Finally managed to finish something of any length in this fandom! Only been working on this since bloody February!
I should warn you this gets really dark in parts – like this should be obvious given it's from the POV of a sociopath with a God complex but you have been warned.
Movieverse with Musicalverse references.
XXX
He knows he's special. He's known for the longest time.
He's not weak like his mom and he isn't, he just can't be, like his dad. He was reborn the day that library blew up with his mother inside, he was reborn with a mission, heaven (or maybe hell) sent to destroy the assholes who fuck up life for everyone else.
He is limited perhaps, there are restrictions he has to work around, laws he has to be subtle about breaking (the inevitable consequence of being special is that others cannot obtain as high a level of understanding of the world as you), but he is powerful, he has been blessed with great cunning and motivation. There will be a time when these limits will no longer exist because people will know his name, know he has come to save their wretched planet.
There will be a time when the world will understand that he has done this all for them.
XXX
Every school is the same. When you've been to seven you can be the authority on that. Same nerds hoping that the pecking order will be reversed by the time they get college degrees. Same so-called activist kids campaigning for change and then going home to their luxurious houses and the middle class parents whom they are destined to one day turn into. Same druggies in the corner being generally useless. Same fat girl being harassed for her appearance…
Then there are the same popular people, who believe they're above it all: jocks who somehow think that being good at throwing a ball means they have some God given right to abuse their classmates and the fact they really don't have enough intelligence to get any brain damage an excuse get into yet another fight; girls who bitch and preen and whore about and yet are somehow seen as something desirable, he's heard the ones at this school are all called Heather.
And there's always him, observing it all from the corner, invisible to most of the student body, outside of the pecking order. Nothing new, nothing changes. He wonders what his locker combination will be this time.
XXX
He's being watched. It's not a massive surprise, he might be generally ignored but there's normally some girl at a school who's watched The Breakfast Club (a painfully stupid and inaccurate movie) too many times, and can't take their eyes off a guy in a trench coat. It's a little tedious, but not necessarily undesirable. He looks her over; pretty, very pretty, she's clearly one of the popular girls, (she's probably named Heather then), which is unexpected – her type normally give him a wide berth – perhaps sensing the hatred he has for all of their kind.
She strolls confidently over, cutting to the chase immediately, "Jason Dean."
"Greetings and salutations, are you a Heather?"
A trace of a frown enters her perfectly drawn features, he has a feeling she's resisting rolling her eyes, "No, I'm a Veronica. Sawyer."
He looks up, pays her a little more interest as she babbles on about a stupid question, glancing momentarily at her bitchy friends behind her, leaving him no doubt at who set it.
He tells her the question is stupid, but obliges and answers her.
She smirks, "How very."
Moments her friend comes up to drag her away, he glances at her not unattractive, but mean looking, thinks she has the right to boss others around, scum, nothing special about her – he's seen a hundred like her before, they're always prettier as corpses. He does his best to ignore her.
Veronica retreats but is unperturbed, "See you later."
He looks her over once more, mildly impressed with what he sees. She's pretty and popular sure, and in some ways she's like every other student blindly stuck in a ridiculous clique, but there's something else there, a distaste for the world she lives in, that's bubbling to the surface, fighting to get out. He likes that in a girl.
"Definitely."
He is stopped, once again, from observing in silence by two jocks, bustling their way over to his table, apparently feeling that a pretty girl talking to someone like him has threatened their masculinity.
Oh great, his next favourite type of person.
"You gonna eat this?" says the first one, with the supreme wit of a fruit fly, as he plunges his finger into his desert.
"And what did your boyfriend say when you told him you were going to move to Sherwood Ohio?" adds idiot number 2.
Oh the value of the American public education system.
"Isn't there a no fags allowed policy in this canteen?"
In all honesty he's quite impressed at how this jock's managed to summarise his type's entire contribution to society in one concise sentence.
He raises his eyebrows "Seems to have an open door policy on assholes though," he's already wasted too much of his precious time on them, but it's almost worth it to watch them attempt to splutter a response, before they'll inevitably resolve to use their fists.
He glances around the cafeteria, a few people are observing, mildly curious, most are continuing their conversations ignoring what must be an almost everyday occurrence. From her table on the other side of the room, surrounded by her typical, stuck up friends, she's still looking at him, a smile playing on her lips.
He smirks, takes out his gun (unloaded, for the moment,) fires twice. That shuts them up.
There are screams, a myriad of faces turn towards him frozen in shock, a few more in outrage or all out anger. Only one is staring at him with a grin, biting her cheeks to stop the laughter from spilling out her mouth.
Yeah, he's not wrong about her.
