Disclaimer: I didn't intend to get this written tonight but was having trouble with something else and tried working on this instead and here we are! This is the last chapter – I think – from the "current" timeline and will go back to when they first met, when he killed her, she came back and the beginning of her being held captive by him. Then it should go back to current and seeing where it goes from there. Hope you guys like it and of course enjoy!
I shivered, goose bumps under my skin and the diamonds of my dress sparkling slightly which didn't have anything to do with anything and would probably be better traded in for something warmer where now it was just past uncomfortable and digging ugly patterns into my skin.
"You're quiet."
I hadn't been talking much either but the fact that he hadn't been either was unsettling. Quiet meant thinking and thinking – especially with him – usually meant something bad was about to go down. I could handle the insults and the smirks – though those were sometimes just as quiet – but silence on someone else was something I wasn't practiced in.
"I thought you didn't like when I talked."
He tilted his head slightly when he said it, the light from the windows behind us sharpening his chin and making him look even more sinister in the light. The somewhat unbalanced bow tie still held off the true effect though and for that I was secretly grateful.
"I don't. I don't like when you're quiet either."
I was like a little kid listing down the reasons why I didn't like someone though mine were probably more damning then simply "he pulled my hair" or "made me eat glue."
"So either way I win."
He laughed slightly, perked up by the idea and getting back to his feet from the way I had knocked him down on the dance floor. The satisfaction from it had since faded and now I didn't know what to do with the silence when quietly hating him was harder to deal with then deflecting his comments and doing something no matter how minimal about them.
"In theory. But then there's just ignoring you and that works pretty well."
And I was back to being the little kid again. Though he wasn't much better at times. We were two brats from kindergarten with bigger things at stake slapping at each other and occasionally pulling hair though it wasn't fair because mine was longer and his presumably greasy.
"It could. But then again I could throw you back into the dungeon and torture you until you are in bloody pieces and that would also work pretty well."
He glanced at me as he said it, waiting for my reaction that I didn't give and staring straight ahead myself and telling myself that the goose bumps were just the cold.
"By all means."
I welcomed it, hopefully calling his bluff and digging my fingernails into my palm and waiting for him to call me on mine and drag me back by my hair to the stone cell and bloody tools that I had begun to recognize by how deeply they cut and the sound I made when they did.
"You're cold."
This time I looked at him, eyebrows raised and confused that he had changed the topic so easily and going from the prospect of my torture right to the concern of my well being.
"Yeah. So?"
He stopped walking and shrugged off his jacket so it dropped to his wrists and then pulling it off entirely and swinging it over my shoulders. I tensed as he tucked it over them and draping it over my front so that the sides folded over each other and I was suddenly standing in the cold wearing Dick Roman's coat while he tucked it in so that it fit me better.
"Better?"
He raised his eyes to mine despite being taller than me and usually it being me the one to look up but this time his head had been bowed and calculating as if he had been working on something of such great importance and wanted to make sure it was done right.
"Yes."
It was heavy and it smelled faintly of cologne and it made my skin crawl knowing that he had been wearing it and all he had and was going to do but it was warm. And I hated myself but I didn't take it off.
"You could say thank you."
All insults and business again he continued walking, pulling at the cuffs of his dress shirt now that his previously focus had been replaced and his shoes crunching on the sidewalk in the absence of the sound of my own. I stumbled slightly to catch up, my ankles hurting in the high heels and the last remaining sips of champagne making it even more precarious then just on high heels alone.
"You could not eat the human race."
He threw back his head and laughed, teeth glinting in the light and for a second looking pointed but the second fading and reminding me that as terrifying as it was he still looked human and fit in just as easily as everyone else.
"But then what would I do with myself? Start golf? Get fat? It's the American dream but it's not my dream."
I couldn't actually think of any one – American or not – who had the dream of getting fat but who was I to question the logic?
"But you would know that wouldn't you?"
He snuck a glance at me, smirk returned and his eyes sharp with it. I feigned ignorance, pulling at the cuff of the jacket and stopping halfway through exactly mimicking his actions.
"That you can't play golf? Honestly I had no idea."
He turned away from me, tutting against his teeth in exaggerated disappointment that I didn't take my bait and forcing him to follow me in circles when it could have been easier to go the straight path.
"My dream. My plan. What we Leviathans plan to do when we take over America. You read the files on my desk before you shot me ... and then in poetry I shot you back."
Not exactly poetry when twelve shots couldn't hurt him and one took me down but I couldn't argue everything.
"I did. It's a little sloppy I must admit for someone who has such a high opinion of themselves."
He chuckled, the corner of his lips turning up and the sound low in his throat like a balance between a growl and what he defined as a laugh.
"I don't recall asking your opinion."
He hadn't but he wanted it anyway. No matter how much easier the straight line was he would indulge me and walk in the circle. As little as I knew about him I knew that much.
"True but you wanted it anyway."
