February 20, 2007
outskirts of Los Angeles, 8:15pm
Evan double checked that he had a full mag of silver bullets in his handgun before he left his truck, staring up at the two story manor seemingly embedded in the otherwise urban landscape. Some of the windows were boarded up, the place had been abandoned for awhile, though there was a slight illumination that could be seen from one of the windows facing the street. Has to be him, he thought to himself, clicking the safety off before hopping over the waist height wrought iron gate, dead leaves crunching under his feet as he made his way to the front door. It was slightly ajar, quietly nudging it open with his gun, pointed ahead of him as he made his way through and scanned room after room for potential threats. Normally a partner would be a great help in a situation such as this, but he couldn’t call upon his father’s help for this, and trust wasn’t something Evan had a lot of. Not anymore.
The light came from one solitary candle flickering in a back hallway, on a table beside a door of which more light could be seen through the cracks. This was definitely a trap, he could feel it in his bones, but he’d already made it this far. His own feelings superseded his logic, grabbing the handle with one hand with the gun pointed ahead as he made his way in. On the other side were stairs leading down, to a basement it seemed, taking the steps as quietly as he could manage. Though, knowing his target, his presence may have already been detected. He always had an uncanny way of reading a room and everyone in it. Speak of the devil he spotted him crouched on the floor, clutching a bowl in one hand and while seemingly finger painting with the other. The room was illuminated by what looked like a wall of candles, all precariously perched on what looked like an altar. No, it was an altar. The room smelled of herbs, noting a small cauldron in one corner that had smoke wafting from it. Dammit, he thought he’d given that shit up. Evan leveled his gun at the man still calmly drawing markings on the floor, noting that the paint he was using was red, and he had the sickening fear that it wasn’t actually paint. “What the fuck are you doing, Don?” he called to him, taking slow and cautious steps towards him.
“What’s it look like? I’m about to do a summoning.” Don didn’t look up from his work, just resumed his odd little art project that upon closer inspection was indeed an elaborate devil’s trap. The cambion was even careful enough to work from the inside and outwards to avoid getting caught in it himself.
Evan swallowed a lump in his throat. dreading the answer to his next question. “Why? I thought you left all this behind.”
The cambion sighed, finishing another sigil. “I’m a witch, and a demon. The product of a merger of two fucked up individuals. Nothing can change that, no matter how hard I try. Besides, someone’s gotta carry on the family business.” He finally lifted his head and turned to stare at Evan behind him, looking him up and down before smirking and turning back to his work on the cement floor. “Obviously I’m not the only one. Must’ve started a trend.”
“I only dipped back into this shit so I could find you,” he fired back, staring at his handiwork in disgust. “What is this even for? Attention? You already got it. You haven’t really been covering your tracks that well, Donnie.”
Don notably twitched at the familiar nickname, setting the bowl down and ceasing his movements before slowly getting back to his feet. He turned to stare up at the single window in the space where a full moon could be seen in the distance, his expression blank and unreadable as Evan observed it in profile. The cambion then pulled out a handkerchief from his jacket pocket to wipe his fingers clean. “Is this because I missed Valentine’s Day? I thought it would be obvious I was too busy to make it,” he commented derisively.
“Shut up.” He hated when his humor grew dark like this, his gun hand shaking a bit from having to hold it up for so long. “Step away from the trap and lets go talk about this, okay?”
Don’s face split into a grin as he chuckled darkly, still unable to face Evan fully, eyes now at the ground by his feet. “I think we both know talking isn’t going to get us anywhere. Hasn’t the past two times, and you finally wised up and came armed.Too bad it won’t help you much, and you’ve already proven that you’re not gonna shoot me.”
“I still might.”
“You won’t,” he said confidently, finally facing Evan as he deliberately stepped closer, until the gun was pointed right at his chest. “So damn obsessed with me that you make the biggest mistakes. You didn’t clear the room, babe. If you had you wouldn’t have hesitated.”
Evan stared back at him in confusion, his trademark scowl only deepening. “What are you talking about?”
Don nodded to a corner of the room behind him, the hunter turning his head only slightly to look with his peripheral vision. What he found were two bodies slumped over each other, and from the way they were dressed he guessed they were hunters too. It looked as though blood had leaked from their orifices, the same way he had found his brother’s body. “Who are they?!” he demanded, voice wavering despite the anger behind it.
“Sacrifices,” Don answered in a bored tone. Then in a flash he bent Evan’s wrist painfully, making the man yelp as he wrestled the gun away from him, taking out the clip and tossing it across the room and doing the same with the gun in a separate corner. “You weren’t the only one who learned a thing or two from your dad,” he pointed out, shoving his hands back into his jacket pockets.