He follows her home, a little behind her so she doesn't notice. He watches her enter her house, sees which bedroom light comes on soon after, takes note of where she lives. Such facts always come in useful.
XXX
And, like fate, he sees her again that evening. He's loitering at the Snappy Snack Shack, as he always does when he has nowhere else to go, when she walks through the door, tottering on platforms and wearing blood red lipstick, sexier than ever. He notices the red car outside – her bitch friend from today is clearly also around.
She grins when she sees him and they make polite conversation until she brings up the topic she's clearly itching to talk about, "The thing you pulled in the caf today was pretty severe," she makes no effort to hide the fact it's only made her more interested in him.
He smiles at that. It feels good, a relief even, to find a likeminded person.
"Well the extreme always seems to make an impression."
He buys them both a slushy and they leave the shop together.
She eyes up his bike, he shrugs, the odd benefit that his dad's job gives him doesn't really outweigh the rest of the crap.
She seems to understand, "it must be rough moving place to place.
He shrugs, "Everyone's life has static, is your life perfect?"
He's pleased to see a scowl grace her features at the words.
"Oh yeah, I'm on my way to a party at Remmington university. No, my life's not perfect, I don't really like my friends."
The idiot girl is still sitting in her car honking her horn, as if she is invulnerable, "Yeah, I don't really like your friends either."
She rolls her eyes, "It's just like they're people I work with and their job is being popular and shit."
He chooses his next words carefully, "Maybe it's time to take a vacation."
When she smiles she looks a bit like his mother.
A moment later she is ripped away from him by the girl she doesn't even like, pulled to a party that appears to exist for the sole purpose of making sure college life will be just as awful as high school always has been. Her distaste is palpable.
He sucks on the slushy straw, red liquid filling his mouth and staining his teeth as he watches her leave.
The future looks promising.
XXX
It's later that night, while he is still out with nothing to do but not bored enough to face going home, that he rides down her road again and notices her bedroom light is on. She must be back from the party. He decides to say hi. He finds a ladder and makes quick work of picking her window lock.
"Dreadful etiquette I know."
Still a little tipsy, she looks delighted to see him. Nods enthusiastically when he suggests they play croquet and willingly (if slightly unsteadily) follows him out the window.
"I want to kill Heather Chandler," are the first words out her mouth when she jumps down from the ladder onto the lawn.
He smirks, "You can't be the first person to think that."
"They don't mean it like I do," she says, darkly, "I can't really explain it, but I understand so much more than everyone else, I understand that we can't go on like this, Heather needs to be stopped. A world without Heather and everyone like her would be such a beautiful place…"
She elaborates, says all the reasons why she hates Heather so much tonight, what she's done before to make her such an awful friend, but he's not listening anymore, he just stares at her as he lets her words of hate and vengeance towards this shitty excuse of a human being wash over him. He is momentarily stunned at how such a perfect creature has made its way into his fucked up life.
She looks down, "Sorry," she says, with a nervous little chuckle, "I must sound like a manic."
She's his, she has to be. She will fight with him, sit beside him as his queen.
He grins, "Not at all. I understand entirely." He gazes at her until she heads off to find the mallets.
They spend a minute or two batting the ball around, she's far better than him (in all honesty he's only played it once or twice) but she's not paying too much attention. She's spending more and more time letting her eyes slide over to him, her gaze resting on his face, his shoulders, his body.
Eventually she breaks her silence, "Do you ever take off that stupid coat?"
He shrugs and is rewarded with a wonderful look of determined anger.
She raises her mallet viciously and knocks his ball to the other side of the lawn, "There. You're losing, take it off, that's your penalty." And, when he doesn't immediately do so, she goes over to him and peels it off herself with far more contact than is necessary.
He grins at her and knocks her ball even further away, "Your move."
Without breaking eye contact she discards her blazer.
The rest of their clothes soon follow until they are both standing there in their underwear, he hits her ball once more and she reaches for the clasp of her bra.
The sun is just appearing over the horizon, he can hear the sound of the odd car in the distance, soon her neighbours will be able to see them, "Are you sure?" he mutters, even as he moves towards her.
But she shakes her head and lets the bra fall to the ground, arms outstretched, her voice is almost a shout, "Fuck them. I wish this whole town was gone. That it was just you and me in the world."
Framed by red dawn, in all her topless glory, she looks like a succubus or an angel of death.
He takes her then. Right there on the lawn.
XXX
She's his reward. She has to be. Or at least his incentive to keep going, not to turn around and despair.
