“I can’t believe I got to that monster before you,” Marco smirked, dragging an extremely strange corpse with a shotgun slung over his shoulder. He glanced over Rachel’s disheveled form as she quickly brushed herself off. “And what, exactly, happened to you?”
“Eh, nothing worth commentary,” she said, forcing a shrug simply because she couldn’t think of anything to make the symptoms of sex congruent with the symptoms of monster hunting.
Marco raised an eyebrow. “… Right.”
— —
Jake kicked the doors of the Whore Closet. “Take it down a notch! People are trying to sleep!”
In her bed, Rachel laid a hand over her face and knew, just knew, that David was sneering down over her in the darkness.
— —
David hissed as he was suddenly hit by a bolt of… something, and vanished in a puff. Which was odd, because she’d never seen a puff when a demon had vanished before, and also because David never took off of his own accord when she was partially unclothed and moaning his name.
After resentfully taking care of her own matters and then redressing, Rachel returned to the RV, parked a short hike away to find Cassie debating a spell with Jake with the components spread all around her. “Uh… What is this?”
Cassie chewed her lip. “It was supposed to track and attack that lamia, but it seems to have interacted with something near by. I can’t figure out what since it didn’t actually work as intended.”
— —
Rachel strained against his grip to try to gain access to her tossed-aside jeans, which were currently ringing. David picked his head up from between her thighs. “Are you actually intending to answer that?”
“Obviously you’ve never missed a call from your mother-figure.”
“… No, I cannot say that I have.”
— —
Rachel’s eyes flew open. That voice. Outside. Talking to Jake.
He was back.
Knowing that everyone had been out hunting without her due to her terrible fever, she kicked David through the doors of the Closet, grabbed the first object she could find (pencils from Cassie’s homework), and shoved it in David’s chest, grabbing his mouth to make sure he didn’t shout his pain.
It did seem to be a slight bit of a boner killer, which really, was all she needed. When he grabbed her wrist with a snarl, obviously ready to show his strength again, she nodded toward the door. “Witnesses, smartass. You really ready to give up the game so soon?”
David frowned, then kissed her before disappearing. Rachel ran to her bed, doused it in holy water, then locked the upper cabinet doors, barring access to it. She then grabbed towels and clothes and shoved herself into the shower, using the cold (holy water) option just before the others began to enter the RV.
“Rachel?” called Cassie. “Oh, I guess she’s in the shower.”
“Has there been a demon in here?” asked Tobias.
Jake made a noise. “I’ll go check the wards.”
— —
She would forget, sometimes, how much she’d come to rely on it. Their constant presence and interruption. The inability for him to make be too loud or go on too long without giving up his game.
And then, he would get the opportunity. He’d bring a piece of hell back. He’d chase her til she wore. He’d fight her til she broke. He’d heat her til she begged for it.
He’d humiliate her and drink up every single second. Never let her forget that it was exactly her position, broken and beneath him.
On those occasions, she’d give anything for another interruption.
(( Gratuitous Ratmance gore! Standard David/Ratmance/Hell warnings apply. ))
Rachel woke up with grass prickling the back of her neck.
She leapt into a crouch, half-feral, ready to lunge at him now that her hands and feet were untied, but the meadow was empty.
It also, she noticed, her stomach twisting in anticipation of deceit, was almost certainly not in Hell.
There was the air, for one thing. Too clean, too cool, no smell of blood or terrible screams carried over from the free-for-all racks. And there was grass under her feet, and trees all around. Nothing grew in Hell, nothing lived in Hell.
Her breath caught, her stomach leapt. She knew, she knew this wasn’t possible, she was never getting out of Hell, she’d promised her soul for eternity, and yet—
A twig cracked in the trees behind her, and before it had even registered consciously she was running, running, bare feet slamming on grass and crushing wildflowers. She wouldn’t let him take her back there, she’d run herself to death first. The meadow seemed to stretch on forever, the forest sprawling out close on either side, and she was sure she could hear footsteps behind her, or maybe it was just the pounding of her pulse in her ears. Her foot caught on a gopher hole and she went down. It seemed to take her forever to hit the ground, falling for an eternity until the sod came up to meet her. Her stomach was heaving, aching; it had been a long time since she’d run this hard.
