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angelanimedesaray · 3 years

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A Demon’s Promise Part 13: Turning Points

AN: Holy Shnikes this is the biggest chapter I’ve written to date O.O I would have broken it up, but all of this was supposed to go together and worked better together, but I didn’t expect it to be so dang LONG holy crapola...

Characters: Incubus!Levi, Reader, Ida, Asa, Isabel, Furlan, Random Background Characters

Pairing: Incubus!Levi x Reader

Warnings: Language, Violence, Blood, Poisoning, Fatal Injuries, Tension/Terror, Near Death

Word Count: 19155

<----Previous Part Masterlist Next Part---->

*Levi’s POV*

After that night, Y/N was...softer, with him. It certainly wasn’t something he was used to, with how they'd acted towards each other so far. And it happened almost overnight. He, however, was not happy about it. As much as it allowed the environment of the house to settle to something healthier for the twins, which was something he wanted, he hated the thought that it was out of pity or guilt. And now, as much as he liked the quieter environment, the peace between them, it felt wrong because of where it seemed to be coming from. He couldn’t take the thought of her pitying him or feeling guilty about how she’d treated him.

With his laundry list of things he’d done to her, he should be the guilty one--as he was--not her, she had nothing to be guilty about in his eyes because he deserved what she doled out. As for the pity...he wasn’t the one on limited time and unaware this short span of a few years would be all the time had with the twins--again, his fault.

It was wrong, but he didn’t know what the hell to do about it without causing her more pain. He’d done enough of that, he didn’t want to do it any more, but all he could think of in the moments when it bothered him were harsh-sounding words, so he held his tongue and endured.

It wasn't all fixed, though. Some things remained. She still wasn't comfortable getting too close to him beyond the everyday, and she still kept her distance and let him have his privacy and space. What changed was the lack of harsh words, and how she was a bit more...open with her thoughts and questions. More engaging instead of a brick wall that refused to interact with him more than the bare minimum. It was like she was trying to warm up past cordial. The part that made him uncomfortable about this, though, was all the questions. All the poking and prodding that he worried would start to stray into matters he couldn't talk to her about, or he wasn't ready to talk to her about.

Of course, for the most part, the questions were pretty reasonable, even if some of them made Levi stiffen if it was a question that he knew exactly what had prompted it. She kept to lighter things when it was random questions, but he could feel the serious questions coming, barely held back in the way her eyes would linger somewhere he'd had an injury the night he'd caught her, or where there should be a demonic feature but she saw none.

But he could also feel a more serious talk coming with the lead up of the questions she asked at random.

Like the time when, while cleaning up breakfast, she asked if the twins would ever reach a point where they didn't need to eat, like Levi. And they would, eventually, but that was a little ways off. For now they needed food and drink like any normal person.

Or how later that day while they were in the living room and she was playing with Asa, she asked if there would be a time when they showed some signs of their demonic blood, which was again far off, and not something she needed to worry about...though it would happen eventually, and not at all subtly. But unlike his experience, they weren't going to be alone when it happened.

That part he kept to himself. No point in worrying her over something she wouldn't be here for.

It was these little technical questions she was now comfortable asking him that eventually, predictably, led to them having a late night talk after the twins were put to sleep in their cribs. They had both headed back downstairs, Levi to clean up the twins playtime mess, and Y/N disappearing into the kitchen for a little while. She reappeared when he was almost done cleaning up, two glasses in hand and a bottle of wine in the other before she reached the coffee table and put them both down. Levi raised an eyebrow, appraising her warily. By now, he knew what it looked like when she was on a mission, and he was trying to figure out where this was going before she even spoke.

“I didn’t think it had been a day that required wine at the end,” Levi said pointedly, putting the toys he had gathered up in his arms into the toy box ottoman they used in the living room--one of her many touches to the house.

“Well...I just figured...can we talk?” she asked, clearly unsure about how to go about whatever it was she wanted to do. That only put Levi on edge, worried that this could be very bad, or something...unwanted, depending on her intentions. But he was also aware she was trying to be better, like he was, so he was at least going to give her the chance to speak and try whatever she was thinking before shutting her down or anything like that. Besides, this hesitance to approach him, while it was something that also made him wary, was a little more comfortable and familiar to him after these past few months of her hating him or keeping her distance. It was much more familiar than this shift in her since she’d caught sight of him the other night--he hadn’t known what to do with that sudden kindness and patience. This he knew how to handle.

Levi rolled up the playmat on the floor, placing it on top of the toys in the ottoman before shutting the cushioned lid. “All right...what is this about?” he asked slowly, coming over not to sit on the couch with her, but in the armchair off to the side, one of his legs coming up so his ankle rested on his other knee as he reclined in his seat, watching her and for the moment not partaking in the wine, even though she’d poured a glass for each of them.

“I have...questions,” she started hesitantly, pushing on quickly as Levi’s expression darkened slightly and he prepared himself to have to, once again, reiterate that there were things he wasn’t telling her for her own sake. “I know you won’t tell me everything, but, I have a lot, and I figured some of them surely you can answer?”

Levi studied her for a moment, his eyes probing. “Why now? It’s been months. Why start asking questions now?”

She took a deep breath, lowering her wine glass in her hand and looking up to meet his gaze head on. “I think...I’m not scared anymore.”

Not scared of her situation, or not scared of him? It felt like it could be either one, and while he felt she should still be scared of her situation because there was still danger, he also didn’t feel like he’d earned the right for her not to be scared of him anymore. Well...no, no, he didn’t want her to be afraid of him anymore, he didn’t mean her any harm. But he still felt like she should hate him--would again, eventually.

“Why not?”

She hesitated at his question, which was meant to make her second guess not being scared at all anymore. But instead of rescinding her self-evaluation, or second guessing herself, she started to give him actual reasons.

“I’ve grown more...comfortable here. More confident in taking care of the twins. I’m starting a new life which is scary but also exhilarating and refreshing. I don’t have people second guessing every choice and thought I have all the time anymore. And...you’re not as bad as I thought you were. And I apolo--”

“No apologizing. Not to me,” Levi said quickly and a little harshly, cutting her off before she could finish saying it, getting up from his seat to leave. “Never to me.”

“Wait, don’t run off--” she asked quickly, stopping herself from saying what Levi assumed was an apology for apologizing. “I haven’t asked any of my questions yet.”

Levi paused next to the couch, looking straight ahead at the wall instead of her off to his left as he took a deep breath and let out a slow sigh. “If I say I can’t answer it, just drop it and ask your next question.”

She nodded slowly but reluctantly. “I can do that.”

He hummed, not fully believing her but still going back to the chair he’d just tried to vacate. Once he was settled back in, he gave her an expectant look, itching to leave simply because he wasn’t used to her treating him like this, and right now, it made him uncomfortable. “What do you want to know?”

She let out a small sigh of relief, pulling her bare feet up onto the couch and leaning her back against the arm, her wine glass held with both hands. “Okay...okay...first question, I guess. Several months ago, Isabel said she was over two centuries old, but she was the youngest. So you’re...centuries old?” she paused momentarily to see if he was going to correct her, but the only thing he’d done was shifted so that his chin was propped up on his fist, two fingers curled so they were cover his lips as he watched, waited, and listened. “Are you immortal, then?”

“As long as I’m...feeding...I’ll live. Unless an angel or a demon finally succeeds in killing me,” Levi answered stoically, dancing around the topic of what he had to do for more time and all the messy logistics of that affair. Especially because even with the twins already almost a year old, he wanted her to have more time before he broke that bad news to her, or even hinted at it.

She shifted slightly in her seat, some discomfort returning to her demeanor. “And what do you…” she started to say, but she trailed off at the Don’t even finish that sentence look that Levi was giving her. She cleared her throat, worry flashing through her mind as she rubbed her neck.

Levi rolled his eyes at the assumption he thought she might be making. If he had to guess, she might be worried he was feeding off her blood while she slept or something like that. Still not over some of her darker assumptions about him, then. At least there was still some normality in his apparently still-changing world. “I’m a demon, not a vampire.”

She shot him an accusing look at his deadpan words, but apparently decided to abandon pushing that question further since he wouldn’t even let her finish it. He wouldn’t give her any other answer besides No I don’t feed off blood, anyway.