Evan wasn’t all that upset about being disarmed, he knew it was a longshot from the get-go. He was more angry about the corpses in the corner, grabbing fistfuls of Don’s T-shirt by his collar, shaking him. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Killing Isaac wasn’t enough, you had to go on a goddamn spree?!”
Don just stared up at him with the same listless look on his face, unaffected by Evan’s passionate display. “They got what was coming to them. Same as Isaac. Same as my own family that I wiped out. Anyone who gets in my way, I dispose of.” He stepped closer to his lover, staring him down menacingly though Evan was taller than him by a few inches. “Are you gonna get in my way too, Ev? Or are you finally gonna let me go?”
The hunter’s eyes burned with rage, fists tightening until they shook before releasing the cambion with an angry shove. “Is that why you did it? Did you get cold feet? Was it some kind of demonic way of breaking off an engagement? Why are you doing this to me, Don? I come home from class and I find the body of my visiting teenage brother in our apartment and no sign of you anywhere. I track you down, you keep disappearing on me. I know you were at the funeral, I know you keep popping in and out of my life, I know you better than anyone! You can’t fuckin’ let me go, so don’t give me that bullshit!” he roared. He looked away from him and scrubbed a hand down his face, staring at the bodies with disgust and horror, trying to understand what was going on in Don’s mind. “This isn’t you. Whatever you’re trying to sell me right now, it isn’t you.”
“Isn’t it though?” Don countered, snorting as he started to walk a wide circle around Evan. “I never hid what I was, not to you Ev. You’ve always known what I was capable of, and you kept me close anyway. I was your exotic pet, imprisoning me by keeping my nature a secret from your hunter family. When we left and I decided to branch out on my own a bit what did you do? Throw a hissy fit because I was fucking everyone except you. And once again you chain me to you, this time with a ring. But I’m not housebroken, I’m not tame. I’ve managed to get everyone I’ve ever cared about killed, its only a matter of time before you’re next. So have some goddamn self-preservation and leave me alone already.”
“You are so full of shit,” Evan murmured, already trying to think of how they’ll dispose of the bodies so they wouldn’t get traced back to Don in some way. “I didn’t cage you with that ring you dumbass, you could’ve said no. Yeah I threw a fit back then, because I loved you and I knew you loved me too. Even now, after all this, I still love you.” He turned to look at Don with a tortured expression, yet his eyes were still soft with love, stalking towards the cambion, grabbing him by the back of his head and the lapel of Don’s jacket as he tried to back away. “Stop this act. Stop with the self loathing, the self victimization. Just come home so we can talk this out. Please...” he begged, holding Don’s face in his hands as he pressed their foreheads together, eyes closing as a tear escaped. “I miss you. I need you. Please, babe, come home...”
At Evan’s desperate pleas Don’s bravado cracked, the wall he was trying to build crumpling quickly as he failed to pull away from his fiance’s grasp. “I can’t,” he whispered softly, tears streaming from his eyes while still bumping noses with him gently. “I killed your brother, our brother. I didn’t want to but it happened anyway. It’ll happen to you too. It’ll happen to everyone in the end. I can’t, I can’t...” he sobbed, voice cracking. In a moment of weakness he kissed Evan’s lips one last time, reaching up to pull his hands from his face, blue eyes twinkling as he gazed at him with longing and despair. “You should’ve let me go.”
Evan shook his head once. “You know I can’t.”
Another sob shook Don as his head dropped, his own head shaking hopelessly, sliding a hand to Evan’s chest and resting it right over his heart. Then an unseen force released from that hand, sending Evan flying backward until he hit a wall, the back of his head cracking against cement and dazing him as he slumped to the floor. The last thing he saw before everything turned black was Don holding himself as sobs shook his body, then pulling out his cell phone to make a call.
When Evan came to it was at the sound of sirens just outside, the blue and red lights flashing into the room from the window above. He looked around but there was no sign of Don anywhere. He was alone, in a room that looked like a spell was taking place, and two dead bodies lying only a few feet away. He struggled to get up, to get the hell out before he was caught, but stopped as he looked down at what was in his hand. It was Don’s engagement ring, placed in his palm before he left, still warm as if he had just been there seconds ago. All he could do was stare as his heart shattered all over again, hardly even hearing the yells of the police officers or noticed the guns pointed at him as they ordered him to put his hands up.
He’s angry. Of course, he’s always angry when he’s summoned. No one should even know his sigil, its completely obscure and its not as if people were clamoring to ring up a fairly young demon. But here he was, in a kitchen, face to face with a clearly terrified young woman. Sure she was putting on a remarkably brave face considering the circumstances, but he could taste her fear in the air and her heart was fluttering like a hummingbird’s wings. Her bravery was admirable though, and adorable, his eyes fading back to their usual blue as he quelled his anger. This was clearly a mistake, no need to scare the piss out of her.