She tried to scramble to her feet, and the pain in her stomach caught and flared. Falling back into a crouch, she clutched at her abdomen, realizing now that she could feel something wriggling, writhing, and the skin seemed to swell beneath her fingers. The thing inside scrabbled to get out, she could feel tiny little teeth and tiny little claws scratching at her, nibbling biting chewing oh
The burning was unbearable now, the skin beneath her fingers trembling and swelling until suddenly, with a cold flash of agony, she felt stickiness, and a small warm snout nosing at her palm …
She was fading, falling, her vision narrowing to an unfocused tunnel of gray, and the grass beneath her vanished and there were screams, far far away, and not all of them were hers, and he stood over her grinning, laughing, leaning.
No, she tried to say, no, no, but there were rats in her stomach and Hell under her back, and David stood above her, and laughed.
Even putting aside all the torturing and breaking and soul-twisting that come with the job, David thinks being a crossroads demon definitely has its perks.
There’s the deal-sealing, of course. Any career that includes “making out” in the job description is a good choice, in his opinion. Maybe he should visit a high school job fair and get some early recruiting done.
And then there’s a fact that every time he gets to collect on a deal he has the opportunity to make one of his favorite jokes.
The hounds (two of whom stop to play ball with a bystander’s head, the overgrown pups) drag in her soul, kicking and screaming, and deposit it at his feet. Metaphorical ropes bind themselves around her metaphorical limbs. She’s stopped vocalizing; now she’s just angry.
“To Hell with her,” he decrees, as if this is an unexpected decision, and then laughs and laughs, as if he hasn’t told that joke a thousand times before.
She spits (metaphorically) in his face before the largest hound snaps her up in his slavering jaws and carries her (metaphorically) down into Hell.
(( Warnings: innuendo and language I guess? This Ratmance is surprisingly tame. ))
“So I guess you liked those burgers, huh?” Grinning easily, Rachel tipped a tray of crumpled paper wrappers into the trash.
“Yeah.” Tobias was polishing off the last of the fries; the others had already left for the RV. “Thanks for paying.”
She shrugged and leaned over to snatch a fry from between his fingers. “Was worth it to see the look on the counter guy’s face when I ordered twenty burgers for five people. For a scrawny guy you sure can put it away.”
“Perks of the job, I guess.” He stood. “So … I guess I’d better go.”
“Angel business?”
“Something like that, yeah.” He hesitated, as if unsure whether to shake hands, hug, or just leave. Rachel seemed to be suffering from the same, and settled for an awkward, probably harder-than-necessary clap on the shoulder.
“See you, then.”
“Yeah.” With a nod and a light breeze, he was gone.
Rachel huffed in annoyance. “‘See you then,’” she muttered under her breath. “Stupid.” Scowling, she turned to grab the empty fry basket and her half-full Coke, only to find someone lounging in the corner booth slurping at it. Someone with sandy blonde hair and a chiseled jaw and a stupidly tight shirt that showed off a not-so-unwelcome view of what was underneath.
“Hello, darling.” He grinned lopsidedly, the soda straw pinched between his teeth. “You and Featherbed getting along well, I see?”
“David.” She reached over and snatched the soda out of his hands. “I don’t see how it’s any of your business.”
“When has that ever stopped me before?”
She had to concede that point. “What do you want?”
“What do I always want?” He leered. “There’s a nice secluded alley out back, we can fuck behind the dumpsters.”
“Tempting, but no thanks.”
“Why not?” Resting his elbows on the table, he leaned forward. “Because of Feathers?”
“Mostly just because you’re a dick,” she informed him, dumping the Coke in the trash.
There was a pretty obvious comeback there, but he let it slide. “Oh, Rachel, honey. He doesn’t want you. He already had his human fucktoy, dead and gone a long time back. Why would he want a rerun?”
“Is there a point coming or can I go now?”
“He won’t even touch you, he’s never going to touch you. And I know you want to be touched, Rachel, I know exactly where you want to be touched, exactly how to make you scream—”
Suddenly, Rachel threw back her head and laughed. Almost bewildered, David tried to cover it up with a smooth, “Care to let me in on the joke, Rach?”
“You,” she snickered. “Oh my God, you— you’re jealous!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” David did not sputter. “Why would I be jealous of that overgrown bird?”
“You are, you’re jealous because I’d rather talk to him than sleep with you—”
“Oh, we’d do a lot more than sleep,” he tried, but the innuendo fell flat.
Still giggling, Rachel leaned over and patted his arm. “Hey, thanks, David. I needed a good laugh.” With a cheery wave, she practically skipped across the restaurant and out the door.