He glanced my way, smile faded and what was left of it uncertain that I had actually guessed correct and not only that but admitted it out loud. Two correct shots in one night. Either I was getting better at this or he was losing his touch.
"I couldn't care less about your opinion. Give it or keep it to yourself then effect remains the same that there is nothing you can do about it."
The confidence returned to his words but his smirk hadn't returned though I say his lip almost turn up as if trying it on for size before attempting it where he thought I could see.
"I wouldn't sell me short. I have brought down Lucifer."
He grinned, confidence returned and the same chuckle almost always under his words and annoying in how undecided it was in whether it was welcoming or menacing.
"I pride myself on being harder to kill then Lucifer. Besides you didn't bring him down alone of course. Without Sam or Dean around you're pretty much useless."
I ground my fingernails into the jacket, forcibly not thinking about them and failing in the attempt so all I could taste was their name on my lips and bitter it tasted like tears and blood.
"If that's true then why keep me around?"
And to the heart of the problem. The question that had nagged me for nearly three months and always in the back of my thoughts when I wasn't blinded by pain or grief or boredom. Why keep me around when he had already proved how easy it was to kill me and have it done with – though with the slight problem of how and why I had been brought back.
He didn't say anything.
I waited, glancing at him as we walked and him staring straight ahead and silent, muscle working in his jaw as if turning over the words he could have said and yet not saying any of them. Fine. Two could play at that game. I pulled my skirts farther away from my legs and kicking at them slightly, fantasising about when I could finally take it off and maybe being allowed to rip it in a few dozen places before doing so. The shoes too.
"Ah, Edgar."
I jumped inside my skin slightly and looked up as the Leviathan who led me downstairs suddenly stood in front of us, stiff and proper with his hands folded behind his back. Did they all stand like this or was it some kind of fall back they used when Dick was around?
"Edgar will be taking you back to your room."
He turned to me as he said it suddenly all formal and no insults, sounding and looking for a moment like a butler that I was supposed to tip and tempting me though I didn't have any cash – unless he had some in one of his pockets.
"Cool."
Not thank you. Not tonight was lovely and I had a wonderful time or even good luck with your world domination I hope it works out for you. I could be formal too.
"Any more questions?"
He folded his hands in front of him, hair falling over one eye and something too natural and out of place about it that made me feel sick in the pit of my stomach and wanting to crawl back into my bed and have the day over and done with.
"No."
None that he would answer. None that I would ask.
"Good. Sleep well."
He turned and walked away, shoes loud again on the sidewalk and Edgar impatiently waiting for me to follow and a look in his eyes like he would force me to it if I did not obey. I started to walk after him, ankles aching in the straps and tempting me to strip them off and walk back barefoot.
"What happens to me?"
I asked it before I could turn around, before I could actually think that I was going to say it but turning anyway and stopping so I could hear his answer and half hoping it wouldn't. He stopped and half turned, delayed in hearing me and looking darker with the light around him and so that I couldn't see his face.
"When you take over the world? What happens to me?"
I hated the human curiosity but I wanted to know. If he was going to eat the human race when not start with me? Why waste the time and the insults and the dress and the torture when killing and burying me was so much easier said and done when I had been over it already half a dozen times.
"Keep you alive. Maybe get you a bigger room. Some outside privileges if you behave yourself."
He shrugged as he finished, not caring too much about the details and not thinking too much of what it meant overall. I waited for him to finish, the part that came next of my planned demise and how it would come last so that I could suffer through all the others and wouldn't feel special at having picked first. But he didn't. He nodded, part done and question answered and turned back to the doors leading to the party and not thinking twice about what he said.
"Why?"
Again that same curiosity. And the same hatred that encouraged it. He turned fully this time, not bothered by that I had asked but curious himself as to why.
"You kill the human race but you leave me alive. Why?"
To torture me. To make me suffer. To lock me up inside until I went insane and he could amuse himself until it lost humor and fun and he would killed me like everyone else. I waited, braced for the answer and determined that I would face it with a quip or nonchalance when he did. His lip twitched somewhat and for a moment it looked like he would smile but that he didn't know how to make it warm and so that it appeared bittersweet.
"I guess you're an exception."
A breeze kicked at my skirts and dragged them across the sidewalk and I stared at him, unable to even wait for what came next but thinking that there had to be something. I had become too learned at this. Too practiced, too patient with every insult he had and every smirk and motive that went beneath it. He couldn't surprise me anymore. We had gotten past that point and now endured each other because for some reason he had kept me alive and for some reason I hadn't given up. The smile faded on his lips slightly, confidence gone and looking uncertain and startled by it and waiting for the insult that I knew had to follow. But it didn't. He nodded slightly, confirming to himself and me that he had said what he said and the smile now gone and leaving him looking shaken. For the first time unsure of himself. For the first time not knowing where he stood and what came next. He turned and walked away and I stood there watching him, wind stronger now tugging at his jacket and my hair and watching him go.
