Guys 'An Inspector Calls' was literally the most peak play we were forced to study. The play is so amazing but I genuinely have nobody to talk about it with, my favourite characters had to be Sheila and Eva Smith (clearly because I drew them)
(I randomly switched art styles and drew Eva whilst re-watching the film yesterday)
⟢ Summary: In the dead of the night, a broken Eva realizes she has nowhere to go after a brutal fight with her mother. Nowhere but to the Devil's lair.
⟢ Words: 3k
⟢ TW: Attempt at clinically correct but extreme talk/representation of ASPD.
⟢ Notes: Early Christmas present for @evita-shelby and a direct reference to her series What Happens in Vegas. Eva and Isabel belong to her. My apologies for taking so long to complete your drawing! Hope it makes up for it. Also, it happens before Eva becomes bestie with Riley.
The rain wasn’t pouring; it slashed across the sky with such strength it almost hurt when it soaked Eva Smith through her long black cocktail dress, freezing her to the bones.
She didn’t remember running here consciously, or sobbing through the building’s hallways and marble floors until she reached the elevator and pressed the last floor’s button with haste. All she could remember was the sound of her mother’s voice, sharp and victorious, and the cacophony of her own heartbeat crawling up her throat like she was about to choke on it.
The Mexican heiress knocked once, then twice, before she lost patience and banged at the heavy door with such fury that her knuckles ached and her breath came in ragged sobs she couldn’t swallow anymore. When the door finally opened, quite brutally, a pair of midnight black eyes bore into hers.
Amos stood there and for once, he wasn’t in his immaculate CEO attire. In fact, it wasn’t the dark prince in a flawless suit who had answered, but Amos at home: barefoot, wearing black sweatpants, a loose, open dark cashmere shirt and a single silver chain at his neck instead of the many rings usually adorning his fingers. With his hair disheveled like he’d run a hand through it one too many times, and a half-finished glass of wine dangled from his elegant fingers in which a deep-red liquid caught the hall’s light, the German prince looked surprisingly… Human.
Silence hovered between the two, only the drip-drop of rain on the marble floor resounded as the businessman’s black, beady eyes took the woman in slowly – ruined makeup, drenched black curls, and trembling mouth, never had he witnessed the exuberant Eva Aramburu in such a pathetic state. Maybe that was the uncommonness of the situation that made his unfazed gaze spark with curiosity for a brief moment.
Eva burst into a broken half-laugh, half sob.
“Amos,” she breathed as her voice cracked, “She– she– my mother–” She tried to overcome her stuttering, but the German prince suddenly raised one hand, palm up, in order to keep her from annoying him with tedious, and half-intelligible rambling.
“What did she do this time?” He asked with a cold and sharp tone that asked for straightforwardness.
The fact that Isabel was the source of the young witch’s sorrow didn’t come as a surprise, for she had already vented about her plenty of times during parties and galas. Yet, never in a million years would he have imagined that the outcome of one of her incompetent mother’s antics would end up shattering proud and loud Eva so bad.
She swallowed, trembling, watching Amos through her blurry tears. The words tore out raw and painful, making what Isabel did even more real. More cruel.
“She fucked my boyfriend.”
A blink. That was the full extent of Amos’ surprise. A slow, unhurried blink.
“And now,” Eva continued, voice wobbling when the truth shattered her, ”She decided to date him. Officially. My mom is with my boyfriend. She– she said it was my fault, that he was too old for me anyway and that I was not ‘woman enough’ to keep him interested.” She brought one trembling hand to her mouth.
For a long moment, Amos just stood there, his shoulder leaning against the doorframe, wine in hand and the sound of the rain hammering loudly against the roof. Only after a few long seconds, he raised an eyebrow and parted his lips, and spoke flatly, as if commenting on a late delivery.
“Harsh.”
Without saying much more, he opened the door wider.
“Come in.” He said with zero comfort or softness, but rather with the coldness of someone so bored that he’d welcome any kind of distraction for the night. Then he walked away without one single glance in her direction. The pretty Mexican mess staggered inside under the curious eye of a massive black American Bully, König, lying down in front of the warm hearth.
“I don’t even know why I came here, y’know.” She hugged herself, teeth chattering.
“Because you’ve got nowhere else to go.” The businessman replied from the kitchen island, reaching for the bottle of wine he had opened earlier, “Little heiress with her party tricks doesn’t have any real friends.” His voice, low and naturally soft, carried the same clinical factuality he always used: “Fakeness and high spheres come hand in hand.”
