A/N: All right….Here's what I know everyone's been waiting for—Blackheart at work! HAHAHA. evil grins I'm still trying really hard to keep him in character, but it's a little hard, especially when I know the end and you don't. Any suggestions for his behavior in general would help as long as they're not flames.
Chapter 4...1 Week Later
Since Pam found out that Blackheart now had a job, she agreed that he could stay there until he got his own place. He and Dawn saw each other a lot, but they were often so busy that neither had time to say much to the other. He despised the tacky matching outfits that they all had to wear (red T-shirts, black pants, and sometimes black half-aprons that had pockets in them for the pencils, notebooks, and so forth), but at least he didn't feel so defenseless against the mortal world. His job was primarily running the cash register since he didn't yet know how to cook. Once he'd watched Dawn make the coffee, he also got the to-go orders on occasion.
Jake Yorke was the biggest pain in the butt he'd ever encountered. Apparently unimpressed by Blackheart's "attitude", he spent the first couple of days breathing down the demon's neck. Once Blackheart proved that he would (however much he internally despised the job) do the work without being constantly checked on, Yorke would go bother someone else.
Clearly, the only hold that Yorke seemed to have over his employees was money. He was a fat, geeky-looking man with horn-rimmed glasses, greasy hair, and ruddy complexion. He had a raspy, wheezy voice and always carried an inhaler around with him. He would flush even more scarlet at the slightest bit of female attention.
Blackheart would just roll his eyes when he wasn't looking. To keep himself from wanting to strangle Yorke, he would watch everyone else. Despite his sometimes lofty, egotistical attitude, Blackheart was learning a lot.
He learned that one's girlfriend did not appreciate it if the guy looked at another woman right in front of her. That revelation made him chuckle. He learned that it was not a good idea to feed Squishie too many French fries even when she begged. Enough said. He learned that being flirtatious with single women earned him better tips and to watch out for wedding rings or tan lines where the rings normally were. It didn't take him long to learn how to figure up the change in his head and he got very fast at it.
Dawn did different jobs on different days. Sometimes she was in the back making coffee or food, sometimes she was the waitress. She seemed to prefer the cooking job more because she had an old transistor radio in the back that she could crank up while at the grill. The other waitress, Linda, was cranky and antisocial, but she got her job done. Dawn and Linda swapped jobs every other day.
Blackheart watched Dawn very carefully the first day he was there. She'd been walking with a bad limp, but it got much less pronounced with each day that passed. Soon, she didn't limp at all. She hadn't really said anything to him, but he saw the gratitude in her dark eyes. Much to his annoyance, Squishie seemed to recognize that he'd saved her master's life and was now hanging around him.
Everything seemed to get routine very fast. At first, the strong smell of coffee sickened him slightly, but he got used to it. Dawn would often experiment with different flavorings and have everyone try a sip. If Yorke liked the idea, he would put it as a special on the chalkboard. She also experimented with desserts, which would explain why she was a little heavy. She also came up with oddball names for them, such as "blondies" for a white chocolate brownie since it was more of a tan. Before the shop opened, she would take her time rearranging things in the display case into elaborate designs. Blackheart supposed it was the artist in her. She would also sketch whatever item was on the specials board.
He was getting ready to fill a particularly difficult order when two familiar faces came into the shop. His heart almost stopped beating for a moment.
It was the pair of thugs that attacked Dawn.
She was in the middle of taking someone's order when Blackheart grabbed her and pulled her back into the kitchen. She sent him a furious glare, but he held her pinned against his side as they stalked past, missing the two figures that were hiding in the corner. When they decided that there was no one of importance there, they left.
He felt Dawn stiffen and saw the color drain out of her face. He didn't realize he'd been holding one of her hands until she squeezed his, then let go. Without a word, she went back outside to finish taking the order of the now confused and irritated customers.
Blackheart wondered why on earth they wanted to keep pestering Dawn. Was it because of him? He hoped not.
The thought struck him as strange. Why did he care? He spent a great deal of his day trying to figure that out, but he couldn't come up with an answer. At closing time, Dawn muttered something that sounded like "thanks for earlier", grabbed Squishie, and took off. Apparently, it wasn't any easier for her to deal with this than it was for him.
Forget about her, he thought sourly, she's nothing but trouble. She better not get me dragged into this. I don't have time to keep defending her.
He scrubbed at a sticky spot on the counter because everytime he rested his arm there, whatever unknown substance would bother him. Then, he made his way back to Pam's.
Pam said something to him, but it didn't register. She had to tap him on the shoulder to get his attention.
"What?" he snapped.
Pam raised an eyebrow.
"I just thought I would ask how your day was," she repeated, "you seem like the weight of the world's on your mind."
Blackheart resisted the temptation to laugh. Dawn was heavy, but she definitely wasn't that heavy.
"Daemon, you know you can trust me," Pam pressed.
"Just another day. People working dead-end jobs looking for the fix that gets them through the rest of the day, people paying twice as much as the coffee's probably worth, and little kids running around knocking things over," he said sourly, "nothing unusual."
An expression he couldn't read crossed Pam's face.
"I don't suppose this has to do with Dawn, does it?"
Blackheart was going to shake his head when she came in. So much for an escape.
"Hi, Pam," she said crisply, despite looking like the walking dead. Then, she paused, mid-stride and her gaze locked with Blackheart's.
"Hi, Daemon," she said uneasily.
