Ten years ago…

It shouldn't have surprised me that the strange business man found me, but it did. I jumped out of my skin, a small shriek falling from my lips as he sank down beside me on the bench with a cordial, "Hello, love."

"Fuck!" I swore as my response to his sudden presence smacked my useless arm into the hard, cold metal of the bench. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck," I repeated wearily. "What are you doing out here?" I asked as I let my head drop back into my good hand.

By the light of the lamppost half a dozen feet away his eyes gleamed gold as he peered over at me. "Stroll and a cigarette," he drawled, holding up a hand so I could see the remains of a cigarette clutched beneath callused fingers. He dropped it to the pavement and ground it with the heel of his shoe. I didn't believe him for a second. Not that I cared either so…"You?"

"Waiting for the hypothermia to kick in," I murmured as my eyes flickered shut again, completely serious. "Taking a bit longer than I thought it would." Honest to god, I was surprised I'd made it this far. One and a half blocks plus fifty feet of walking trail before I'd collapsed on a bench tucked up in a small copse of trees overlooking a small, rather rundown playground. God knows how long it had really taken me. All I knew was that it had felt like forever. Just like I felt like I'd been sitting here for forever.

"That seems like a waste."

"Nope," I muttered woozily. I was going to be sick again. I could feel it: a pressure building from the ache in my head and the shooting pain in my ass. "Mercy. Decided that I should finally do something for me."

"And you want to die, is that right love?" he asked pointedly. It felt like another test. Like when he'd claimed to be a good person.

"Not really," I confessed, head lolling. "It's just the best of the available options."

"I doubt that," he grunted. "What else you got, darling?" Why was he asking me this? Why did he care? Why did I care? If I was going to die tonight I might as well go out to the sound of that voice. It was soothing. And the exact opposite of Tom's smooth good ol' boy thing.

"Getting beaten and raped to death," I replied wearily. Why wouldn't my body just give in and die already?

The man beside me went utterly still and I puked onto the pavement.

Fuck, but that hurt.

I was done with hurting. So, so done.

"That's a shitty hand of cards right there. What if there were another option, love?" that smoky voice asked me.

I laughed, or tried to. I'm not really sure what it came out as. "What could that possibly be? Going to the police? Getting help," I spat the word into the night. "Fuckers never helped before. Why would they now?"

"Nothing so crass, love, unless that's what you wanted." He was watching me again. I could feel his eyes on me, practically like a touch trailing across my bruised and broken flesh.

I laughed – or whatever – again, more quietly this time. "What I wanted?" The idea was ludicrous. All I wanted right now was for everything to go black and stay that way. "Why would you care what I want?" It came out of my mouth in a broken whisper, a bare brush of air against rain soaked clothes, but he heard it anyway.

"I told you before, I like seeing people get what they want. It's my job and I'm bloody brilliant at it." I grunted and let my head slip to rest against the bench. "So what is it that you want? What are the deepest, darkest desires of your heart?"

I let my head slump against the curve of the back of the bench and ignored him, staring out into the night. The deepest, darkest desires of my heart? I didn't dare think them. Not even now.

Everything was getting hazy. Distant. Slow. Like a crappy internet connection. The rain slicked metal beneath my cheek felt weirdly warm against my skin. The urge to vomit with every shallow breath was fading. It was nice. Very nice.

"Sorry, love, I can't have you doing that."

I flinched, whimpering low in my throat as fingers brushed hot against my skull. Hot, so fucking warm, I could feel every drag of fingers like a burn, shooting icy hot, aching heat down into my skin long after his fingers had moved away. With every touch of his hand, tracing the lines of my skull and down across my cheekbones, I could feel the ache in my head clearing, feel the way my limbs began to shake again, the way the pain came back: sharp and unyielding.

Oh god, I was going to puke again.

"Why?" I groaned, letting my eyes flicker open to look at him. He'd scooted closer but wasn't touching me save for the fingers curled against my head. For the first time since I'd seen him there wasn't a smirk of some kind hovering over his lips. They were pressed into a straight, thin line and that seemed wrong somehow. Not broken, just wrong. Like a crooked picture frame.

"Can't have your soul slipping away, love. Once the sparkly bits are gone my ability to do anything for you vanishes." He shrugged and let his hand fall from my soaking hair, "I'd hate for you to miss out on such an opportunity."

I groaned again and made myself sit up. Son of a fucking bitch that hurt. Why the hell was I sitting? "What opportunity? What does my soul have anything to do with…?"

"Everything," he replied calmly, watching me with a hawk-like gaze.

"You're crazy." He was crazy. He had to be crazy. Souls? Really? If he wanted me to go home with him and his crazy stalker ass he should have just said so. I might have even considered it.

Fuck, who was I kidding? I'd have followed him like a starving puppy trailing after someone with a cheeseburger wrapper stuck to their shoe.

"Sticks and stones, love."

"Souls aren't real," I muttered, blinking him into focus. He smirked at me. "What would that make you? Some type of angel?"

He threw his head back and laughed. "No, definitely not an angel," he managed to reply between chuckles, breathless. Apparently I'd said something funny. Oh goody.

"Because they're not real."

He snorted, drawing his tongue across his lower lip as he grinned all chesire cat like at me. "Of course they're real. They're uptight, arrogant, self-absorbed dicks. Absolutely terrible at parties."

I shut my eyes. "No," I whispered. "They can't be real."

"What makes you so sure?" I shook my head and it didn't hurt. Or rather, it still hurt by I didn't puke all over everything. Fantastic. "Tell me," he urged softly as I turned away, which of course did make me puke over the rail and onto the wet pavement. Fantastic.

Because I've spent my entire life praying for someone, something to save me and no one ever did! There was no one who cared!

It wasn't until I felt his hands brushing the hair from my face and heard his voice, low and rough in my ear, that I realized I'd screamed it out loud as I clutched and the soaked and frozen metal, staring down at the blood and bile and foam that forced its way from my body. "Then maybe you've been praying to wrong side, love."

"Oh, really?" I asked sarcastically. "Who the hell else is there to pray to?"

He grinned at me: a big, wide smirk that showed a flash of straight white teeth. "Demon," he replied with a little wave of his hand, his eyes turning completely crimson between one blink and the next. "Hello, love."

Author's Note: Chapter title from I'm With You by Avril Lavigne.

Also, this originally wasn't the chapter that I had slated to go in this spot but I'm 30 weeks pregnant and I've just entered The Nesting Stage full force, which means that my hormone addled brain would rather reorganize my bookcases and clean out closets than write. Said hormones also meant that I felt bad for leaving you guys hanging for so long so you got this.

On a related note: I have the "Ten Years Ago/ Original Deal" arc finished. Should my muse remain more interested in wiping down walls than writing down words would you guys prefer that I just post the remaining chapters to that arc so I don't leave you hanging for forever or would you rather wait until my muse feels... muse-ish... again?