His words made her chest tighten even more. The fucker wasn’t wrong.
Amos poured a second glass of something dark and expensive without bothering to ask, then he returned to the living room and handed it to her.
“Drink.”
She obeyed numbly, mostly because the velvet and fruity taste of the Romane Conti managed to soothe her sorrow for a short while. Finally, she raised her chocolate stare and observed him from above her glass, like a zookeeper appraising a tiger five minutes before entering its cage. The question that had burned her tongue finally escaped.
“You still haven't laughed at me, and this is starting to creep me out.”
Amos didn’t look at her as he swirled his wine. Instead, his gaze fixed on the city lights that bled through the glass like the spilled colors of a rainbow. Yeah, he could have laughed. Because, to be perfectly honest, he found the situation quite hilarious in the most cruel way he could mean. But…
“I just don’t think you deserve to be alone tonight.” He replied, turning his head just slightly toward her. His obsidian eyes caught the hearth’s flames
Somehow, those flat and emotionless words were the kindest thing she had heard of all the evening. She took another gulp and, for the first time in years, Eva allowed herself to cry. To be vulnerable here, in the middle of the living room, with König sitting next to her and looking up with an empathic look on his big mutt face.
Amos didn’t hug her or tell her that everything would be okay; it wasn't how he functioned. However, he did give her a box of tissues and remained silent in the background, letting her break safely in the shadows of his place. After a while, the witch's tears finally slowed into uneven breaths, and she slowly realized that she had been standing there awkwardly, drenched and shivering in the middle of the immaculate penthouse of the worst person she knew. Her body jolted when the latter set his glass on the coffee table with a soft click.
“ Ok, you're done? 'Coz you’re dripping on my fucking floor.” He commented now that she had calmed down a bit.
Eva sniffed, “Shut up, Bismarck, who cares? You’ve got a cleaner. I don't need these kinds of comments tonight.”
A subtle annoyance flicked in his expression very briefly at the comment, but Amos still tilted his head on the side and fought the urge to kick her out, his expression unreadable and his dark irises staring at the young heiress in that unsettling way of his.
“No, what you need is heat. And food. Mexican, I assume.”
Eva’s lips parted to say something, but she gave up when he walked past her without waiting for her response nor acknowledging her simple presence. The faint fragrances of myrrh, spiced vanilla and tonka tickled her nostrils. Her eyes simply followed him, puzzled as she saw him tapping quickly on his phone. His voice raised again in a flat tone, bored almost:
“Bathroom on your left. Pick some clothes in the guest room’s wardrobe. Chilaquiles arriving in fifteen minutes.”
Chilaquiles? Her throat went dry and her eyes widened in bewilderment.
“You remember my–”
“Of course,” he interrupted her without looking up, thumb moving over his phone screen, “I’m a manipulator.” Not a dash of shame or irony in his words, just pure fact.
He paused and then, as if remembering he was supposed to pretend to function somewhat normally, he finally glanced and flashed a charming, polished grin at the drop-dead gorgeous heiress. The exact same kind of smile, perfect and surgically precise, he used at charity galas, networking events, or whenever he needed to wrap someone around his finger. A smile that meant absolutely nothing, and yet still managed to fool almost everyone.
“And don’t touch anything else.”
“Hey, I’m not some kind of gremlin,” Eva replied, raising an eyebrow.
“Debatable.” He purred.
And despite herself, a broken laugh escaped her — because that Devil was unintentionally, annoyingly funny.
The warm bubble bath has been revitalizing, at least. As soon as she had sunk into the tube, Eva had allowed herself to relax: the sensation of the hot water swallowing her and washing the grime of the night away from her skin was all she needed to retrieve a bit of her composure. When later she emerged from the bathroom in one of Amos' oversized Slayer t-shirts, her long hair wavy, damp ,and her face scrubbed clean of her runny mascara, the penthouse smelled like warm tortillas, tacos, cheesy beef nachos, and chilaquiles.
Amos was sprawled on the couch– such a rare sight, he who always had an elegant posture –, reading It by Stephen King. The food containers in front of him sat untouched on the coffee table, hot and mouthwatering.
The Mexican heiress sat down slowly on a sofa and wrapped herself up with the black plaid she had found on it. “Aren’t you having any?” She asked.
“Nein.” He said, turning a page.
“You ordered it online for me?” She asked, dumbfounded and still not entirely trusting this uncharacteristically generous version of him.
His gaze glanced at her, “You came to my door in a state of acute emotional distress. I thought food would help with that. Eat it alone, I didn’t bother poisoning it.”