Pam was grinning ear-to-ear despite the awkwardness. Blackheart would have gladly gone another hundred years without having to talk to her. And as usual, that annoying little dog was right there with her.
"Be right back, I got customers waiting," Pam said quickly before taking off. Squishie stood in front of Dawn protectively, but she wasn't growling, at least. In his opinion, the dumb little thing wasn't even big enough to defend herself, much less Dawn.
There was one thing that he absolutely had to know despite the strangeness that seemed to be between them.
"Why did you get me the job?"
Her dark eyes went to the floor for a moment before she looked back up at him.
"Why did you get me out of the alley?"
Good answer.
Good question.
His intense stare told her he didn't know. Her uncomfortable shift said that she didn't know either.
He wanted to yell at her to get the Hell out of his life, now that he actually had one in the mortal sense. He wanted to tell her and her stupid dog to get as far away from him as was possible.
But his mouth wouldn't move.
Neither did hers. But having had all the awkwardness she could stand, Dawn inched backwards, not turning her back on him until she was close to the door. Something about that small gesture made him mad, but he couldn't figure out why.
If I were going to kill you, which would probably make my life considerably easier, I would have done it by now, he thought irritably.
Pam didn't bother asking where Dawn was. As usual, he ate by himself and went upstairs. Despite the fact that other beings normally irritated the Hell out of him, he found himself missing Ramar, his constant companion in Hell. Ramar looked a lot like a dragon when he was in his natural form with black skin and glowing red eyes. He was about five or six times bigger than Blackheart and was a force to be reckoned with. As Blackheart was figuring out his powers in his earlier existence, Ramar would spar with him because he was one of the few that could take it without really seriously getting injured. Ramar also shared his sarcastic sense of humor and the two of them regularly played jokes on the demon guards for their own amusement. He missed having a friend. The Hidden had been an okay bunch, but they still did things that irritated him. How smart does one have to be to dodge the damn Ghost Rider's chain, anyway?
He watched Dawn leave down below. She must have felt him looking down at her because she looked up. Whether she actually saw him was unclear.
The next day, everyone seemed to be in a crappy mood, especially him. It didn't help that Dawn had kitchen duty and her radio was turned up. He gave the cup he was holding to the old man that was muttering something about "young people these days" and went to get the next order from her when he stopped for a second.
He listened to her. She was singing along with the radio.
She was actually quite good. He wondered what on earth she was doing working in a place like this when she should be onstage somewhere. Most human music sounded weird and irritating to him, but her voice wasn't that way.
Not again, he reminded himself, just get the damn coffee, take the damn money, and get the Hell out of here.
But as hard as he was trying, he couldn't block it out. It was all he could do just to pretend nothing was going on. There was something almost supernatural about Dawn's singing. It made him wonder how such a sound could come from someone as plain-looking as she was. It pulled at his new soul, caressing it and enchanting it.
Suddenly, he realized that she wasn't human. No human sounded like that. There was only one thing that she could possibly be:
Great, just perfect, he thought irritably, she's a damned Siren. That's all I need right now...
Sirens were once a powerful species. Contrary to popular belief, they weren't all females. There had once been males, too, and they'd all lived on an island in the middle of the ocean. He couldn't remember how the rest of the myth went, but he knew that they had wings in their natural forms and their ethereal voices could bend the opposite gender to their will quite easily. He couldn't remember exactly what had happened to them, as he hadn't been around when it did, but he knew that they'd been forced to take on human forms and they never told their children what they were. Part of him wanted to yell at Dawn in frustration because she had no earthly idea what power she possessed.
Dawn abruptly stopped when she noticed Blackheart's intense gaze focused on her through the window. She stared back at him.
"What?"
She sounded a little annoyed. Good. It meant she had more of a spine than he'd given her credit for.
He turned back around. He wasn't quite ready to tell her yet.
Then, something happened that he'd never dreamed of.
A familiar figure walked through the door. He recognized the black shaggy hair, tanned skin, and the haunted eyes at once.
Johnny Blaze.
Crap!
Luckily, Blaze didn't seem interested in coffee. Or him. He was talking to some guy about motorcycle parts. Apparently, Linda had already taken his order because she was bringing their food to them. He hoped that Linda would just get the money. Blackheart felt as though his heart was pounding in his ears and wanted nothing more than to just take off running and never look back.
Out of all of these accursed emotions, I hate fear the worst! he thought.
"I take it you two know each other?"
The question was so sudden that it made him jump. Dawn was right behind him, her arms folded over the sill of the small window.
"I know that expression. You two had some sort of a fight, didn't you?"
Blackheart wondered why she was all of a sudden talking to him. The sudden growth of a spine disturbed him, especially about this subject.
"So what?" he asked irritably.
For the first time, their gazes locked and she didn't look away.
"You show up out of nowhere and you look like someone's beat the Hell out of you. You look at everyone around you like they're beneath you. And it takes nothing to tick you off. I know a past when I see one."
Blackheart's expression darkened.
"Congratulations," he said, his tone drenched in sarcasm.
"I'm not staying here forever," Dawn said, almost talking more to herself than him, "I've been taking night classes for psychology and I'm graduating soon. I've got four months left on my sentence."
Before he could say something really insensitive or sarcastic, she disappeared back into the kitchen.
Blackheart wondered what on earth had just happened. And for reasons completely unknown to him, he couldn't suppress a grin.