“Okay...so if you’re immortal, will they be, too?” she asked. Who she meant by they was rather obvious.

Levi nodded. “Eventually. Right now they’re still half-mortal so they age and grow properly, but once they reach maturity, it will be the same for them.”

“Right...because eventually the...the demon part is going to overtake the human part…”

“Physically, yes,” Levi said, voice a tad bit softer because he knew they were now addressing a concern of hers about them retaining their humanity. Furlan had warned him about this months ago. “They’ll become full blooded demons when they reach maturity. Though it’s not going to do anything to them as people besides the fact they’ll have things they need to do to survive. Nothing you need to worry about, though. I’ll take care of it when it comes to that point,” Levi added before she could ask about what it is they’ll have to do. It fed back into the question he wouldn’t answer, anyway, so she probably wouldn’t push. If she listened to his request that she drop any questions he wouldn’t answer.

“It’s not going to...change them? I know I asked Furlan this a while back, but…I guess it just...it just helps to hear it from you. Give me some more context, too, maybe.”

“No...not in the way you’re thinking, anyway. Coming into their own as demons means there will be an expansion in how big their world is and a change in lifestyle, but whether that changes them as a person is up to them. Again, it’s a long way off. And something I’ll be taking care of,” Levi told her, a bit of a hint for her to drop it returning to his voice. She didn’t need to know the ugly details of a life she wasn’t going to see or be involved in. That was Levi’s burden to bear, and he was the one who had all the knowledge and expertise to teach them.

Y/N quieted for a few moments, likely fighting the urge to press for more or investigate the topic further. Eventually, she spoke up again, and thankfully she was moving on to another question.

“I saw...do they...if they get hurt, will they bleed black, too?” she asked hesitantly.

Levi stiffened since this question brushed close to the events of the other night, which he really didn’t want her to pry into. Still, it was a legitimate concern since she knew about that little detail of Levi’s physicality, now. Of course she would worry about the twins. What if one of them scraped their knee at the park and another parent saw? How do you explain black blood instead of red?

“Not...for now. Like I said, right now they’re still half human, and will be for a while. At most, when they’re older, it might get a darker red, but until they become full demon they won’t be bleeding black.”

She nodded, the movement quick and jagged as she retreated again, able to sense ahead of time she was brushing close to a nerve. “And...well, I guess first I should ask if you...I know sometimes I...I glimpsed something, or thought I did, but...there was once I thought your eyes were…” She trailed off, holding his unwavering gaze and looking unnerved for a second before she abruptly switched tracks again, cheeks starting to flush. “And those few times you had a...um...what I’m trying to ask...Are your eyes actually...that...color...and...do you actually have a tail?” she finished in a rush, the blush getting stronger.

Levi’s chin lifted slightly, and his lips twitched towards a smile for a brief second before disappearing, as if it hadn’t happened at all. “I...do. Sometimes. I’ve got...another form. Sometimes it bleeds through. But this is what I look like, too. What I look like, human. Just like the twins look perfectly human.”

Best to get a jump start on that inevitable question of will the twins have a tail, different colored eyes, anything like that. He could feel it coming. Which is why he was trying to stress that yes, he had another form, but that technically came later. He was pure human in how he looked before anything demonic started to peek through.

“So...this other form you have a-a...a tail...gold and black eyes...anything else?” she asked hesitantly.

Levi sighed, dropping his hand to the arm of the chair. “Some. Nothing I don’t think you’ll be seeing, though, so--”

“It’s just...curiosity, it’s been itching at me for a while, it’ll keep itching at me otherwise.”

Levi just hummed, refusing to divulge more on what his demon form looked like and waiting for her to continue. He didn’t want her looking at him and seeing his demon form instead of him.

“Okay…” she eventually said slowly. “So...do the twins…?”

“No,” Levi said with quick ease, ready for the question since he’d been expecting it. “Almost anything to do with their demonic nature won’t show up or take place until they reach maturity. And what is active at this point in their life is more of...passive traits that you won’t see manifest. For all intents and purposes, right now, they’re human. Think of their demonic heritage as lying dormant inside them until their late teens, early twenties. You’ve got some time before anything like that starts happening. My advice is to not worry about it, just focus on taking care of your children and enjoying their younger years. Most of the demon stuff I’ll be handling when they get older.”

“And how will you be...handling it? What will you be teaching them?” she asked cautiously. Levi stayed quiet for a few moments and just watched her, getting a sense of what she was looking for. It seemed, thankfully, that she was working on giving him the chance to give his view and opinion instead of just jumping to conclusions. But, at the same time...this was something she wasn’t going to live to see, and he didn’t want to bog her down with worries and stress over something she wouldn’t have any control over, didn’t want to let her peek at the dark world behind the curtain, a world she would then have to be aware her children would eventually be a part of. She didn’t need that on her conscience with everything else that she would eventually have to be weighed down with.

“If you’re worried I’m going to teach them to be soul sucking, heartless monsters, you can be rest assured I want the opposite...as much as possible with the demon thing, anyway.”

He decided to give her an answer of more substance to put some of her concerns at rest so that she could rest a little easier, but he also kept the gritty details to himself. How he was going to handle their first experiences with their demon forms, talking to them about being demons, walking them through their diet, sweet mercy, he was going to have to guide his own children through the nitty gritty of being a succubus and incubus.

Nope. He was not going to be entertaining that thought. No, no, no, not at all, not until he absolutely had to, and certainly not while his children were still too small to even crawl.

All those parents that just had to give the sex talk once and it was over with were fucking lucky.

She was nodding slowly, taking the time to nurse her wine before she spoke again. “Well...on another note...I noticed...You said that almost every time in the past, mothers give up the babies if they don’t terminate the pregnancies. So if it’s so uncommon...how do you know so much about raising demon children with a human parent? The...safety parameters you keep talking about and all that?”

Levi quickly retreated further behind any and all emotional walls he had, tension gathering in his muscles. “I don’t see what this has to do with the twins and you living under the same roof as me,” he said tersely.

She took a moment to rethink her words, continuing in a careful tone of voice. “It’s just...you pushed so hard for me to give them up...because you were so certain it would save everyone pain--that’s what you said. And you said it was an experience that let you know how the kids might feel. Were you...one of those rare ones--”

“Stop,” Levi said firmly, cutting her off once again. But this time, it was because it was personal. And she was right. And he didn’t want her to poke at this old wound in particular. “We’re not talking about this.”

He could see it in her eyes, though. She knew her hunch was right. She knew his mother had been human, which is why he got so testy whenever the subject was about her and the kids, keeping her safe, reducing damage done and time spent with the kids. She knew that he was guiding her through this with personal experience through the eyes of the child rather than the parent. She knew he was a rare case that had the human touch when he was being raised and it made him different.

A touch that was part of the reason he was such an outcast in the demonic community besides being a lower class demon. Having some humanity and an actual heart instilled into you in your youth instead of the usual drill of hatred and cruelty and chaos right from the start made quite the difference.

Thankfully, she backed off. But they both knew she was right, and that would be enough for her. For now. Maybe in the future she might want more details, but for now, she seemed to be backing off, and in the future he wouldn’t talk about it, either. He didn’t like to go back to those last few days before she…

No. He wasn’t going down that road. Not right now.

And now he was getting antsy again, feeling like these questions were building into bigger questions, questions he didn’t want to tackle even if it had been almost two years since he got her pregnant.

“Okay then…” she muttered, fingers idly tracing through condensation on her wine glass. “Last question for today, then, I guess, then.”

She paused, and as the silence stretched past seconds and into minutes, Levi arched an eyebrow, wondering what this big final question was that she was hesitating to ask. She’d already started to ask about his mother and childhood, his demon form, all kinds of strange or sensitive topics. So what had her hesitating?

“You never told me, and I want to know...why? Why did you...have to get me pregnant?” she said in a tiny voice.

Fuck, he jinxed himself by thinking it.

Immediately, Levi dropped his semi-relaxed position in the chair and got to his feet, starting to walk out of the room without stopping this time. “No,” was all he said in parting.

“No? Wait, why--” she stopped talking for a few seconds as she scrambled off the couch after him. “Why not? It doesn’t have anything to do with me besides why you did it, so it’s not an ignorance thing. You only ever told me it wasn’t personal, and Isabel mentioned you didn’t want to, so I--”

Damn it, Isabel, what the fuck?

