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Fic - Cold Comfort - 1/1
Title: Cold Comfort
Author: Evandar
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG
Genre: Angst
Pairings: Bela Talbot/Ruby (Vessel 1)
Warnings: Mentions of impending canonical character death
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural and am making no profit from this story.
Summary: Bela meets a strange demon in a bar. The strangest part is: the demon seems to be trying to comfort her. Either that, or she's just after the whiskey and the french fries.
Author's Notes: This was written for this year's![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
rarepairfest.
Three weeks and four days and seven hours – give or take a few minutes – before she’s dragged off to Hell, Bela Talbot walks into a bar. It’s a tiny place in Chicago, decorated mostly in wood and beer stains; not her usual kind of place, but she’s not looking for champagne and canapés. She’s heard that the food here is as good as the booze, and Bela – on one of the last nights she has left on earth – wants to feel alive.
No one, except for a blonde seated at the end of the bar, so much as glances at her.
She’s been stretched thin, lately. She’s desperate and Crowley knows it: he’s had her running errands for him for months. Wild little goose chases to the ends of the earth, all dangled on the vague promise of hope. Hope. She’d thought she’d given up on things like hope before she’d even made her deal. Apparently not.
She slides into a booth and grabs a menu. She’s not really hungry, but she wants something. A ridiculous portion of something salty and greasy and unappealingly American. It’ll absorb the liquor she plans on drinking later, and with any luck it’ll make her feel like she’s more than a walking corpse.
(She didn’t look in the mirror before she left her apartment, but she knows she looks appropriately like Hell.)
Besides, she thinks as she saunters back to the bar and places an order for their biggest burger and a bottle of their best whiskey, it’s not like she has heart disease to worry about.
She thinks she sees the blonde glance at her again. Bela permits herself an appraising look in return: she takes in the long, straight hair and the big eyes – and the wide hips that fit snugly into a pair of very flattering jeans. There’s a red leather jacket hanging over the back of the woman’s chair, and Bela admires her style as much as she does the breasts straining at her T-Shirt. If she’d spotted her even a month or two earlier, she’d have bought the woman a drink and tried to get her out of those skin-tight jeans. But not now.
She takes her whiskey back to her table, along with a glass of ice and a vague sense of remorse, and she settles in for a long night of anonymity. She pours her first glass and closes her eyes to sip. It’s not the worst whiskey she’s ever had – not the best, either – but it’s decent enough that drinking will be a pleasure even before she loses her ability to taste it.
When she opens her eyes again, the woman from the bar is sitting opposite her. Bela tenses. She almost reaches for the knife tucked in the small of her back, but then the woman smiles and her eyes flicker black.
“Got enough to share there?” she asks.
Bela sighs. This isn’t what she’d been thinking of when her earlier impulse to buy the woman a drink had crossed her mind, but she shoves the bottle across the table anyway and watches as the demon tips a healthy amount into her glass.
“Name’s Ruby,” she says by way of introduction.
“Bela,” Bela replies. “But you already knew that, right?”
Ruby’s eyebrows raise. She starts to shake her head, but stops. Her eyes narrow. Her smile widens into something far more sinister.
“Oh,” she says softly. “How long have you got left, sweetheart?”
Unless she’s acting, she doesn’t work for Crowley – and her eyes are black, so it’s entirely likely that her reactions are as honest as a demon can manage. That, more than anything else, prompts Bela to say “less than a month” before taking another drink.
“Getting cold feet?”
She sets her glass down harder than strictly necessary. She knows she shouldn’t let the demon get to her, but…but. She’s young. She should have had a life in front of her, and ten years of freedom have only shown her exactly how much she’s signed away on the dotted line.
“Touchy,” the demon says. “But don’t worry. We’re all scared at first. It gets better.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Bela mutters.
“Easier, then,” the demon says. “And trust me, I’ve got no reason to lie to you about it. You’re screwed.”
And maybe it’s the whiskey – though the blunt honesty is more likely – but Bela finds that unreasonably funny. She snorts, and throws back her head in a burst of wild laughter that takes her by surprise. She hasn’t laughed at anything except the clownish misfortune of the Winchesters in months. It feels good. It feels very good.
She meets the demon’s eye and grins. “Yeah,” she says. “I know.”
A waitress chooses that moment to arrive with her burger. It’s big. Bigger than she was expecting, and far more than she can eat – though she’ll give it a good go: it’s overflowing with lettuce and onions and thick, oozing cheese, and it looks like it’s going to be the best thing she’ll have eaten in days. There’s a good-sized salad taking up half of the plate, and a bowl of fries on the side, which the demon promptly steals.