The early morning sunshine is warming their bare flesh as she turns in his arms, lazily kissing and biting his collarbone. Gazing at her through the haze of his pleasure she look ethereal, and he knows he must be must be doing something right. It is a sign, in the form of a beautiful girl slowly being driven mad by the scum around her, that he is right, that he is a saviour sent to cleanse the world of sin.
He must continue.
And the first thing he'll do is make his angel's wish come true.
XXX
They sneak into Heather's house in the morning, still both slightly elated from the night before, but as soon as they make the way through the doorway it's straight to business.
A look of set determination on her face, she immediately starts raiding the cupboards, for suitable ingredients for their concoction, trying to make the most disgusting thing possible for Heather to drink.
He takes a look at her work, milk and orange juice, perhaps a bit of spit as neither of them can amass enough phlegm. A middle school prank, hardly better than the deeds than those popular scumbags that she is so separate from. He has a much better idea. He opens the cupboard below the sink and instantly finds what he is looking for, it's the strong stuff too – guaranteed to get rid of anything unwanted in less than a minute.
"I'm more of a no rust build up man myself."
She looks at him strangely, "Don't be a dick, that stuff will kill her." But there's still the shadow of a smile playing on her features, and she doesn't stop him continuing to make his superior creation.
It's an opportunity that he won't let her pass up. He can see her conscience is rocking on that odd precipice between innocence and desire. He needs to lead her into the light.
He comes over, places his cup close to the innocent one. Kisses her. Hard. Distracting. Until he's sure all thoughts of stupid things like Heather, parties or morality have completely left her mind. He lets his focus slip too, just for a moment, to lose himself in his goddess' touch as they relish the calm before the storm.
He watches her carefully as they finally break apart, sees the way she grabs the cup, she can feel the lid, she must know she has the one that will solve all her problems. He offers to carry it for her just in case.
When they enter the bedroom Heather, hungover or not, is as arrogant and ungrateful as ever, and any doubt that he's picked the wrong victim is instantly quelled. He ignores her and politely offers the drink.
She scoffs initially, but he knows that look, she's picking her options – trying to assess the situation to make sure she will save face, unaware what consequences are hanging in the balance.
The dominos are all lined up. As long as he is careful all he needs to do is to tap the first one over…
"I knew this stuff would be too intense for her."
Tap.
"Intense? Grow up. Think I'll drink it just because you call me chicken," She snaps, as if her fate hasn't already been sealed, "just give me the cup jerk."
With pleasure.
She raises the cup to her lips and he can feel his heart beating in his chest, his breath comes in short, sharp bursts.
She gulps it all down in one. And suddenly she is grasping her throat, fighting for air as her windpipe dissolves before their very eyes, stumbles forward, chokes out some last words and falls forward smashing through her glass coffee table. And, just like that, an idol of false worship has been toppled.
He couldn't have done it better if he'd tried.
Admittedly, the lack of blood in this method of disposal was a bit disappointing, but the little cuts on her arms and torso from where she landed on the glass, all emitting small red beads of blood, more than make up for it.
God, it's so easy. Five minutes of work and he's changed the world. He has just saved the human race from the next fifty years of Heather Chandler's torment, saved the poor sod who would have landed her as the world's most bitchy trophy wife, saved the next generation of children from her children's bullying.
He glances at the girl beside him. Her face has frozen, caught somewhere between the smirk she wore when Heather gulped down the drink and the look of shock at what happened next. Her eyes stare at the body on the floor, surprisingly intense. Taking it all in. He knows that look, it's carnal instinct, for a moment society's protocols have been smashed like that glass table and she can see what they've created for the masterpiece it really is.
The next second it's gone and she is hit by the consequences that have been unfairly placed on such a deed.
"I just killed my best friend."
He plays along, lets her freak out for a moment, makes sure she realises what a mistake calling the emergency services would be (authority do not understand yet what needs to be done). Then tests the waters.
"At least you got what you wanted."
"Got what I wanted?" She says, somewhere between shock, fury and panic, "it is one thing to want someone out of your life, it is another thing to serve them a wake up cup full of liquid drainer."
Ah, not ready to accept your true feelings just yet.
He looks around the room, spots The Bell Jar, on the floor, betrays a hint of a smile, this and Veronica's talent for forging handwriting will make this even simpler than usual…
Heather's red scrunchy is also still on the bed where she left it. He quietly pockets it in case he finds some use for it later.
It's easy after that, she's more than willing to follow his solution as soon as he suggests it, a check around the room to make sure their presence wasn't obvious, a quick repositioning to make sure The Bell Jar is in pride of place of Heather's bedside table and, most importantly a suicide note written in Heather's handwriting. He's pretty good at forging handwriting himself, but he gives her the honour.