“It’s not going to make you feel better,” Levi said curtly as he was rounding the corner into the foyer. Y/N was not giving up, hot on his heels as they both approached the stairs.

“That’s not why I’m asking.”

“Yes, it is.”

She huffed as they both climbed the steps, hands trailing along the banisters on opposite sides of the steps.

“Even if it was, it’s up to me to decide how I’m going to feel about it.”

Levi scowled, but he kept walking, almost at the crest of the stairs. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said darkly.

“I have the right to know why, Levi. It’s been almost two years. I have the right to know by now why all of this is happening in the first place,” she said firmly behind him, and he finally stopped at the top of the stairs.

His fingers tapped at the banister as he took a deep breath. She did have the right to know why this had happened to her. He didn’t...think that it would hurt her chances with the strict angels. He wasn’t sure how it would make her feel about him. He didn’t like the thought that it might influence her to take even more pity on him, on top of recent events. But the why had to be confusing as hell for her. Between Isabel’s apparent comment about Levi not wanting to do this in the first place but he’d very clearly gone through with it with vigor, his own back and forth with stances and emotional reactions to what was happening…

The why had to be killing her, and she only ever got breadcrumbs--and confusing ones at that.

He might not like it...but she had a point. Two years almost...she deserved an answer. Maybe it would help clear some things up for her. Help put her mind at ease.

Help ease the blow later when he had to tell her what he’d done was going to kill her in a few years. At least she’d know he didn’t want to do it. She’d still be pissed at him, hate him, when he told her. But maybe not as long. Maybe they could at least preserve a coexistence with the kids, make something work still.

This could help...but he also really didn’t want to let her see too far into his dark world. Again, he didn’t want her to fear for her children’s future when it was all going to be at a point she wouldn’t be there for them.

But again...she deserved what truth he could give her. Wasn’t there already enough being kept from her? Surely telling her this wasn’t going to do anything that would hurt her chances for redemption when she died. Part of the reason he’d kept it from her originally was because of that fear, but now, thinking about it...it wasn’t going to effect her choices any more, was it? She hadn’t known any of this when he got her pregnant, and not during, and almost a year after she gave birth. Maybe it was safe to say it by now, because by now, it wouldn’t influence any key decisions...that he was aware of. Her choosing to stay and raise the kids was her own choice, one made without any context of the circumstances. The only way this could effect them was in their own strange relationship, right?

Fuck, this made his head hurt. Why did this have to be so difficult…

Slowly, Levi turned partially back around, leaning back against the banister, each foot on a different step. He took a few moments to choose his opening words, and thankfully Y/N was waiting for him to speak.

“What Isabel said, about it not being entirely voluntary...was true,” he said with a tired sigh and in a measured voice. “I don’t exactly comply with what’s expected of a demon. I’ve stepped on quite a few toes in the past, and I pissed off the...law, I suppose, of Hell one too many times. They gave me a sentencing. I had to either...sire demon offspring in three months, or be thrown into The Pit.”

She seemed frozen on those steps for a few seconds, staring at him with partial understanding. He was leaving out a lot of important details--his repeated rebellion against acting like a demon, centuries of defying the Infernal Court and causing problems for his fellow demons and their dastardly activities, centuries of refusing to strike deals when that was one of ‘the main reasons for his existence,’ the circumstances he’d been brought to the court under on that day (Costing them a gold mine of so many souls in one fell swoop because he interrupted the ritual and then destroyed the instructions so no one could get their hands on it ever again), who the Infernal Court were in the first place, how they actually threw him into the pit for a few seconds to give him a taste…

Partially to act with caution and try to keep some of that ignorance intact, and partially to keep from revealing too much of his world to her.

“What’s the pit?” she eventually asked after a few moments of processing what he’d told her, currently not giving anything away in her expression while she was still gathering and understanding the information he was telling her.

“It’s...A place where souls are broken down until...you don’t want to know this stuff,” he said stiffly, turning away to fully crest the stairs. Where was he even trying to run off to? He didn’t have a direction when he tried to retreat, he just started walking hoping she wasn’t going to follow...apparently.

The study was probably the best option, since he knew he likely wasn’t going to sleep. Especially after this discussion.

“Yes, I do.”

“No--”

“Yes, I do.”

“Fine,” Levi almost growled, running a hand through his hair as he turned back towards her. “A fate worse than death. Even demons are afraid of it. Let’s just leave it at that, all right?” he said in an uncomfortable tone.

She nodded, stepping back a stair step. “Um...all right. All right. So...you were put in a position where it was either...get someone, in this case me, pregnant...or a fate worse than death. You didn't really...have a choice."

"No, I had a choice. I could have told them to just throw me in The Pit," Levi said distantly. He'd already wondered several times why he hadn't just gone with The Pit, why did he have to inflict all of this, going with The Pit might have saved more people.

"Yeah, but who's going to actually choose that?" She said softly. "We're hardwired to survive, so when you're told to either suffer a fate worse than death or do this simple task--"

"It's not simple," Levi corrected her quietly. "We actually have a low fertility rate, it...it's nature's way of keeping us from infesting the earth, I guess. Normally it takes years, decades, centuries for this to happen."

"And they told you to do it in three months," she said slowly, realization in her eyes. "They asked for an impossible task for your alternative...they wanted you to fail."

Levi wasn't looking at her anymore, he was staring off into the empty space across from him, waiting for this line of questioning to end. After a few seconds of silence he focused more on the present, looking around briefly before he started walking towards the spiral staircase. "If that's all…"

"Levi?" Y/N called out, causing him to pause, tense in anticipation to hear what she had to say now that she had the why that sounded so much like a pathetic excuse.

"Thank you for telling me," she said instead, and Levi started to turn to look at her in surprise before he stopped himself. He let out a breath he was holding, waited a few seconds to make sure he was composed, then gave a small nod without looking at her.

"...Get some sleep," he said in a gruff voice, finally fully retreating to the office and leaving her standing on the steps.

*Reader’s POV*

While Levi had shut you down on a few topics that you’d tried to pry into, you’d gotten a surprising amount of information from him despite the blocks. Some you’d pried for but hadn’t expected to receive an actual answer to, which made the answers you received all the more...shaking.

The little things had been relieving, at least, somewhat reassuring, calming to your curiosity. Knowing your children weren’t going to be acting or looking or displaying anything demonic put to bed a lot of fears you’d been having for their childhood. They would fit into normal society and you wouldn’t have to worry about people seeing them bleed black, or them suddenly displaying a tail in P.E. and all the concerned parents or bullying they’d have to encounter, men in black suits showing up to whisk them away…

But, Levi had assured her nothing like that would be an issue until they were older, practically adults, and Levi had talked like he knew exactly how to handle it, like he knew how to control the situation enough to avoid any messes like the nightmare scenarios in your head, like he wasn’t sharing the same concerns.

It was also nice to know you weren’t crazy, that you had, in fact, glimpsed his eyes shifting color. And it hadn’t just been a weird dream fantasy that he had a tail. He had a whole other form. Of course, if you understood it correctly, he looked like this, first. The demon form came later, as it would with your children.

And the immortality...that was something to get used to. The thought--no, knowledge--that your children were going to far outlive you, would live centuries after you died. It was a sobering, strange thought. One you didn’t want to dwell too long on.

The main, interesting and jarring bits of information was what you found out about his past. Knowing that he’d been raised by a human mother put a lot of his past comments into perspective. His little comments that made no sense before, like his comment that they would remember everything they could about you, even with how young they were, suddenly shined a bright light on another side of who he was. He was talking about himself--he clung to every memory he had of his mother, which is why he knew they would. And his strange insistence the twins keep your last name, that they have that part of their mother…

Had Ackerman been Levi’s mother's last name? And what happened to her to make him feel so strongly on the topic of mother's now?

Considering he'd cut her off with that question, and his silence and insistence you drop it had been the confirmation of your theory, you had the feeling he wouldn't give you those answers. If anything, you might have to figure it out on your own.

But, obviously, the big thing was the revelation of why? Why was all this happening to you in the first place? He'd already told you that you'd been a randomly picked target, that there was no personal reason you'd been chosen, but that hadn't explained why it had to happen in the first place. Now you knew, now you had answers...and it changed things.

