Time passes and I see him occasionally. He asks me my thoughts. I provide them. Sometimes they work. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes that means I get boiling water thrown on me. Sometimes I get boiling water dripped on me for no reason. Sometimes my husband holds me as I cry for hours and blame it on medication, menopause, anything but the truth.
I can tell however he goes easy on me, as bad as it is, I can tell it isn't his worst. It only makes me more scared. Which is probably the point. Or maybe I'm overthinking.
Again, probably the point. He knows I have anxiety and that not knowing for me long term causes more problems than an hour of pain...or at least less problems than my insanity would cause him. I never find out if I am right about the contract. Suicide. The definition of the word tell.
I guess it doesn't matter. I settle into things. My life is normal...seventy six percent of the time. Fourteen percent is me fretting over the other ten percent that isn't normal. I manage. Even endure, well ignore, the occasional blackouts. I have a feeling he is possessing me on occasion. I have no idea why. He never seems to do anything. I always wake up, same spot, clock a little later than I remember.
Still. I manage.
Until 6:39 pm, five days after my 45th birthday.
I'm by myself. Sitting on a bench. Empty park. Just enjoying the night sky. The clouds. The red sunset lit ones, the slight twinkling of the earliest stars. One even shines through a red cloud, twinkling madly. A rare event. I feel good.
And then, the cloud gets closer, and things go dark for a split second. There is pain. It's in every fiber of my being. I gasp. Fall off the bench. Then the pain turns more calculable. My insides turn and boil and roil. My veins burn. My eyes tear. My head aches. Sharp stabbing white hot, there then gone, then back. All over. I'm afraid. Terrified. I have no clue what is happening. I can barely think, string thoughts together. Pain.
Eventually I lie twitching on the ground, the pain slowly receding to a dull ache. I blink. I sit up and rub my eyes.
I'm stunned I'm alive. I'm terrified that I don't know what has happened, and that it could happen again.
"Hello darling." I know the voice. It's everywhere. I look around frantically trying to anticipate whatever is coming, but I can't find him.
And that's when I realize.
"Shit."
"Soul buddies."
"Fuck." I get back on the bench, looking around, making sure no one saw. I look at the lamp posts, the trees, for security cameras. I breathe a sigh of relief when there aren't any. I breathe slowly. A minute. Two. Waiting for my world to go dark. My chest aches. I can tell something is happening. I wait.
"...Bollocks."
And I panic.
"The fuck is going on?"
"Well, new territory darling. I tried to test this, but I wasn't about to share it for someone to do R&D."
"...the black outs."
"It feels so good to be inside you again." I shudder. How many times over the years? "Oh the things I made you do."
"Five minutes at a time?"
"Hours. In Hell." Fuck. Right. That. I scratch at my arm. It itches. Well it doesn't. My...insides itch. "None of that." I stop scratching. I hadn't intended to.
"Shit."
"Wonderful." I raise my right hand...or my right hand raises, and I snap my fingers.
Nothing happens.
"Bollocks." I sigh. That was the one thing I was looking forward to if this ever happened.
"Fuck. Joint custody." I feel rage inside me. Urges I never had before. My entire body quakes as if my soul has turned into a yin yang symbol that was spinning on a broken gyroscope.
I had stood up at some point. I sit back down, queasy.
"Great. You get a full dose of human feelings and I get a full dose of maniacal egocentric demon. Awesome. I'm gonna be sick."
"You wanted power. Congratulations."
"I wanted answers, or health, lack of monotony, people to work with on art! Yeah, magic would have been awesome, but it wasn't needed!"
"You like it. Now. Tests…" I feel his mental gears turning. It was what my brain did 24/7, I recognized the feeling.
"How about you tell me what happened the night you killed the demon this worked on?"
"No."
"How about I see if I can find out anything by looking through you?" My body is wracked with pain, I grab the bench handle and it bends as I grip it and scream briefly before my voice just Stops.
"Care for another love tap?"
"Fine I get the point. You can endure that. I can't. Fine. Why not just put me through that until I go insane, I mean now that you're finally here?"
"Joint custody. You said it."
Fuck this is complicated.
"I hadn't noticed." Shit fuck balls cunt. It just, finally, hit me. He could hear me think. "Hello darling."
"Ok. How long do we have?"
"Until?"
"I don't know? This becomes irreversible! Till our souls merge!" There's a laugh in my mind, cruel. Something I hope I never hear again, but know I will. It echoes around my next statement. "Till one soul consumes the other! I don't fucking know!" The laughter fades slowly, and I have a feeling, maybe only because we are literally as close as two beings can get, but it's a feeling. "Is that...what happened-" I twitch, no both of us do.
"Internal troubles later. We have external ones."
There is a beep, the sound of a car door locking.
"That was way too fast. He must have a friend with a jet… I need more of those."
"Friends?"
"Jets."
From out behind the bushes and trees where the bench is walks a man. Suit. Tie. Normal looking. Except for the awesome presence he radiates.
Angel. Fuck.
"Exactly lover. I'll do the talking." I shake my head, then stop, realizing I'm giving a physical reaction someone could see. They know Crowley, the way he talks, his mannerisms. They don't know me. Anything that could give us away, not worth the risk. So...Naive, confused, scared, human. And...Action.
"Where did-" I ask the angel from afar.
"Quiet. Did you see anything come through here?" His voice sounds normal and familiar but Feels as if it should be echoing across the park.
"Uh...guy on a bike half an hour ago."
"Anything else?"
" A crow. You a cop?" The angel ignores me as he walks closer. Trench. Suit. Brown sandy hair. No...I recognized him. Misha Collins. Castiel. No. No he wouldn't. Couldn't actually be. I look closer. The suit was wrong. It was black. But it was Misha Collins.
"What better way to hunt your prey than to be in someone who their alter ego 'trusts.' Three days ago. Bloody harp playing cunt took over. Fake angel, meet real angel. I did not expect the pigeon to follow in my footsteps here. Bloody wonderful." I swallow. So was this actually Castiel?
"Don't be daft. That's a sobriquet. His name is-" our mental talk is interrupted by our unwanted guest.
"My data shows that the person I am searching for came through here. Maybe even stopped. I-" the angel pauses and looks at me. Regarding me with eyes that are hard, questioning.
"Give me control. Now." I hadn't known I'd been keeping it from him. "Now Chew Toy! Or we Both die!"
"Your soul. It's… slightly off." I blink at the comment from the angel. I hadn't known that. I didn't know what it meant.
"My what?" I take a step back. "Ok, Uhm. Nice talking to you. I'm gonna go." I try to sound nervous and weirded out by the comment. Not hard considering I am on the verge of a full blown panic attack.
"Now Chew Toy!" The angel is suddenly beside me. Hand outstretched. My body begins to ache as two souls try to use a body at once.
"This won't hurt at all, just relax." The familiar voice echoes in front of me, a man I knew, a character I knew, perhaps just an archetype...
"Chew Toy!" Right. Be here, now...Relax. Relinquish control. I keep backing up, the angel continues toward me. Fuck, I didn't know how to relax when I was just me. How could I even hope to do it now? Why would I?
"They are going to find out I'm here! Read your Mind. Find out you've a deal! I'm stronger! Chew Toy! Lover! Darling!" I take a breath, try to relax. Let Go. All I can see is the hand coming closer. Everything is in slow motion.
And then something happens that I never expected.
"Rebecca!"
I'm startled. I'm shaken by the unexpected name change that showed I was slightly a person and not just a toy. It could be true, could be a ruse, but either way I'm startled.
And when someone is startled, they don't have control.
And everything goes dark.