It's a win/win situation all round really, the world loses Heather and Veronica gets what she always really wanted, and, now their solution is right in front of them, she doesn't have to go through the long winded process of protesting her innocence to the cops.
Though, now she's forged that note, she couldn't even if she wanted to.
XXX
He's been to enough obligatory 'oh the entire school is so sad this awful human being committed suicide that we all must show our faces,' funerals for any memory of the empty church (fitting really given the empty casket) where his dad sat beside him, bored, as the priest inaccurately described the virtues of his mother, to hold any sting. Still, that doesn't make them any less tedious.
But she sits beside him, much closer than she needs to be and doesn't put up any resistance when he puts his hand on her thigh, nor when he inches it up further and further throughout the service. In contrast she seems rather pleased to have a distraction from the priest's droning.
Really it's one of the better funerals he's been to.
When she gets up, to view Heather's casket he can't resist letting out a moan of protest at the loss of contact, things were just about to get fun.
"Stay."
"I have to pay my respects," she hisses.
"What respect?"
Her disapproving glare doesn't quite hide the twinkle of amusement in her eyes.
XXX
She's out when he tries to visit her again that night. In her bedroom there are a few discarded clothes on the floor, as if it took her a while to decide what to wear, on her desk there is a ripped piece of paper where she has scribbled down the name of a cheap fast food joint – he pockets it.
She's not in the joint, but as he cycles back he hears familiar voices from the pasture nearby. He drives closer, catches sight of two guys clad in Westerberg jerseys – the dickheads from the cafeteria, one has a girl pinned on the ground struggling, not his, he looks away, disinterested. The other one though, has his arms tightly round a girl whom he knows all too well…
His hand grips the loaded gun in his pocket, calculating his next move.
Before he can decide, she detangles herself from the jock's grip and walks away, unknowingly towards him, leaning against a tree in apparent exhaustion.
"What is this shit?"
Slightly bedraggled and covered in mud she looks at him like he's her saviour, and some of his anger dissipates. "Doing a favour for Heather," she nods at the girl in the field, who he now recognises as the blonde wimpy looking Heather, "double date, tried to tell you at the funeral but you rode off."
The thought of them near her, with their clumsy, inferior hands on her body makes his blood boil. So he takes her back to his and erases any drunken fumbling with his own reverent touches, until he is sure that she is his and only his.
She's so pissed off with the whole situation that it is easy to forgive her. He's furious with that other fucking Heather for making him have to sort out this mess in the first place, but he figures he's punished her enough for the moment by leaving her alone with two drunk, horny jocks.
The two assholes though, he'll sort them out as soon as he thinks of a revenge that's poetic enough.
XXX
And, like the godsend she is, she comes up with the solution.
She comes storming up to him the next day as soon as first period is over, gripping his wrist and pulling him outside until they're in the woods behind the school, she kisses him once, twice, before leaning back against a tree, head banging the trunk with frustration.
"Gah, I need a cigarette."
He obliges, lighting one up, she takes it off him gratefully, "You ok?"
"Hmmm, let's see, yesterday I was lured to some horrible location so some jocks could attempt to date rape me and now apparently they are spreading some ridiculous gossip about me having a threesome with them. But yeah, aside from that I'm so very."
He plucks the cigarette from her lips, and takes a drag attempting to quell his own silent fury that those scumbags claimed she'd agree to do anything with them, she near snatches it back, breathes it in and continues her rant, "Urgh, I just wish they'd get a taste of their own medicine for once, see how it actually feels. You need to get that gun out again, that shut them up for a few days last time."
Shutting them up for just a few days isn't exactly what he has in mind. But he'll still give her credit for the idea.
XXX
She's like a mirror image of him, but with better tits.
She's less rough at the edges, of course, needs a few well-placed lies to cover the ickyness mankind has been indoctrinated to feel about death, (the blood, the sounds, the smells, are an acquired taste). But there's the same knowledge of how shit this planet is, the same desire to rid the world of scum until only the good remain.
There have been other girls of course, two or three, but they've always become delusional whenever he's tried to get anything done. They screamed things at him, about telling the police and locking him away (as if he hadn't made sure they were just as guilty in the eyes of the law) and called him a psycho, a maniac, a monster – the same names his mom would shout at his dad in her rare moments of strength (and he isn't like his dad, he isn't) – so he had to stop them screaming. Every mission has casualties.
She's different.
There were no hysterics when she saw Heather's body crumple to the floor and there is no hesitation now in luring the jocks into the forest. In fact, her face lights up with excitement when he shows her the items they will plant with them and she examines the gun he gives her with the reverence such an invention deserves.
When he tackles her to the bed moments later, whispering words of vengeance in her ear, she can't keep her hands off him.