Some of your previous theories had been that he just wanted the twins--and at the very beginning you’d feared it was for some nefarious, twisted reason, though the care and devotion he showed to them had quickly assuage that first fear--or that it was just something he did as a demon. Really, you had always assumed it was all him, that he wanted it for whatever demonic reason. Isabel had made you wonder, but it hadn’t really convinced you, yet, and you were still convinced that something cruel and dark in him had caused him to do it. But hearing that he hadn’t wanted to do it in the first place, that someone had made him, that he’d been faced with doing this or a fate worse than death...it took so much of the perceived malice in his character and made it start to fade away.

It still took a couple days to really sink in, but...when it did...you knew how you felt, even if some of it was a little confusing in its logic. You pitied him, and even felt bad for treating him like a fiend for so long. No, it didn’t make that first year okay, where he got you pregnant on purpose and then disappeared for the whole pregnancy. That would always hurt. But the pain and anger softened and faded when you thought of what you knew of his side of the story. Now you really could believe his words that he had no desire to hurt you, and he was doing the best he could with the situation. He really was trying, and you certainly hadn’t made those efforts any easier--probably made it hell for him. You didn’t feel in danger or threatened anymore, didn’t feel like he was cruel and trying to inflict all this pain on you and make your life miserable out of malicious intent. And you couldn’t bring yourself to hate him anymore, knowing he'd been forced into this by vicious circumstance and had silently taken the brunt of your hatred and venom (for the most part), knowing perfectly well what he’d done, feeling like he deserved it so he just took it. Knowing he was suffering more to protect you and the twins, somehow.

You could go on and on about the new light you were seeing him in. It felt strange to have your heart pitying and feeling for him while your brain was still insistent and convinced that he’d wronged you, and you weren’t giving him a free pass for what he put you through...but you understood more of what happened now, and maybe you hadn’t entirely forgiven him, maybe you were almost there, but you certainly weren’t holding it against him anymore. In a way...you wanted to just try and move past it by now, to be able to move on. Maybe eventually you could forgive him.

Maybe.

There were still a few missing pieces, but what you’d become aware of had already shifted your stance so close to forgiveness you thought anything else he might reveal to you might further sway your heart to forgiving him. Not yet, though. You weren’t quite ready to let go, but you knew that someday, you could.

You just needed a bit more time--something he was always acting like you didn’t have enough of.

Well, when your children were apparently going to be immortal, that suddenly made sense. You would be present for what would amount to a speck, a small blip, of their potentially endless long lives.

Still, like Levi had mentioned, that was a long way off, and right now you had quite a few important things you needed to be giving your attention to. Such as figuring out how to make up for how awfully you’d been treating Levi up until recently. He was no longer in a ‘trial period,’ by now it was obvious that his intentions were pure now, even if some of his methods had been seriously misguided in the past. Hopefully he’d learned from them by now.

Though, if his guilt was anything to go off of...you’d have to get him to let you forgive him, most likely.

One step at a time, then.

*Levi’s POV*

Y/N had been gone all day, since it was one of her glass-blowing lesson days, and she tended to make it her me-time day. Which meant that Levi had been in charge of the twins and puppy all day, making sure everyone’s needs were met and that all three stayed out of trouble...which was a hell of a lot harder to do all day than he’d expected it to be.

He tried immensely not to think about how this was going to be his normal in a few years, having to manage it all on his own. He really didn’t want to think about that--it made him sick to his stomach, anxiety oozing off him in waves of his impending single-parenting. Was he cut out for that? Yeah, he’d been managing so far, but Y/N has been monopolizing control of the twins until recently, and even now he was aware that he still had less time with the twins than she did--which was not something he complained about. They needed all the time they could get with their mother, since it was already so limited. It just also meant less time for him to prepare and adjust to taking care of them by himself for long periods, let alone until they were adults.

At the moment, Captain was running free in the fenced in yard, his yips able to be heard from inside as the bundle of boundless energy ran unsupervised through the grass and around some of Y/N’s more recent additions to the yard--mostly plants and the occasional rock bed around a shrub or tree.

Inside, Levi was entirely focused on the twins in front of him, focused on trying to get them to crawl. They’d been trying to for a little while, now, and since they were roughly about that age where they should be crawling about, he was trying to get them to make the proverbial first step. Well, he was trying to get Ida to take that first step. Asa didn’t give a shit and was laying on his back gumming mindlessly on the teething ring. Ida, however, was entirely focused on her father, shifting from a sitting position to an at-the-ready crawl, in position to start moving but not yet moving, a position they’d both been stuck in for a while.

Every now and then Captain would start barking excitedly at a bird or a squirrel or a passerby outside, and Ida would momentarily lose concentration as she tried to seek out the source of the sound. However, Levi would patiently reclaim his daughter’s attention, trying to get her to focus on him and come towards him. He had all kinds of toys and snacks laid out in front of him like he was trying to lure her in with a buffet of favorites, but she would not budge.

Sighing as she returned to her hindquarters and stared with a perplexed look at her content brother, sat back and tried to rethink his approach and how to get this to work, especially when she kept getting distracted every two seconds.

“Ida,” he called again, getting the ten-month old’s attention as she blew little spit bubbles and kicked her feet against the ground.

Cute, he thought sarcastically…though if he was being honest, it was a little cute. Grabbing the nearby burp cloth, he wiped her mouth and then scooted back against the couch, reaching out to place his hand just out of her reach and tapping his fingers on the ground in front of her.

“Ida...come here. Can you catch me?” he asked, wiggling his fingers enticingly at watching her movements. She tried to catch his hand from where she was sitting, but soon found it out of reach, and with burbling noises, she started to lean forward into that crouch, hoping that extra couple inches would help her reach his hand. However, as she was shifting into position, Levi slid his hand back just out of reach again. Once she discovered she still couldn’t reach, she let out a little frustrated yell, as if demanding he put it back in reach. However, Levi’s hand stayed just barely out of her grasp.

“You can get it. Come on, Ida. You can crawl forward. You just need to move your hands...come on,” Levi coaxed, making sure to wiggle his fingers here and there to keep up the enticing act. Ida continued to yell, bouncing in place with hands and legs planted into the ground, face scrunched up in frustration.

Eventually, she moved one of her hands while slapping the ground, and Levi’s heart skipped a beat for a second. Was she about to move? She was still throwing a fit, but maybe, if she realized she was a bit closer to his hand after doing that.

“That’s it, come on, more of that,” Levi encouraged, fingers wiggling more once she had moved her hand and was stretched out a little closer. He’d even take an army crawl at this point. They’d been relatively on time or even early with all their other developmental stages, but for some reason, crawling was taking a while for both twins.

Maybe it was because their parents had been spoiling them always bringing things to them and wanting to hold and carry them.

Well, not today. She was going to move, damn it. Asa he’d work on another day, that boy was so relaxed he could pass as a sloth right now.

Levi’s fingers wiggled again, and Ida tried to grab it with her other hand, fell onto her stomach--without hurting herself, otherwise Levi would have intervened--and then pushed herself back up to discover a bit of her leg action while pushing herself up had moved her forward a bit. Levi’s hand scooted back minutely, since he was hoping to get her to crawl to his lap.

It took a couple more moments of this barely inching progress for Ida to realize she was getting closer to her father, and she started to wiggle about excitedly, getting up quicker (though more unsteadily) and belly flopping her way towards him in a messy way that looked more like she was doing a weak version of The Worm along the floor. Even Asa had turned his head to watch his sister, though that was the most movement he did besides the constant gumming on the teething ring. Maybe from watching Ida, Asa would be able to figure it out soon.

Safe from all onlooking eyes, Levi’s lips were fixed in a soft smile as he watched Ida inching her way after his hand, coming closer and closer and slowly gaining speed and momentum.

“Just a little further...that’s right, Ida, just a little further…” he encouraged her, eyes fixed on her as she got closer...closer…

When she was nearly touching Levi’s leg, he finally let her catch his hand, his smile widening slightly as she squealed in happiness to have finally caught his dancing fingers, legs kicking against the floor in a rapid thump. He let her celebrate her capture for a few seconds before he snatched her up into his arms, feeling a warmth in his chest as he held her close in a hug, kissing the top of her head as he continued to smile, a bit of pride soaking past the joy he was currently radiating towards her in warm waves. He gave her a few more kisses as she giggled and buried into his chest, Levi gently resting his cheek against her head as she dug in deeper, cocooning in his warm hug while he ignored any excited kicks that got him square in, say, the kidneys.