Eva stared at the spread on the table: there was enough food to feed an entire family, plus rice, beans, salsa, guacamole… Way more than one person could ever finish. Still thrown off by the fact he hadn’t lunged for her throat yet, she blinked. Then she rolled her eyes, pouting.
“No way. In my culture, we share food. Even with clinically deranged Germans.”
“I don’t want any.” He retorted, putting his book away.
“Tough shit.” She shot back, her chocolate eyes glaring before she slid a container toward him, “You ordered enough to supply a village, so you’re going to eat with me, or I’ll hex every car you try to build for the next decade.”
Annoyed, Amos exhaled through his nose loudly, not a sigh per se but something like resignation at her insufferable stubbornness. “Fine,” he said, grabbing a fork, because being compliant was the best way to spare himself from a headache.
Eva nodded, satisfied. “Gracias.”
The Prince didn’t truly smile back, but the slight unclenching of his jaw and the faint drop of his shoulders betrayed that he didn’t find the situation entirely unpleasant, even though he’d rather gouge his own eyes out than admit it.
At one point during the dinner, the sad heiress stabbed a piece of chilaquiles with unnecessary violence, probably picturing her mother’s face instead.
“You could have laughed at me. Told me I deserved it. I wouldn’t have been surprised. You’ve said worse things.”
He shrugged lightly. “It crossed my mind.”
Eva looked at him sharply. His cruel nature was always hard to deal with, but at least he had the decency of being honest with her. “Why didn’t you, then?”
“Because your pain is not that entertaining when I’m not the one causing it,” he said finally. “And mocking you while you’re down is uninteresting. You’re way more fun when you fight back.”
She snorted sarcastically, “So you’re being nice?”
“No,” he answered while taking a bite out of a nacho with a load of guacamole on it, “It’s not being nice.”
“So enlighten me, then. How the hell do you function, Amos Von Bismarck? Just once, drop the mask. Because I swear I’m a prayer away from calling the Pope on your ass and have you exorcized. "
Surprisingly, this comment made him laugh genuinely and, for a second, something in Amos’s whole being loosened. It was barely noticeable, but the observant witch could see it in the way his shoulders eased, and his breath went quieter, working in a less measured pattern. The Prince closed his eyes for a few seconds, savoring the rare comfort of not having to perform humanity because, for once, someone outside his family didn't need sugarcoating.
“I experience people as patterns,” he said, reaching for the nachos again, “Behaviors, triggers, responses. Predictable systems with predictable outputs that are often led by emotions. Then I adjust my actions and personality to get what I want from them. Most people run on habit, fear, love, desire, acceptance and ego. And most of them are far easier to read than they think.”
Eva sipped on her wine. “There it is. The truth. You make us sound boring.”
“Because y’all are.” He smirked, only for the sake of being an annoying bastard.
The Mexican beauty rolled her eyes but her expression had softened a little. In fact, this was the closest thing to vulnerable honesty she’d ever seen from him. So different from his usual offensive sarcasm and smugness.
“And emotions?” she asked. “Do you just… not feel them?” She asked, wondering if it was a curse or a blessing. To her, a hypersensitive hurricane of a woman, the idea of emptiness felt alien. Terrifying. How can he live in silence while she drowned daily in her own chaos?
He shrugged again. “I feel some. Not the way you do. They’re like… Flickers.” Amos said after a moment of thought. “And some I don’t. At all.”
Silence settled – the void again.
Painful in its boredom, relentless in its hunger, the same emptiness that had shadowed him since birth. His eyes moved toward the storm outside without really seeing it.
“It’s like hearing echoes of something everyone else gets to experience first-hand,” he continued quietly. “You understand the concept. You can imitate it. But it never reaches the places it’s supposed to. It’s all… surface-level noise...”
As Eva listened to him, a quiet ache formed in her chest. Not pity – Amos would have despised that – just a sad, human heaviness for someone who could describe warmth so precisely… and never feel it himself. To understand love, joy, and sadness only as concepts felt… heartbreakingly tragic. After all, emotions were part of the universal human experience, weren’t they? She lowered her gaze to the abyss of her Romane Conti, thinking of how Amos always seemed so composed. So capable. So terribly alone. And though she could never experience the world as he did, she understood what it was to be alone.
A bitter, almost amused exhale left him, shaking the witch out of her thoughts.
“You get used to the emptiness,” he said. “Eventually, it becomes the most honest thing about you.”