Bela opens her mouth to object, but then looks back to her burger and salad and decides not to bother. The demon – Ruby; she supposes she should use the demon’s name if she’s letting her have her food – smirks and selects her first victim. The salt the fries are sprinkled with sizzles and smokes against her skin, but she doesn’t appear to care.
Fine, then. If that’s how it is.
Bela tucks in.
She wishes she could say they were eating in silence, but in the relative privacy of their booth, Ruby keeps up a running commentary of what Bela can expect in Hell. It’s not the most pleasant of topics, but Ruby is almost light-hearted about it. Chatty. And Bela…Bela can’t keep her eyes off her.
She’s never seen anyone eat fries so pornographically before. Not the most erotic of foods, but in the demon’s hands – in her mouth as she slowly sucks away the salt that must leave her tongue burning – they’re so distracting that Bela can almost forget what it is that they’re talking about.
She swipes one of the demon’s stolen fries and drags it through some of the burger juices on her plate. She’s desperately trying to act like every word isn’t making her skin crawl, and that the smile on Ruby’s lips isn’t making her want to shut her up in a…physical sort of way. A very satisfying sort of way.
She wants to know if Ruby tastes of salt or of sulphur. She also wants to know why she’s here, trying – possibly – to comfort her.
“Just roll with it. The sooner you pick up the knife, the sooner you turn, and then the pain’s all over, baby.”
She’d ask if she wasn’t afraid that it would lead to another false promise of getting out of her deal. She’s dealt with Crowley one too many times. Ruby’s idea of what constitutes sympathy may be lacking, but at least it’s not as cruel as hope.
She steals another fry. Ruby, again, lets her. She shoves the bowl to the middle of the table, in fact, so that Bela doesn’t have to reach so far, and accompanies the gesture with a wink and a lick of her salt-stung lips. Kissing her, finding out what she tastes like, may not be entirely out of the realm of possibility this evening.
Bela smiles, only half-faked, and leans in. And as she does, she knows that she doesn’t imagine the glimmer of black in Ruby’s eyes, nor the way she glances down towards the open neckline of Bela’s shirt.
Definitely in the realm of possibility.
Author: Evandar
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG
Genre: Angst
Pairings: Bela Talbot/Ruby (Vessel 1)
Warnings: Mentions of impending canonical character death
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural and am making no profit from this story.
Summary: Bela meets a strange demon in a bar. The strangest part is: the demon seems to be trying to comfort her. Either that, or she's just after the whiskey and the french fries.
Author's Notes: This was written for this year's
rarepairfest.Three weeks and four days and seven hours – give or take a few minutes – before she’s dragged off to Hell, Bela Talbot walks into a bar. It’s a tiny place in Chicago, decorated mostly in wood and beer stains; not her usual kind of place, but she’s not looking for champagne and canapés. She’s heard that the food here is as good as the booze, and Bela – on one of the last nights she has left on earth – wants to feel alive.
No one, except for a blonde seated at the end of the bar, so much as glances at her.
She’s been stretched thin, lately. She’s desperate and Crowley knows it: he’s had her running errands for him for months. Wild little goose chases to the ends of the earth, all dangled on the vague promise of hope. Hope. She’d thought she’d given up on things like hope before she’d even made her deal. Apparently not.
She slides into a booth and grabs a menu. She’s not really hungry, but she wants something. A ridiculous portion of something salty and greasy and unappealingly American. It’ll absorb the liquor she plans on drinking later, and with any luck it’ll make her feel like she’s more than a walking corpse.
(She didn’t look in the mirror before she left her apartment, but she knows she looks appropriately like Hell.)
Besides, she thinks as she saunters back to the bar and places an order for their biggest burger and a bottle of their best whiskey, it’s not like she has heart disease to worry about.
She thinks she sees the blonde glance at her again. Bela permits herself an appraising look in return: she takes in the long, straight hair and the big eyes – and the wide hips that fit snugly into a pair of very flattering jeans. There’s a red leather jacket hanging over the back of the woman’s chair, and Bela admires her style as much as she does the breasts straining at her T-Shirt. If she’d spotted her even a month or two earlier, she’d have bought the woman a drink and tried to get her out of those skin-tight jeans. But not now.