After a few minutes of her burbling giving him time to cool down from the excitement, Levi grimaced as more practical things started to settle in his mind.

“...Fuck...I have to babyproof the whole house now.”

“Not to mention there’s no more leaving them unsupervised on their playmats even for a second. Not until we get past the don’t put that in your mouth stage.”

From the doorway behind him, Levi heard a familiar voice pipe up, causing his head to turn to see Y/N leaning in the living room doorway looking relaxed and refreshed. She straightened up when he caught sight of her, coming over to where they were all gathered to kneel down next to Asa and tickle his tummy, getting a pleased giggle out of the boy as he dropped the teething ring to grab at her hand and hold her captive, his vice grip keeping her there as he tried to gum on her hands instead.

Levi sighed at her comment, already mentally coming up with a list of wall socket protectors, edge protectors, gates, what things he needed to move up out of crawling baby reach, and much, much more. “At least right now it’s just crawling.”

“I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t make a difference. I’ve heard horror stories about how fast a crawling baby can move.”

Levi glanced at her, doing a quick sweep over her to see what he could see. It looked like she had a burn here and there from the glass blowing, but it looked like she’d also had a hair appointment, maybe a trip to the spa. No, definitely a trip to the spa with the fragrance he was starting to catch wafting off her. “I take it you had a good day.”

“I did,” she said honestly, gingerly replacing her hand with Asa’s teething ring and looking for a burp cloth to wipe her hand off on. While she was doing that, Ida was set carefully in Levi’s lap as he gave her one of her favorite toys to play with while he talked to Y/N in what was turning into a reflex movement. “Don’t you think you should have some break days, too? So far it’s just me with a relaxation day. The only time I see you go out…”

She trailed off, and Levi looked down at Ida. “I’ve seen the world ten times over. My idea of time to relax is a cup of tea and a book.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Y/N commented, moving over to sit near him, but on the couch instead of the floor. “So...I made something in the glass blowing class today.”

“You normally do.”

“Something other than dishes,” she said with a slight roll of her eyes, reaching into her bag to pull out a small box. Considering the lack of rattling, whatever was inside had to be wrapped and padded like it was in a bubble wrap suit. To his surprise, she offered it to him. “I suggest you put Ida out of reach, just to be safe. It is glass.”

Levi looked at her curiously, carefully setting Ida on the ground next to him, pressed up to his knee where she was still there and making contact, but he could easily hold whatever this was out of her reach.

Carefully, Levi opened the box, peeling back tightly wrapped layers of tissue paper to eventually reveal...a tiny glass bird. It wasn’t anything intricate or streamlined, but he could tell with the general silhouette, the unmistakable bird head with the tiny beak, the way the lines in the glass along the sides were meant to take the place of wings as it all smoothly went into a point in the back. There were no legs, no defining differences in the shape, just the streamlined almost checkmark shape to its form, with the slight curves around the neck and curves of the head and the point of the beak marking the difference of the head from the body. And again, the ‘wings’ were just there in his mind’s eye, since he knew that’s where the wings were supposed to be, and the lines in the glass helped him mark where they were supposed to be (and what they were).

“It’s supposed to be a blue jay, but...I’m not that good yet,” she mumbled in embarrassment, watching as he pulled it out of the box and fit it neatly in the palm of one hand with how tiny it was--the hand that was further from Ida, who was already trying to view the pretty glinting in the light that her father had. “The beak isn’t long enough, it’s short and stubby, and there’s no little plume on the back of its head, but that’s what I was thinking when I made it.”

“It’s more complicated than anything else you’ve brought home,” Levi commented, wrapping it back up and putting it back in the box. When he tried to hand it to her, though, she stopped him by shaking her head.

“No need to give it back to me--it’s for you.”

Levi blinked, staring at her. “What?”

“It’s a gift. It’s for you,” she repeated, raising an eyebrow when the box continued to hover in the air between the both of them.

Levi’s mind, however, was racing. What did this mean? Why the hell did she want to give him a gift? Why a little glass bird, of all things? What was he supposed to do with this? Had he ever been given a gift--a real gift--before? Besides a few trinkets from his mother in his early years, anyway. Forget what he was going to do with the little figurine, how was he supposed to react to this? He felt like his brain was crashing just looking at the little box between them that was still in his now hesitant grip.

He was just now starting to adjust to the cordial, calm, even friendly conversation. Now she was gift giving, too?

I don’t deserve this.

Levi’s grip tightened slightly on the box, and he attempted to give it to her again. This time she held up a hand to stop him.

“It’s yours. And you’re going to keep it even if I have to sneak it in or on your things for the next several months,” she said with a firm nod of her head. “You might as well just accept it now because I plan on winning any debate you try to strike up in the end.

“Tch.” Levi looked away, placing the box on the couch seat near his head out of Ida’s reach, picking her up once again now that the glass object was well out of reach. She’d grabbed another toy while she was on the ground, so she was content for a while longer. At the same time, Y/N had decided to pick up Asa, who smiled brightly at her when he got wrapped up in Y/N’s arms, cooing happily at her as Y/N gave him her modified version of a ‘kiss’ as she’d told Levi the other day--gently brushing their noses together side to side before letting Asa cling to her while she held him close, Asa continuing to coo.

“You’re such a little angel, aren’t you?” she murmured, mostly to herself speaking about Asa, but Levi still overheard it with how close they were to each other, and he couldn’t help the slight scoff that burst past his lips. She glanced over at him, her cheeks starting to tinge pink. “Sorry...bad choice of words.”

“Incredibly,” Levi said with a tinge of bitterness in his voice. And he wasn’t just talking about the fact that everyone in this room but her was demonic.

Her gaze focused on him a little more at his statement, head cocked to the side as she seemed to notice something.

She was getting too good at picking up on his subtle cues...it was all this time spent around each other, the proximity. They had no choice but to learn more and more about each other. She was getting better at reading him--though Levi could write that off as survival instinct with how rough their first few months were--and was able to anticipate his routine by now, as well as the best actions around each routine--cold water in a water bottle in the fridge for the morning run, Captain’s needs taken care of and the twins put in the cribs in his room before he came home on Saturdays, messes cleaned up almost as soon as they happened if they could be addressed that soon, things like that. For him, he was finally getting a grasp on her décor taste, had figured out the kinds of books she liked to pick out in the study, knew her most played songs right now, and had finally figured out what kind of breakfast foods she liked. They were learning about each other every day--it was only a matter of time before they started getting to the deeper stuff. She’d already started digging into some tough subjects the other day with all her questions. He could try to do the same, but...he was afraid to get too close to the woman he knew would die in a few years. It would make it all the harder when it inevitably happened--it was already going to be hard enough trying to get the twins through the fallout and to be a single father afterwards, he didn’t want to compound that suffering with grief over losing...whatever they might become if they got closer. Friends, perhaps. Right now they were more cordial partners in raising children. But it seemed she wanted to mend this bridge between them into something a bit stronger, if the gift and her recent attitude towards him was anything to go on.

“I wasn’t thinking about, y’know, demons and angels and all that. Just thinking of the sentiment. Asa’s such a sweet, pure little boy,” she said lovingly in response to Levi’s tone, pulling Levi out of his thoughts as she started to coo over their son, tickling his sides and making the boy laugh and squeal.

Levi snorted. He understood what she meant, but he didn’t even like the saying because it was so far from the truth. “Angels are a bunch of self-righteous pricks who don't care what happens to anyone else so long as they get what they want,” he said, his bitterness more open this time. Y/N seemed taken aback, but not upset. More curious.

“Lots of personal experience with them?”

Levi glanced at her briefly, then shook his head. “No. Never met one that wasn't fallen. But I've seen enough of their aftermath and ‘judgement’ to know.”

That’s enough of that shit, he thought to himself, gathering up Ida in his arms and standing up to start taking her to the kitchen, making sure she didn’t have any toys in hand so that she wouldn’t be distracted this time.