When it comes to Eva, she felt everything — too much, too fast, too brightly. Where his inner world was still and frozen, hers was a storm of color and noise. He lived in a void; she lived in a flood. He was a black hole, she was a typhoon. To sit across from him now, she felt that difference like a crevice splitting the room.
“For me,” she murmured, almost to herself, “it’s the overflowing that feels honest.”
She didn’t look up, but she felt his eyes on her as she spoke, and he didn't interrupt her nor diminish her feelings. They were two creatures built in opposite directions, one carved hollow, the other bursting at the seams, caught in a quiet, delicate moment of understanding.
“And do you care for people?” She asked, trying for sarcasm but failing to hide the genuine question beneath.
“Well, yes. In a way. When I choose to care about some of them.” Amos replied calmly, not in the mood to mock her this time. “When it aligns with my interests, when they bring stability or structure, or simply when I’ve decided they matter and the cost of their absence feels… wrong.”
Eva laughed under her breath, though it sounded thin.
“Okay. So where do I fall in all that?”
“You belong to the ‘economic interest’ category. " he said without hesitation. "You’re useful, and you’re consistent.” A small pause. “Plus, you don’t bore me.”
The witch stared at him. “Is that your way of saying you care?”
“No,” Amos said. “It’s my way of saying you occupy a place in my system, I guess.”
Eva let out a shaky, half-laugh. “You Devil, that’s the coldest sweet thing I’ve ever heard.”
“You asked. I complied. Don’t make a habit of it." He smirked very briefly.
A gentle, unexpected silence stretched between the witch and the killer, warm in its own strange way. Eva sniffed, brushed the tears from her cheeks, and lifted her chin: her old fire glinted back to life in her eyes.
“You know what? When I’m done being a disaster, I’m reading your tarot cards.”
Amos gave her a flat stare. “Absolutely not.”
“Oh, absolutely yes!” She wagged a finger at him, “Don’t be such a killjoy. Take it as my thank-you gift. A little entertainment. I’m fairly sure your future will surprise you.”
Amos raised a brow, trying to hide his curiosity. “Is that so?”
Eva held his gaze, something ancient and knowing flickering in her brown eyes for a few seconds. The same look she got when her clairvoyant abilities manifested.
“You know what? I’m gonna spoil you a little.” Eva leaned back with a sly smile. “I don’t need a tarot deck to tell you that you’re going to meet a woman who’ll finally outplay you,” she said lightly , even if something in her tone made Amos pause, a shiver skimming down his spine.
“Someone who won’t slip into your system, but shatter it. A woman who’ll match your madness beat for beat. And your heart won’t merely warm for her, Amos…” Her eyes darkened with quiet certainty. “It’ll ignite.”
He scoffed. “Highly unlikely.” But Eva caught the tiny, involuntary twitch in his jaw. The living proof her words had landed deeper than he meant to show.
Eva only smiled.
“Keep thinking that, Devil.”
She reached for another bite of chilaquiles, calmer now, grounding herself in the warmth of food and the unexpected steadiness of his presence. The storm still hissed against the windows, but inside, Eva felt lighter. Slowly back to her old, annoying, overconfident self.
In a strange twist tonight, it was his frost, not fire, that had kept her from collapsing.
tagging: @thegreatdragonfruta @zablife @justrainandcoffee @hoodeddreams13 @littlepeakydevil (it's the What Happens in Vegas' taglist) @peakyswritings
Castle trip (15/10): Alfie Solomons x Rose Coldwell
Thunderstorm (17/10): Alfie & Allie Solomons
Open window (19/10): Tommy Shelby x Quinn Meyer
Rain walk (21/10): River Cartwright x Reader
Forest (22/10): Heaven Shelby
Black cat (23/10): Winston Ferrante-Shelby
Bakery (25/10): Cillian Murphy x Jiyan Fabris
Book shop (27/10): Tommy Shelby x Reader
Graveyard (29/10): Jack Nelson x Eva Smith
I finished them like two weeks ago and finally October is here to post them. It's all queued, hopefully Tumblr will work and post them as I ordered.
This post is also queued. If you see this, then it worked. Any idea to link the characters to the themes? 😌. Not all the characters are in the tags and I didn't want to make it obvious.
cw: very minor violence, exes, mentions of an open marriage
could be read as part of my Jonathan Crane x Eva series The Witch and the Scarecrow
“Did you miss me?” the former assassin codenamed the Witch asked as she held a knife to his throat.
“Been meaning to visit, just didn’t have the time.” The last time they’d seen each other was when they made the plan to leave the League of Shadows and go back home. She returned to her family in Mexico, and he returned to Gotham.