XXX
He watches her greedily from his hiding place in the foliage as she tucks the gun into the back of her skirt, like a goddess of justice and revenge. Their set up is perfect, their plan near fool proof, all they need are the victims.
He anxiously traces the trigger with his finger, it's been ages since he's shot a proper target and he's itching for the rush.
He hears the sound of a car door opening, their obnoxious gaffes as they run towards their demise, the crunching of footsteps, the rustle of branches as they enter the clearing…
He tries to keep his breathing steady, his mouth is dry.
Any minute now.
Without a spark of hesitation she goads them into standing in the circles they've outlined on the ground and taking off their clothes. He diverts his eyes from his victim for a moment to look at her, she's all come hither and enticing, and he almost doesn't blame them for wanting her.
Then she starts to count and he is back to being hyper focused, his grip on the gun tightens as he aims for Ram's neck, the fucker is positioned so close to him that it's almost unfair.
He's dead before he hits the ground.
Perfecto.
She misses. Pathetically.
Given how much effort he's put into this moment it's a bit disappointing. They'll have to work on it for next time.
It's almost worth it though, to hunt the jock through the woods.
His heart thumping in his ears, he stalks him through the trees, listening out for the rustling of footsteps, anticipating his every turn. This is what man was meant to be doing, not sitting in offices and debating politics while making no significant change, but out on the ground, defeating dumb animals with their superior, quick thinking minds.
He can't escape, they both know it, so it's really a matter of watching him squirm and squeal like the pig he is as he runs around in circles in an attempt to prevent his inevitable slaughter. He cuts off the path his prey was trying to take, and the idiot turns on his heel and runs back towards the glade.
"Now." He commands.
This time her aim is perfect. He falls backwards, unmoving, unable to torment or hurt ever again as rich scarlet liquid blossoms from his bare chest.
He's never seen anyone else kill before, he realises (his father killing his mother doesn't count, his father never counts), so he drinks in her face in the moments after the deed is done. There's panic there, obviously, there always is during your first time, but there's something else as well, a spark in her eyes of hate, of danger, of victory, what she has just done has overwhelming power and she knows it.
God, he needs her right now.
He sorts out the crime scene, then pulls her frantically through the forest, into his car. As he grips her wrist he can feel her pulse racing with exhilaration. The second the door shuts he tears off her shirt and locks his lips with hers. It's their cover, they'd planned it earlier, for when the cops show up. But the cops come and go and he doesn't stop.
The adrenalin still pumping through both their bodies, the image of two successful kills still on his mind, he is rougher than usual, but she is there every moment to meet his thrusts, clinging to him even tighter than normal, leaving marks on his skin from where she bites his neck.
There is still blood on their hands from their latest victory. It leaves red fingerprints on their bare skin when it mixes with their sweat. He makes sure to touch her breasts, the red smears against them look like rose petals.
She is beautiful in the moonlight.
XXX
He might be God, he thinks. Not the ridiculous 'love and forgiveness' thing they worshiped at that namby pamby church his mom used to drag him to every Sunday (she'd kneel there for hours, head bowed, mumbling fast words she'd never let him hear,) but the proper old testament one who turned those who disobeyed him into pillars of salt, who watched fathers suffer as they were forced to sacrifice their own sons, who sent asteroids to drag the world into chaos murdering the dinosaurs and who sent a flood to destroy all the evil in the world and to rebuild it into something better.
Fuck, this messed up world needs rebuilding now.
He doesn't like the idea of a flood though. Drowning is slow, and messy, it can be easy when the subject is too drunk to struggle so it can be useful, but there's no blood, no rush of innate victory when their lives finally leave their body, no screams or cries of pain.
He prefers fire.
Maybe he is Jesus, born again, ready to lead this screwed up world into the apocalypse. To raise the pitifully few who are enlightened up into heaven with him while the rest are left to suffer spending eternity in a world permanently destroyed by their own sins.
XXX
She's oddly subdued after their argument in the car. He gets she's mad at him. It's fairly reasonable, he'd be mad too if she had lied to him. But she will see soon enough, soon he will awaken her potential and there will be no need to lie to her anymore. They will hunt together.
She's still with him, that's the main thing. That alone proves that she knows, deep down, that he is right.
When he takes her home after the funeral his dad's out, so they break into his alcohol stores and toast lukewarm beer and half empty bottles of tequila to the revolution. They sit on the old sofa, which has been through even more moves than he has and watch mid-afternoon reruns of Cheers on the TV, laughing at the cheesy plots and quoting their favourite lines.