“C’mon. I haven’t fed them yet. Wanted to see if you were going to be here in time,” Levi said in a gruff voice, leading the way into the kitchen so they could feed the two tykes before they realized how hungry they were and got restless.

They fed the twins in comfortable silence, each of them doting on their held twin in the process and earning a couple glances from each other, always when the other wasn’t looking. After being fed, both twins were fairly sleepy, which meant they were brought upstairs to go to bed, with how late it was. Levi handed them both over to Y/N to put them to bed without any fuss since she’d been gone all day and would probably appreciate the special time with them.

With her preoccupied putting the twins to sleep, Levi retreated to the study with his unexpected gift to find a place for it. He wasn’t going to be putting it in his bedroom, since the only time he really stayed in there was when he was injured or exhausted--or was trying to hide from Y/N for whatever reason, usually because he was injured and didn’t want her to know.

So, if he was putting this somewhere he was going to see it frequently, he should put it in the study, right? That was the right thing to do with this, put it somewhere it was seen frequently? At least that’s what he felt like he was supposed to do, like he should do.

Carefully and quietly, Levi pulled out and unwrapped the little glass bird, holding it in his hands for a few moments and gently setting it down on the front of the desk after a few moments spent looking over it again. His fingers lingered over the cool glass surface before pulling away, feeling the slightest tingle in his fingers and his lips twitch slightly towards a smile as he thought of how...peaceful life with Y/N and the twins had started to become, how it was starting to feel...right.

Was this what it felt like? Healing?

(A Few Weeks Later)

*Reader’s POV*

You were trying to get the twins down for a nap that they desperately needed, but, of course, they just weren’t having it right now. Something was bothering them, you just didn’t know what. They were screaming and crying like they were scared of something, but there was nothing to be scared of. The house was empty and quiet, Levi was outside mowing the lawn--terrifyingly normal, that thought was--and Captain was sniffing around downstairs in vain for something other than his chew toys to munch on. The puppy had already been taught not to chew on the furniture, and all the twins toys were packed up and out of reach, so eventually he would have to admit defeat. Plus, he’d already been let outside to go about his business before Levi started mowing and Y/N put the twins down.

Maybe it was the lawn mower they didn’t like. It was fairly loud, but all the way in here it was more like a background hum. Did babies get nightmares this early in life?

Both twins were standing, holding tightly to the bars on their cribs and scream crying, making your head throb painfully with each ear-splitting cry. “Shh, shh...I don’t know what’s wrong, you two, you’re going to have to help me, here. What is it, what can I do?” you asked in a quiet but desperate voice. They were changed, fed, and burped, they’d been playing for hours and were exhausted, they were comfortably dressed so temperature wasn’t a problem, you’d already checked them for fever or little injuries that might have escaped your notice, but you couldn’t find anything.

A tiny little snarl at the door caught you off guard, looking down to see tiny Captain standing at full attention and snarling with his gaze fixed at an empty corner of your bedroom. The twins shrieked, making you wince, and you tried to figure out what the hell was going on as Captain started howling and barking in his high pitched puppy voice at virtually nothing.

“Captain, please, can you not do that right now, it’s too much with the screaming--” you started to plead, but of course, since he was a dog and couldn’t understand what you were saying, Captain just continued to bark and howl. You groaned, lowering your head into your hands and trying to block out all the noise for just five seconds. “Can everyone shut up just for five--”

The screaming got much louder, but this time you didn’t need to ask why--you were a contributor to the noise this time as you shouted out, feeling something sharp slicing into your side as you were flung backwards across the room, away from the crib. Any more distinct scream you were about to make was cut off as the same clawed hand that just threw you like a rag doll and raked along your side was now wrapped around your throat. A sudden weight was holding you down, knocking the breath out of you as you were pinned to the ground, suddenly feeling hyper away and immensely vulnerable with the position you were in, not even fully aware of what was happening yet and unable to call out for help with the hand cutting off your air supply.

Though, when you looked up, you sincerely hoped that whatever you were seeing was an oxygen-deprived hallucination.

It...it was a demon. It had to be. Colored in black and a sickly dark green, it was scaled from head to toe, looking more serpentine than anything right down to its reptilian eyes of burning red and the slimy tongue that was slithering out of its mouth between sharp fangs. There were porcupine like spines running down from its neck down its thick tail, and more going from wrist to shoulder, and from it’s back protruded scaly, ripped up bat wings, currently stretched out as if to shroud you in further darkness. Some of its saliva slipped off its tongue and onto your cheek, and it burned immediately on contact.

It didn’t need to cut off your oxygen, you stopped breathing from shock and fear the moment you looked up at it. You were tense, feeling a warmth at your side and staying rigid in fear of what came next, what it was going to do, if it was going to kill you or worse. You couldn’t even get its hand off your neck, you knew you had no hope of getting it off you, that you couldn’t do anything to kill it. Levi had said no human means could kill him, which meant you couldn’t do shit against this thing.

And this thing was terrifying, its red eyes holding you hypnotized below it as it squeezed harder, and you realized it was going to either crush or snap your neck in the next second.

Another snarling sound ripped through the room, and suddenly another creature was on the back of the one attacking you, shifted to the side to avoid the spines along its back as it’s much smaller fangs sank into its neck, a tail and arm wrapping around one of the creature’s wrists to pull it by force away from your throat, giving you a bit of reprieve. With legs wrapped around the creature to keep the new one on them, the other arm grasped at one of the spines protruding from it’s arm, broke it off to elicit a scream of pain from the reptilian creature, and buried it into the other side of its neck. The reptilian was reeling back in pain at that point, both arms scratching for the smaller and slighter being that had attacked it from behind. The reptilian got ahold of them fairly easily, considering the way the second being had attached to them focused more on doing damage and distracting than holding on.

The second arrival was ripped off the reptilian’s back and flung across the room, crashing into the dresser with the noticeable sound of cracking and splintering wood. After a grunted groan, the second figure stood to attack again, and you got the briefest glint of familiar eyes, jarring you into sudden realization.

It was Levi.

You knew those gold and black eyes. That slender tail. The rest was all strange and new to you, that demonic form he hadn’t wished to speak of the other night. The powerful draconic wings with their claw tips, the horns that curved over his head, the strange markings of black across his body that occasionally started to glow golden.

He lunged at the reptilian demonic creature again, nimbly moving around it’s larger, thicker limbs, using the bulk of his opponent to his advantage as his slighter build allowed him to move faster, coming at the creature with the spine he’d ripped off once again, holding it like a knife instead of the organic protrusion it was as he stabbed at what you assumed were weak points in the creature’s reptilian armor.

“Get the twins!” Levi barked at you as he raked fingers into the creature’s serpentine eyes and pushed its head to the side, causing it to stagger in a direction away from the cribs, giving you a momentary opening. You darted by, shrieking as it’s arm barely missed your head, a deep lash from Levi’s tail causing it’s hand to recoil. You heard Levi cry out behind you as the creature snarled again, glancing over your shoulder as one arm lifted Asa into your embrace first, seeing Levi drop with a hand covering claw marks that had raked across his face. The reptilian demon was rushing you, and you tried to jump out of the way, while keeping Asa out of harm’s way, and trying to get Ida out of her crib with your other arm because this thing was bulky and you were afraid it’s charge was going to crash into Ida’s crib as well. It resulted in a painfully awkward movement, your back to the creature as you shielded the twins with your body, Ida barely in your arms, losing your balance and starting to fall, desperately trying to position yourself so the twins were still shielded and you fell on your side with the twins off the ground.

The thing’s hand swiped through the air where you’d been before you fell, eliciting an instinctual scream before it’s tail swept across the ground, spines slicing up your back and causing you to see spots, too disoriented for a few seconds to immediately react, even as your brain was screaming for you to get up and get the twins out of there. You pushed up with one arm into a position on your knees and tried to scramble up and away, hearing the snarling right behind your head and too afraid to turn your head or stop moving, your mind imagining jagged fangs about to sink into the back of your neck, paralyzing or killing you in the next moment.

A furious sound came out of Levi, and that terrifying presence lessened as you scrambled to the door, hoping you could make it down the stairs before it came at you again, mind flashing through scenarios of being pushed over the bannister around the balcony styled U hallway, or being pushed down the steps--or worse falling down the steps yourself in your haste to escape.