Without a word or any sign of movement suddenly the plate she was white-knuckling was in his hands, picking up the sandwich and taking a bite. Not bad. He gave her a small nod of approval, shoving a chip in his mouth as well, crunching noisily. “Got anything to drink?” he requested gently.
when the plate leaves her hands, she jumps about a foot back and immediately frowns up at you, a little bit annoyed, still kind of scared, but mostly unimpressed. she crosses her arms, lips pursed as she regards you with a sudden wave of courage.
“was that necessary? are all of you prone to being so extra?”
the wave dissipates as soon as the words leave her mouth, though, and she immediately turns and opens her refrigerator to hide her face in.
“sorry. i’m not entirely convinced you’re real yet. maybe you’ll be gone when i stand back up, i don’t know. please don’t kill me if you’re not, though, okay? i’ve got beer, and juice, and wine, and also liquor in the top left cabinet if you’re feeling that.”
she can feel herself rambling, but she figures she’s in too deep to stop now.
“i don’t drink pop. hey, they should put panic buttons in these things, you know? in refrigerators, i mean. if you do kill me, can you make that a thing? like, in my memory? you can keep the patent if you get one, it’s not like i’ll be able to make any use of the money.”
Knowing how to use her powers and knowing how to control them were two very different things, and try as she might Aileen couldn’t figure out how to manipulate the portals she moved through. Sure she could always turn to Xavier, but she’d stayed away from all of that years ago because it felt like another group home she’d get ignored in. The whole thing wasn’t her scene so she’d decided to learn on her own, unfortunately that had only gotten her so far. Fed up with not getting anywhere, she began looking in to alternative methods of getting what she wanted.
Months of searching for a way, and then weeks of trapping demons for information got her the answer she’d been looking for. Along the way she’d had to accept the fact she’d need to kill a few humans to get the information she needed out of the demons that were riding them. Sending a few more back to Hell to get the summoning ritual wasn’t any more than in inconvenience along the way.
She didn’t figure that the location would matter once she knew how, so the middle of her kitchen (for that day anyway) seemed just as good as any. The sun was shining and a fresh pot of coffee had just finished brewing when she completed the chalk outline on her table, then stepped back to lightt the contents of the bowl in the center on fire. The wait she wasn’t too sure of, but she’d been promised it would work.
“ DONATHAN. ” Bullet announced her arrival in her very Bullety way, sidling up to him, fruity vodka drink already in hand. “ I’m here, much against my better judgment, so ya better treat me to a fun night. ”
[ @ofcharisma didn’t ask for this, but is getting it anyway. i don’t make the rules. sorry. ]
Johnny wasn’t always the sharpest tool in the shed, but he knew when he was being observed, watched even, and it honestly didn’t take a genius to pick up on the way Don tended to gawk at him. Problem was he didn’t know why. It wasn’t unusual for him, getting stared at by people, but typically it was because he was doing something worth garnering attention, and also typically, the looks didn’t, well, look like that.
So finally, after enough beers and finding himself somewhat annoyed by how Don’s staring made him feel ( and the conflicting things the twisted him up ), he decided to inquire, somewhat aggressively.
“ Hey, man, th’fuck do y’look at me like that all th’goddamn time, huh? Like if y’don’t, I’m gonna jus’ fuckin’ disappear ‘r somethin’... It’s fuckin’ RUDE, guy. ”
“Aw, shit. Busted,” said Fee, laughing to herself as she caught his gaze through the misty haze of streetlamps and cigarette smoke. The habit was one she’d picked up from Deena when she was fifteen. More recently, being around Sawyer only exacerbated the tendency; she didn’t smoke to the same extent as him (something she often joked was an impossibility) but she had certainly taken to the vice with a new-found fervour since having met him.
She leaned casually against the railing, turned her back to the dimly-lit streets below as her lips quirked into a familiarly wry smile. “You better not tell,” she teased. “I told Sawyer I could quit, no problem.” Evidently not. She exhaled a puff of smoke into the crisp night air, finally stubbing out the cigarette and flicking it over the edge of the tiny balcony. "I dunno about you, but I refuse to deal with the monstrosity that is a smug, I-told-you-so Sawyer.” Maybe she was exaggerating, those blue eyes alight with unveiled mischief. It was always hard to tell with Fee, whether she was being serious or joking.
All evidence disposed of, she crossed the short distance in a flurry of rainbow-coloured tresses and the distinctive jangle of jewellery. Her arms ensnared him, looped around his neck and drew him close. “So...” she murmured, playful as was her wont. “Hey, you.”