She takes her whiskey back to her table, along with a glass of ice and a vague sense of remorse, and she settles in for a long night of anonymity. She pours her first glass and closes her eyes to sip. It’s not the worst whiskey she’s ever had – not the best, either – but it’s decent enough that drinking will be a pleasure even before she loses her ability to taste it.
When she opens her eyes again, the woman from the bar is sitting opposite her. Bela tenses. She almost reaches for the knife tucked in the small of her back, but then the woman smiles and her eyes flicker black.
“Got enough to share there?” she asks.
Bela sighs. This isn’t what she’d been thinking of when her earlier impulse to buy the woman a drink had crossed her mind, but she shoves the bottle across the table anyway and watches as the demon tips a healthy amount into her glass.
“Name’s Ruby,” she says by way of introduction.
“Bela,” Bela replies. “But you already knew that, right?”
Ruby’s eyebrows raise. She starts to shake her head, but stops. Her eyes narrow. Her smile widens into something far more sinister.
“Oh,” she says softly. “How long have you got left, sweetheart?”
Unless she’s acting, she doesn’t work for Crowley – and her eyes are black, so it’s entirely likely that her reactions are as honest as a demon can manage. That, more than anything else, prompts Bela to say “less than a month” before taking another drink.
“Getting cold feet?”
She sets her glass down harder than strictly necessary. She knows she shouldn’t let the demon get to her, but…but. She’s young. She should have had a life in front of her, and ten years of freedom have only shown her exactly how much she’s signed away on the dotted line.
“Touchy,” the demon says. “But don’t worry. We’re all scared at first. It gets better.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Bela mutters.
“Easier, then,” the demon says. “And trust me, I’ve got no reason to lie to you about it. You’re screwed.”
And maybe it’s the whiskey – though the blunt honesty is more likely – but Bela finds that unreasonably funny. She snorts, and throws back her head in a burst of wild laughter that takes her by surprise. She hasn’t laughed at anything except the clownish misfortune of the Winchesters in months. It feels good. It feels very good.
She meets the demon’s eye and grins. “Yeah,” she says. “I know.”
A waitress chooses that moment to arrive with her burger. It’s big. Bigger than she was expecting, and far more than she can eat – though she’ll give it a good go: it’s overflowing with lettuce and onions and thick, oozing cheese, and it looks like it’s going to be the best thing she’ll have eaten in days. There’s a good-sized salad taking up half of the plate, and a bowl of fries on the side, which the demon promptly steals.
Bela opens her mouth to object, but then looks back to her burger and salad and decides not to bother. The demon – Ruby; she supposes she should use the demon’s name if she’s letting her have her food – smirks and selects her first victim. The salt the fries are sprinkled with sizzles and smokes against her skin, but she doesn’t appear to care.
Fine, then. If that’s how it is.
Bela tucks in.
She wishes she could say they were eating in silence, but in the relative privacy of their booth, Ruby keeps up a running commentary of what Bela can expect in Hell. It’s not the most pleasant of topics, but Ruby is almost light-hearted about it. Chatty. And Bela…Bela can’t keep her eyes off her.
She’s never seen anyone eat fries so pornographically before. Not the most erotic of foods, but in the demon’s hands – in her mouth as she slowly sucks away the salt that must leave her tongue burning – they’re so distracting that Bela can almost forget what it is that they’re talking about.
She swipes one of the demon’s stolen fries and drags it through some of the burger juices on her plate. She’s desperately trying to act like every word isn’t making her skin crawl, and that the smile on Ruby’s lips isn’t making her want to shut her up in a…physical sort of way. A very satisfying sort of way.
She wants to know if Ruby tastes of salt or of sulphur. She also wants to know why she’s here, trying – possibly – to comfort her.
“Just roll with it. The sooner you pick up the knife, the sooner you turn, and then the pain’s all over, baby.”
She’d ask if she wasn’t afraid that it would lead to another false promise of getting out of her deal. She’s dealt with Crowley one too many times. Ruby’s idea of what constitutes sympathy may be lacking, but at least it’s not as cruel as hope.
She steals another fry. Ruby, again, lets her. She shoves the bowl to the middle of the table, in fact, so that Bela doesn’t have to reach so far, and accompanies the gesture with a wink and a lick of her salt-stung lips. Kissing her, finding out what she tastes like, may not be entirely out of the realm of possibility this evening.
Bela smiles, only half-faked, and leans in. And as she does, she knows that she doesn’t imagine the glimmer of black in Ruby’s eyes, nor the way she glances down towards the open neckline of Bela’s shirt.
Definitely in the realm of possibility.