It's been a while since he's felt this content. He knows he has a long, winding road ahead of him, full of danger and resistance But with his girl right next to him, his arm tight round her waist, as he drinks his beer steadily – stopping once he feels slightly buzzed, he know he can do everything he is destined to do.
She drinks until she is giggling hysterically, covering his face with sloppy kisses.
XXX
The canteen is bustling when he enters it on Friday lunchtime, cameras rolling down the aisles, students shoving each other aside, desperate to get some screen time, Miss Fleming standing in the middle with a megaphone demanding everyone hold hands and form a Mexican wave (100% proven cure to stop all suicides on this scummy planet).
He feels the elation rush through his veins. This is him! This is them! Because of them the entire school has descended into chaos, teachers rambling vague attempts to keep society in check while the students run wild, buzzing with excitement and fear on the verge of toppling their control, the TV crews broadcasting it for the rest of the state to see. And this was just three measly (if impeccably planned) executions, imagine what power they could gain from 10, 20, 100!
She's standing on her own, away from the cameras. He approaches her from behind, snakes his arms around her torso, she jumps at his touch, before stiffening. He wraps his arms around her tighter in response, muttering in her ear "is this as good for you as it is for me?"
Her only reaction is to go limp in his arms. She has been sullen like this since the day after the funeral, initially he thought it was just the hangover but it's more than that she's still mad at him and generally just being a buzzkill, not even trying to help with their plan.
He gives up for the moment, and goes over and talks to Martha Dunstock. He has a feeling he could use her help for a few other parts of his conquest. In his travels he has always found the underappreciated can be valuable sources of information and more than willing to give it up when treated to a few moments of kindness. He's not wrong.
XXX
He spots her as he heads out of the school at the end of the day he asks if she wants to go to his, he'll use this opportunity to talk her round, get her back on the right page again. She shrugs emotionlessly but gets on his motorbike anyway.
As soon as she gets in she explodes.
"That thing this afternoon, I'm so angry it was chaos, fucking chaos."
He rolls his eyes, how the hell doesn't she see? This is what they want! They want people messed up, they want people scared, how else will they recant all the shit that they are doing to this planet?
He tries to tell her this but she still doesn't listen, acting as if she's so distant from what they have done.
This is not how he envisioned the evening going. They are slowly but surely winning their war yet she is sulking like a simple schoolgirl. It's not like she didn't pull the trigger on Kurt herself, not like she bothered checking whether she'd picked up the right cup, not like she couldn't have looked up what "ich luge" meant if she really cared.
His father, unusually, provides a welcome distraction at this point by showing them a video of his latest demolition. He's so desperate to ignore Veronica and her ridiculous protests that he actually pays attention to the explosion, watches for a second, entranced as the building tumbles to dust. When Bud leaves she's thankfully still silent for a moment, carefully watching his expression as he leaves the room.
"Do you like your father?"
He shrugs and answers honestly, "I've never given the matter much thought." But she's no longer sulking or shouting at him, he senses an opportunity here, tells her about his mother – girls always like that crap. Like clockwork her expression softens, affection returns when she looks at him like it hasn't in days.
Now the issue is resolved he turns his attention to other things, turns up the music and, just to annoy his dad, shoots the tv.
She jumps, her eyes widen. Her look of shock is almost picturesque but it hardens in a second. She clambers up from the sofa.
"That's it, we're breaking up."
He splutters for a second, unable to comprehend what her problem is now, before pulling her back – his surprise quickly turning to fury, reminds her that she has as much of their blood on her hands as him, more maybe – they were her enemies not his – but still she resists.
He grabs her, kisses her to try and get her to calm the fuck down and see sense, but she only pushes him away, shouts at him for a bit and leaves.
Whatever. She'll be back anyway. One cannot live with the superior knowledge they possess and not do something about it. She was always meant to be his.
He turns his mind back to the building turning to dust in his father's video. Normally he's not fussed watching the clips, they bring back bad memories, but today, with the euphoria he feels after experiencing the chaos they created, he knows he can do anything. There's something beautiful, he thinks, about pressing one button and watching creations, designed to last hundreds of years, toppling down like they never existed.
XXX
He's Satan, the devil, he decides – planted on Earth to condemn sinners early, to give them a short taste of hell before they are sent there for eternity, or even redeeming them – sending them to heaven before the world forces them into too much sin for them to ever think of paradise.
And there are so many sinners, festering, breeding, like rats carrying the plague, making sure all the others get infected so they have no chance of survival either.
It would be a mercy really, a blessing even. To take them all down, sinners, saints, good, bad and lonely, all at once, in a magnificent wave of fire. To watch it light up the entire sky, to send a warning to the entire country, to the entire world, this is what your society does to your children, then maybe they would start to see.