There was a very human scream of pain behind you, and you couldn’t help but look back towards the room you were vacating, catching sight of Levi and the creature grappling on the floor in what had to have been a desperate move to yank the thing away from you and the twins, since Levi was on the bottom and in a very, very bad position because of it. But they were fighting very basely with claws, teeth, fingers, anything they could use, and Levi was pulling the creature’s head back from his torso with a spray of black blood, enduring another slash of claws along his side as the clawed tips of his wings sunk between scales across the creature’s flesh and he pushed the thing back long enough to go for the front of the throat with his own, smaller fangs.

You looked away before you could see that gruesome scene, or if it even hit. You had to get out of here, before something terrible happened. Levi was hurt badly, and you didn’t think he was going to win this fight. Which meant you had to get the twins out of here while he was buying you time.

Captain appeared at your heels, barking and racing down the steps beside you, making it harder to focus on keeping from falling down the stairs since you now had a puppy right there yipping in alarm. He must have been hiding from all the fighting and commotion and scary creatures in the house until he saw you running and decided to stick with his fleeing, hurt, secondary master.

You almost made it to the door, heart pounding in terrifying volume as you realized there wasn’t the sound of a fight upstairs anymore, hearing movement behind you. The twins were clinging to you like a lifeline and screaming, so it was easy to shift them so they were both held in one arm, the other that had been prepared to open the door grabbing instead an umbrella by the door when you felt the presence right behind you, swinging wildly and managing to connect against something solid with a resounding crack that broke the umbrella.

However, it wasn’t the reptilian creature now staggering backwards at the attack, but Levi, holding a hand up to catch the broken umbrella you had been about to stab with, since it now had a jagged and pointy edge. You stopped halfway through the motion after seeing it was the blood soaked and very injured Levi in his normal human form, black smeared across his face where he’d wiped blood away from his eyes.

“Good hit,” Levi grunted, tossing the umbrella aside after pulling it out of your hands. His hands gently grasped your shoulders, mindful of the spots the spines had raked across your back. “Get the twins and Captain in the car, I’ll pack necessities. We’re going on that trip you turned down,” he said flatly, the only emotions you could pick up on being pain and haste.

“Are you--” you started to ask, but Levi pushed you towards the door.

“Go!” he barked, hurrying towards the living room where the two of you kept the twin’s diaper bags mostly packed.

Thank God they were fancy ones with portable crib bassinet things--it was a place the twins could sleep even if wherever they ended up didn’t have cribs. You were surprised you were able to have that logical thought after what you just witnessed, but there it was.

You did as Levi told you to, heading right out the door with Captain still yipping on your heels as you made a beeline for the car. The first thing you did was get the twins into their car seats, relieved that at least all their needs were taken care of, they just needed to be calmed down after all that chaos, now, so you didn’t have to worry about pulling over to handle any dirty diapers or feeding time for a while. Though, with their screaming and fussing and flailing, it made it difficult to get them both into their car seats, especially since you were hurt and trying desperately to ignore it long enough for all of you to get out of there and get somewhere safe.

While you were trying to get the twins in their seat, Levi was moving surprisingly fast for the most injured one in the group, throwing the diaper bags into the back, disappearing a little longer to throw in a small suitcase for himself, and a larger one with you--likely packed with the milk pump. He also added some of Captain’s things, some formula, you saw a first aid kit shoved onto the dash in the front as he darted past to throw in a third suitcase. You also saw him pause to make sure he had his black card, and when he was finally slowing down on packing things into the car after scooping up Captain and adding him into a safe spot in the back where none of the bags would fall on and hurt him, Levi pulled out that cellphone of his you rarely saw and started to make a call while you worked on calming the twins down, giving them little pats and your nose kisses and butterfly kisses and shushing and singing to them to try and calm them down. When they started to calm down, Levi waved for you to get into the passenger seat as he slid into the driver’s seat, somehow able to temporarily ignore the heavily bleeding wounds that had him limping around, even favoring one of his sides. He was hurt, and it was affecting him, but he was pushing through it on either necessity or adrenaline or both.

He seemed all right for the time being, so you let it go and decided not to say anything...for now. Right now, it seemed you were the most hurt one, crawling into the front seat to discover he’d thrown two towels into the passenger seat as well. One you placed up on the dash since you didn’t need it, but the other you grabbed and pressed into your side as you got into the seat, forced to sit strangely curled up on your side since the placement of your injuries made it painful for you to lean back against the seat. With the towel, though, you were able to press against the wounds and start to staunch the bleeding, squeezing your eyes shut and trying to focus on your breathing as Levi started the car and started flying down the road in what you were sure had to be illegal speeds, or at the very least flirted with the line of what a cop might excuse.

During the drive, Levi kept talking over the phone, and while you couldn’t hear the other side, the conversation made it easy to guess who was probably on the other side of that call.

“No...this one was a stranger. I don’t know who they were, what they wanted specifically, or how the hell they found us, but I have theories, and none of them are good,” he said darkly, glancing over at you with his expression lightening to concern for a moment. “Are you okay? Are any of them hospital treatment deep?”

“I don’t know,” you said in a small voice. You’d never been in this situation before, and you weren’t sure what the hell he meant by ‘hospital deep.’ Was he suggesting that you weren’t going to go to a hospital for this? That you were just going to drive to a different house and hope you weren’t hurt too badly? “Your face…”

“I’ll heal, he said curtly, shrugging off the inquiry with his eyes fixed on the road, phone straightening to bring the speaker closer to his mouth again.

“They got a few good hits in...no, I’m taking them to the beach house. The twins aren’t hurt, just Y/N and me. I think she’ll be okay, I need to take a closer look when we stop, but I don’t think that’ll be necessary. I would, but we’d be sitting ducks until she got discharged. We’ll have to make due. Just see what you can find. There’s still one hell of a mess at the house, you might be able to find something. And figure out how the address got out, and what the hell we can do to fix this mess.”

Levi hung up, wincing slightly and shifting in the seat. It was then you could see that he had black soaking through the shirt in his side and staining the clothes so deeply it looked sticky. “We’re going to a small beach house I have on the coast...until Furlan and Isabel can make sure the house is safe again. It’s got the basics, but we might have to buy some necessities beyond what I packed. It’s a bit of a drive, but...I think I can make it. I don’t sleep much, anyway. Just...keep applying pressure. I want to get as far as possible before we have to stop, there might be more. Maybe, I don’t know...I don’t know who that was or why they were there, I just know we can’t stay there right now,” Levi rambled to you, gaze fixed forward but occasionally flickering to the rearview mirror and the twins, or you nursing your injuries. “How are you feeling? Light headed? Dizzy?”

“I think...shock…” you mumbled, and to your surprised, Levi reached out to touch an uninjured part of you.

“Stay with me, all right? I can get us somewhere safe, just hang in there.”

You nodded weakly, surprised by but not unwelcoming to the small gesture of comfort and protection he was currently giving you as you sat there trying to staunch the bleeding and stay awake and alert, while also ruminating on what the hell just happened. Not even Levi knew, but it sounded like he was going to find out one way or another. Or at least Furlan and Isabel were going to try and find out for him while he kept an eye on you and the twins to make sure you stayed safe.

As much as you tried to go through what happened and wrap your head around it, you couldn't, not yet anyway. It was like you were in a functioning state of shock, able to move around and take care of yourself and the twins but not quite processing what the hell just happened. Eventually you would, and you were certain when that happened you were going to have a meltdown, but at the moment, the shock was delaying that freak out.

You mostly stayed curled up in your seat trying to stay calm and make sure you weren't going to bleed out, aware that Levi didn't want to have to stop at a hospital for safety reasons and sincerely hoping that you weren't going to need a hospital. Every now and then you would hear Levi grunt and shift next to you, which at first you ignored. However, when his breathing changed, something that was noticeable to you in the silence of the vehicle with him right next to you, you turned just enough to look at him.

He only had one hand on the wheel now, as his other was pressed into his side, fingers clenched into the fabric over the dark black spot that seemed to only be getting worse, black seeping through and staining his fingers. It should have been clotting by now, on its way to healing based on the way Levi talked. He was also paler than normal, and you could see a sheen of sweat appearing on his face, neck, even glinting on his arms. He also looked stiff, rigid, and he was blinking rapidly, shaking his head as if he kept having to shake himself awake. Not to mention his breathing had picked up, heavier and quicker than it should have been. He was struggling, and it looked like he was only getting worse.