Bruce had kept tabs on her, nothing raised alarm bells except for a dalliance and eventual marriage to Jonathan Crane that concerned him. Eva did not pretend to be a playboy wastrel like him, no, she was working for her family in the shipping industry, headed several charities and gave the appearance of just an ordinary woman…with a penchant for the occult and famous psychiatrist for a husband.
Figures she’d continue her line of work even after he released her of a lifetime of servitude from the League. She works independently he supposes. Ra’s al Ghul was gone, he’d seen him die as he pulled Henri Ducard to safety as the cult temple burned when Eva went off script.
“Well, if the mountain doesn’t go to Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain.” Eva keeps the knife to his throat as their encounter turns from a meticulously planned out ambush to former lovers falling back into old habits.
Even if she was married to Crane and he being forced to witness his Rachel feel disgusted by his persona, the Batman wishes the Witch had ambushed him at a party or Wayne Manor instead of an empty clock tower where she teases him for his choice of attire. He knows for a fact that the Cranes are not entirely monogamous and a fuck for old time’s sake might help him forget Rachel for now.
Bruce could easily overpower her, take her as his prisoner and yet he lets her pin him underneath her like all those times back when they were Ra’s al Ghul’s prized pupils. Those times ended always ended with the winner of those sparring matches stealing a kiss from the loser and this fight ends the same as all those before it.
“Do you still hate me?” he asks forgetting to mask his voice as he remembers how she begged him to let her kill Ducard and calling him a gutless coward when he refused.
Ra’s al Ghul was dead, there had been no need to kill Henri Ducard as well, or so he had believed. The Witch had argued that Ducard was the true power, that the man he killed was not the true leader of the League of Shadows, but a decoy.
You are the biggest fool I’ve ever met, Wayne, she had seethed before leaving his life for nearly a decade.
“Every day.” The assassin’s hand doesn’t waver as her blade cuts a thin line right on the same cheek she slashed the first time he sparred with her.
Eva Smith x Jack O'Neil (OCs belonging to @evita-shelby)
A/N: "Tell me that isn't an Ouija board requested by @evita-shelby I borrowed Eva lore from a few AUs so I hope that's ok! Amos belongs to @call-sign-shark.
"Eva..." Jack ventured hesitantly upon entering the lounge and observing his girl friend opening the equivalent of Pandora's box.
"Jaaack..." Eva replied in mocking sing song. Why didn't he trust that she knew what she was doing?
"Tell me that isn't an Ouija board," Jack groaned as she slid the heart shaped pointer onto the coffee table. It skated toward him like an arrow seeking its target and he reached out to stop its trajectory toward the floor. No sense in angering the spirits before they'd even begun.
"All the mirrors are covered," Eva assured him with dismissive wave of her hand.
"That isn't funny. Not after last time," he commented, thinking of the evil blonde who'd taken her place and dressed him like a Ken doll to her Barbie. Thankfully, Eva trapped her doppelgänger back where she belonged and he could throw out the self tanner.
"This doesn't have anything to do with Ava," Eva explained.
"Then who are we contacting?" Jack asked warily. "And don't give me the bullshit line you used last time about it being a dearly departed aunt, okay? I'm not stupid."
Eva chuckled as she shook her head. Then her tone turned serious. "I can't tell you that."
Jack sat on the sofa next to her dumbfounded. There wasn't anything they didn't share. "We don't keep secrets from each other, Evie," he reminded her.
However, the fact that a demon named Amos had been watching them fuck for the past month wasn't something she was ready to share. Jack was far from stupid, but he was still clueless about Amos' post coital recaps, which were hardly flattering. Eva intended to maintain his blissful ignorance even as she asked for his help appealing for privacy.
"Come on, tell me," Jack cajoled, rubbing her shoulders.
"Just an old roommate," she shrugged with a nonchalant smile. And as her manicured hands rested atop the pointer, she hoped Amos would behave himself when she asked, "Is anyone there?"
As Jack finally placed his fingertips across from hers, the white plastic began to slide to the upper portion of the board indicating yes.
"Amos?" she asked, averting her eyes from Jacks' inquisitive stare.
The pointer wavered before returning to "yes."
"Are you going to leave us in peace?" Eva asked firmly. "It's time."
The tension beneath their fingers subsided, the heart shaped object gone still suddenly. After a beat, Jack turned to Eva with a triumphant smile. "I think that's another yes." But then the object nearly slid out of their hands with a force almost too great to contain as it spelled out the demon's answer.