There would be a revolution, all guns and bombs and chaos, until everyone understood or was dead. Whichever came first.
And afterwards he would be there. Rising from the ashes like a phoenix, like the immortal he is. His mission complete, the world his own.
And she would be there, restored, beside him gazing at him in awe of all he had done.
XXX
He has so much work to do.
He has plans, so many plans, soon the world will be in so much anarchy, their countries godforsaken wastelands, their faith in goodness and forgiveness smashed so thoroughly that they will welcome being led by the devil. But he needs to take things one step at a time.
First he needs to destroy Westerberg.
He wastes no time, meets with Heather Duke early Monday morning with his little present from Martha. He watches, amused, as her face goes pale. She toys with him, tries to bargain, as if she had any power in this situation. As if he hasn't planned a response to everything she could say already. It's quite pathetic really, you'd think someone trying to claw for power would at least display some. A couple of days later and she's running round doing his job for him.
Mortals are so easy to manipulate. A word or two, the vague threat of a few pictures and there she is getting the entire school to sign their own death warrant. It's funny really, these humans, with their cliques and delusions of self-importance and uniqueness are all the same really, sheep being herded into the slaughterhouse with no resistance, without any even questioning why the path ahead smells of blood.
XXX
She's by the stairs when he finds her the next morning, looking delightfully frustrated with the world – just like the day he first met her, maybe finally ready to be enlightened, it feels like a new start for them both.
He tests the waters, approaches her and, finding no resistance, asks her on a date.
She shakes her head, an ironic smile playing around on her features and instead extolls the virtues of killing another Heather.
He has bigger fish to fry now, but he'll happily forego his plans for a night or two to see her kill again.
He wraps his arms around her, feels her lean against him, succumbing to his kisses, lets him tell her his own plans for Heather's fate.
"I knew you'd be back, Veronica." He says, softly, "I knew it, I was positive, sure."
She freezes, turns in his arms and pushes him off her, shouts at him, like they all did before, and storms off.
And for the first time it occurs to him that she might not return. That he perhaps did not see in her what he thought. That's she already been corrupted too far. She'll waste any potential she had, to defend and die in a damned world – just like the others.
She's weak. Just like his mother.
She's been playing with him really, he's destroyed all her enemies for her and this is how she repays him? By cowering away as soon as the battle really starts?
She's read enough literature, she should know fucking with the devil is a bad idea. Fucking the devil though, does rather endear him to you… He'll give her some warnings, give her the chance, try to talk to her out of it and get her back in the fight, and if that fails… well he'll make sure her death is as painless as it can be.
XXX
She's hanging limply from the ceiling when he enters her room.
It's a blow. Not a massive one, like his mother had been, because he had already written her off in his mind. But it's unexpected and he'd had images of winning her over, getting to hold her hand when the countdown reached zero, toasting marshmallows on the fire as the rest of the town struggled to make sense of this new found anarchy. Even if he'd had to kill her, he'd have given her a much prettier, less painful, death than her badly made noose. She'd have deserved it. She had so much potential.
It's a waste, such a waste, that she had let society and its flawed ideals obscure her vision and stop her doing what was right. He paces a little and tells her this. He lets himself imagine, for a moment, what they could have been.
Someone calls her name and then there are footsteps on the stairs. He scurries out the window and only hesitates for a second before getting on his motorbike and heading home, he has a lot of work to do for tomorrow. If anything her death proves that he has to do this. A world that keeps systematically killing off the people he loves is a world that doesn't deserve to exist anyway. Her being taken away from him is just punishment for not doing it fast enough.
XXX
He walks down the halls of Westerberg for the final time, marvelling at the masterpiece he is about to create. The students around him are like ghosts. Dead already in his mind – reality just needs to catch up. He passes some jocks stealing some kid's lunch money – they'll be gone before they get to spend it, some girls huddled in the corner doubtless spreading bitchy rumours – boom! Dead! That idiot who keeps trying to sell drugs to the freshmen… well they always warned that drugs kill didn't they?
This entire cesspit of sin will finally be doing something good for society. He can't wait for the rush when he sees the explosion and smells the sweet scent of charred flesh.
He climbs beneath the gym seats to strap the explosives on them before making his way down to the boiler room for the main event. No one questions what he is doing. He is invisible to most of the student body. At times like this it is very useful.
"May I see your hall pass?" her voice is too real, too clear, to be his imagination. He looks up, she's standing on the stairs holding (incompetently) his gun. A faked suicide, perhaps he's given her too much practice setting them up.
He's caught somewhere between fury and amusement, she lied to him once again, she took an option that he hadn't thought of and attempted to mess with his plan, but the fact that she thinks this will make any difference, that anything she can do will stop him, well that's quite funny…
He will win, it is his destiny.
