay awake, please! I can’t lose you like this! Please...”
You jerked awake, knowing what was going to happen. Keeping your eyes pressed shut, you started counting to ten, praying to a different god every time you would gain mobility once again.
1...2...3...4...
“(Y/N)”
You opened your eyes, looking around for Tom. “I told you I’d keep you safe.”
