Loving the Devil
Part 1: Facing the Devil
"There's more than a way to skin an author"
She had threatened him, she had tried to seduce him, she had simply asked gently what she wanted: they all turned out to be vain attempts, but that last sentence stressed the fact that her confidence was still untouched. Surely it couldn't have been said that she didn't know how to leave the scene. However, before her hand reached the handle of the door, Isaac's voice kept her in her place.
"I really loved you, Cruella"
The tone was bitter, but more than suffering, he seemed willing to make her suffer. The woman remained still for some moments, while a sincerely surprised expression appared on her face, joined with a rare melancholic smile. Nevertheless, she didn't allow the man to see it and when she finally turned around, her look only conveyed contempt.
"Really? Then you have always been a fool…" she answered, letting a sharp chuckle escape her lips. "You can't fall in love with someone you just met, most of all when you don't know her very well, darling…"
Isaac made a sad smile and in the meantime, despite the fear he felt anyway, moved some steps toward her. It was true – he had been a fool, indeed. He didn't act different from Shakespeare's naive Miranda, who fell in love with the first man she had seen; but for him the world didn't turn out to be the "brave new world" he had been dreaming about while reading, that experience only made him knowing the absurdly angelic face of the devil.
He should have been satisfied with just reading The Tempest, instead of turning his whole life into a tempest.
He remembered, though; and those memories were too solid hooks to a still real feeling.
"Your surprised expression, your sparkling big blue eyes, your smile and when we danced, I…"
But Cruella wasn't listening anymore, because for her all of that didn't have any value; there wasn't anything real about that night – except maybe the little confusion after tasting gin for the first time.
"Oh, poor puppy… And yet, I would have expected you to become the new Beaudelaire after such a disappointment"
She was looking at him with an amusement pity, as if he was the most pathetic man in the world – and in the meantime she had absorbed all his vital energy: the comparison with the maudit poete did exist after all. It wasn't him making her who she was, it was rather the contrary. Isaac never knew about disappointment, pain, heartbreak, before meeting Cruella: he lived for the first and only time with her – and he found out that life was actually suffering.
There was a long silence, during which they simply looked at each other – at a safe distance, of course. Cruella was completely changed physically and now she was appearing in her real essence; and yet those eyes – so different yet still the same – were killing him just like many years before.
"If only you had wanted, I would have ranaway with you!" he insisted, wallowing a little more in a parallel story never written. "Even if you were a psycho killer, even if you-"
"Oh, but really?"
A sudden surge of anger interrupted the passionate confession. Her irritation was back and it was embodying the shape of an unexpected fury. She was annoyed by that late love declaration, but not much because of love itself – which at most could have provoked her amusement – but most because it wasn't true at all.
"Stop playing the part of the helpless puppy, Isaac! You never loved me!"
The author widened his eyes out of surpise and, confused by the unexpected objection, he remained silent for a while.
"Of course I loved you" he replied eventually.
But the calmness of the answer just made the animals witch's anger grow.
"No, you didn't. I perfectly remember the terrified and disgusted look you had when I told you about what I did to my mother… You just loved an angel that never existed."
Isaac looked at her even more confused. The accusation was actually inconsistent: he did love that angel he danced with and he would have loved it for ever even if it was just a fragile illusion; he would have loved it even if it was just a very little part behind the devil. But of course he always love just that – the angel behind the devil.
"What should I have done? Love you for your madness?" he provoked her with an ironic tone. "No one could ever love a devil because it's a devil"
Those last words were unwillingly and unexpectedly the only ones to hurt her somehow. Maybe, in spite of everything, being loved for what she actually was, was the only thing she ever asked. She moved again toward the door; only when she reached it, she gave him a strange look that almost seemed sorry. A weak bitter smile completed that expression.
"Exactly. No one ever could"
Before the man could reply, she was already gone with the same furious rush as always.
Maybe she didn't leave the scene as she wanted, but for the first time she didn't raise fear, contempt, balme… Instead she just left behind her an unpredictable depraved sympathy for the devil.
Hello! Here I am again, this time with an Authella story. I really like the idea of this ship and I think they sort of deserve a second chance - and also a fanfic. Hope you liked the start, I'd like to know what you think about it:)
See you soon!