He humours her attempts to take control for a few seconds, then grabs her and hits her head against the wall so she is limp in his arms. He makes sure she's unconscious and then unceremoniously dumps her by the stairs, pocketing the gun, before turning back to the more important work at hand. If he's feeling nice he'll take her with him when he leaves.
He's almost done, the countdown set in motion when he feels a blunt but painful force land on his side, knocking him over, the gun is sent skidding across the room. He pushes himself up from the floor to face his attacker.
He was wrong. She is not weak.
That spark of murder in her eyes when she killed Kurt and watched Heather die has grown into a raging fire and it is directed all at him.
She is Lilith, mother of all demons, reincarnated.
She has never been more beautiful.
So he pushes her against the wall, muffles her protests with a searing kiss. She struggles until she succeeds in pushing him off. She is not ready yet. But she will be.
He cannot kill her now. She will be his. She was always his. They are destined to destroy and rebuild the world together.
For now though, he is content to watch his girl, panic in her gait, holding the gun she's retrieved from the floor surprisingly steady as she methodically hunts him down (they will hunt together again one day, and she will be glorious).
She turns once more and suddenly she's in front of him, her eyes widen for a split second, even though this was her goal, but then they narrow, all focus on him.
And, for the first time, he is at her mercy. He is pissed, of course, his queen does not need to be here right now ruining his plans (she needs to see, fuck it, why can't she see?), but damn she is fearless.
"How do I turn off the bomb, asshole?"
"Fuck you."
Her finger carefully squeezes the trigger and the infuriating sounds of the pep rally above are drowned out by a loud bang.
There is blood, so much blood, and it takes him a second to realise it's his own. That there's an agonising pain coming from where his finger should be, he crumples to the floor, cursing his human form, scrabbling for something to quell the flow.
When he looks up her she is still standing over him, gun pointed steadily at his heart.
He begs with her, pleads for her to understand, he's doing this for their own good for everyone's own good, the world needs to start again, new people, new philosophy, new rulers – and this bloodshed is the only way they can do it.
"Let's face it, the only place different social types can genuinely get along with each other is in heaven."
But her expression just turns even harder, her mind impenetrable, she hasn't suffered enough, she doesn't know this is the only solution, the only way to cure this horrendous world.
He lunges towards her, knife in hand, to do something, anything before her ignorance ruins everything.
She shoots again and pain, like nothing he has ever felt sears around him, knocking him down and clouding his vision. Somewhere, in the back of his conscious he feels the knife going into the timer, sees the countdown coming to a halt. But then the blackness overtakes him.
XXX
He's still alive.
Of course he is, he's a mythical being with a mission. He cannot die.
The bullet wounds hurt like fuck though.
He surveys the room around him, everything has been left as it was before he lost consciousness, trails of blood left on the floor from their struggle, the bomb stuck with four seconds left to blow, he can even still hear the ignorant cheers of the pep rally above him. The only difference is Veronica's notable absence.
The devil cannot be killed by fire. He will be reborn, he will continue on his mission to blow up all the schools, all the buildings, to purge the world of all its evils. He could relight the bomb here, kill the school just like he wanted and she would be there outside, powerless to stop it. That would teach her to think that she can beat Satan. But he needs her, he needs her power to fight by his side, needs her to rejuvenate the world once they have punished all the sinners.
He needs her to understand.
So he struggles to his feet, straps the bomb to himself and steps outside.
She is standing where he expects her to be, detached from the scum, even if she can't bring herself to destroy them like they deserve. She's different, they're different, they both know it.
She jumps when he starts speaking, moves warily backwards, he can tell she's calculating how quickly she can reach the gun. But she needn't worry. He's happy to let her think she's won for now.
He tells her he's impressed, tells her about her power – he'll need all of that one day when he has her back.
He can't wait.
Then he places himself in clear in her line of sight, his arms outstretched, hailing his satanic baptism. It's an impressive image to leave her with. He, more than anyone, knows that someone you love blowing up in front of you is a powerful motivator for taking the lead in sorting out the world.
She doesn't reply, instead she smirks, places a cigarette between her lips and waits for the explosion to light it. It cuts an impressive image too. Well, she has learnt from the best.
He is part of her now, always. She doesn't understand yet, but she will. When the time is right of course she will.
Let her suffer. Let her see what her life is like without my wisdom. Let her live with these fuckers until she becomes as damaged as I am. Let her run back into my arms.
The bomb reaches zero and he is where he was always destined to be, surrounded by fire. Reborn once more.
One day we will rule the world.