“Levi, you don’t look good,” you said quietly, attempting to sit up a bit more properly in the seat.

“I can make it to the house. Don’t have much of a choice,” Levi grunted, voice clearly strained.

Now you were more than just a little concerned, reaching over to try and touch and see what was going on with him, trying to teach the wound to see if there was something about it he was trying to hide. When your fingers brushed along the wound for the briefest moment, Levi grunted and flinched away, his grip on the wound and steering wheel tightening.

“Don’t, just...don’t,” he ground out, his grip loosening when his arms quickly began to shake from the effort. “I’ll live, just...don’t touch it in the meantime.”

You didn’t quite believe him, but with him driving and not willing to be touched, there wasn’t much you could do to help or pry further besides annoyingly press the subject in conversation. So you had to settle for watching him.

You were content for a short while, not able to pick up anything other than what you’d already seen that something was wrong. Besides him seeming to get paler...shaking more...sweating more...it seemed like it was getting harder and harder for his eyes to stay open.

When he swerved on the road, swearing as he got back inside the lines but he continued to sway back and forth for a few more beats, was when you reacted again.

“Levi!” you said loudly, sitting up sharply as the car swerved and he cursed, a hand out on the dash, heart pumping rapidly. You were still hurt, but you were alert all over again, not about to let the matter slip again.

“Shit…” he breathed, and to your surprise, he roughly guided the car to the side of the road. “Shit...take the wheel...you want exit...27…for...Fuck--”

Levi cut off as the rough grind to a halt jostled him, and he put the car in park long enough to stagger out of the vehicle. Realizing that you needed to move because he was going to try and sit where you currently were, you got out as well to see him leaning heavily on the car and keeping one hand on the vehicle to stabilize himself. He was walking unsteadily, and suddenly you were afraid that he was just going to get worse and worse until…

You tried to reassure yourself that he was immortal, that he couldn’t die, but he had said, specifically, he couldn’t die by human means. And that thing was not human, and Levi had been hurt badly. The gashes across his face were still prominent, but you thought they looked like they at least started to heal. A bit. Maybe. Maybe you were just hoping for things so hard that your eyes were deceiving you.

You touched his arm briefly as he slipped past you, gaze roaming across what you could see to try and tell if he was hiding any other injuries that could further explain his rapid decline--besides the obvious bite to his torso he was trying to staunch the bleeding from, and the scratch across his face. It looked like there were claw marks, places where those wicked talons dug into his body in the struggles, random places that looked like it had just been a place within reach during the struggle.

Levi didn’t do anything to stop your passing prod, too focused on trying to get to the passenger seat to really complain about it. He simply passed by without a word, getting around the door you left open to slide into the passenger seat before you only because you stopped by the driver’s side door to watch him and make sure he would get in without incident.

Once you were both in the car, he slumped into the passenger seat and grabbed the other towel, dabbing at his face before pressing it into his side with a muffled moan. Hesitantly, you got back onto the road, knowing what exit you were waiting for, but not where exactly you were going, and now further concerned for Levi’s health.

“Levi, where am I going?” you asked, glancing at him to see his face twisted in pain, his breathing labored.

“Saint Augustine Beach. It’s an adobe house. Big drive up. You can’t miss it. Address is...in my phone. Pre-programmed under...Open Air”

“Shouldn’t we...I don’t know, get you to a hospital? Is there some kind of back room healing for demon kind or something if you know where to look? That kind of thing happens in the movies--”

“This isn’t the movies. They won’t know what to do with me.”

“Well, I don’t know!” you said in frustration, some of your worry and panic leaking through. “It looks bad, Levi, and it looks like you’re getting worse instead of better--shouldn’t we pull over and do something?”

“Gotta keep moving, in case there’s more. At least until we get to the next safe house. We don’t want to be sitting ducks,” Levi forced out.

“Are you sure you’re going to make it there?” you asked in concern.

“Don’t have much of a choice.”

That didn’t instill much confidence in you. Especially since he appeared to still be bleeding, albeit slowly. That wasn’t normal, even by normal standards he should have either bled out or the wound should have clotted by now. And as the silence in the car prolonged, his breathing got faster and heavier, his clothes started to stick to him because of sweat as much as blood, he couldn’t keep his eyes open, and he would...convulse. Mildly, at first, with just some tensing and relaxing over and over. But it was getting more noticeable, until he suddenly went rigid, grunted, and then promptly passed out instead of relaxing.

Nope, no arguing, no going with his plan, no asking for permission. He just had...did he just have a seizure? Whatever precluded it wasn’t normal, and he was unconscious now. Which also meant he couldn’t protest what you just decided you were going to do.

You took the next exit near a town that you passed, slowing down the high speed you’d both been keeping while driving to match the more in-town acceptable speed. You passed by the gas stations, the fast food restaurants, all of it until you reached the motels. The hotels. A place to stay.

A place where you could stop and figure out what the hell was wrong with him, and then go from there to figure out how to help him.

You pulled into the motel, just in front of the reception area, and then got out of the car, rushing to the back to open the suitcases until you found your clothes, so you could quickly change into a shirt that wasn’t bloodied and torn up, just long enough so you could get the rooms. You were in and out in no time with the key to a two bed room, driving the car closer to the room before starting the rush to get the twins safely inside, first, and then rushing the bags in, and then finally coming back for Levi once everything was inside.

You didn’t bother with unpacking. That could come later, after you were certain Levi was stabilized and no longer…

You really didn’t want to think he might possibly be dying, you didn’t know enough to confirm that, but it looked like it.

Carefully, you got your arms around him, pulling him towards you and wincing at how hot he felt to the touch, how feverish he actually was. You couldn’t lift him on your own, not with your injuries as well, so you paused in a rather compromising position, moving his head side to side and lightly slapping his cheek to try and get him to wake up, or at least get conscious enough he could stagger along with you.

“Levi...Levi, wake up. Just for a little bit, please? Levi,” you repeated as you worked on waking him up. It took a few moments, but eventually he was roused, just barely, his eyelids fluttering as he tried to focus back on the present. “C’mon, up you go, just for a few moments, I have to get you inside,” you said in a low murmur, hefting Levi up and glad to feel a bit of a grasp on your shoulders to show he was putting in the effort to get up with you, however slight. He still put almost all of his weight on you, which meant you did most of the work, but his own two feet at least were under him, and he was trying to move with you instead of being dead weight you had to drag or carry.

You got him inside with quite a bit of effort, shutting the door behind you both with your foot and lugging him over to the clear bed--the twins were on the other one--and laying him down on the bed. He was semi-conscious...though that might have been a stretch. At the most it was just a bit of head tossing and little moans or groans of pain while he was still conscious at least. However, he was in no position to be protesting right now, and even if he was, you wouldn’t let him.

Now...to get a better look at that bite.

Carefully, you peeled off the shirt that was practically attached to him like a second skin, revealing what was far beyond the nasty bite wound you’d been expecting to see. It was ripped open and nasty like you had envisioned, but even further that that, a dark, almost black green discharge seemed to be oozing out with the black blood--maybe that was why it was so dark, mixing in with his black blood. The area around the wound itself was swelling and red, and the skin was discolored around it, black veins spider webbing quite a ways up his torso.

“Shit...shit,” you cursed, sliding back off the bed to shuffle through the mess of things by the door, looking for your phone. It took you a few seconds to find it, but when you did, you quickly hit one of the pre programmed quick dial numbers, putting it on speed dial as you hurried back to Levi’s side.

Fuck, why the hell did he think he could hold out until they reached a beach house that was still quite a damn ways away?

You paused for a moment as your gaze swept over him again, this time noticing a strange mark that almost seemed burned into the center of his upper chest, one that meant nothing to you, but still stood out as something...important. You didn’t know why, but it made you feel uneasy, foreboding, with a cold chill running down your spine.

Now wasn’t the time to be focusing on strange markings, though. Right now, you needed to be focused on that bite. So, you shook your head violently to get rid of the more random thoughts, snapping back to the present as you waited for the other end of the line to connect.

“Fucking dumbass,” you swore at him, getting up again to cross the room and grab some of the little paper cups at the sink and start filling them with water.

“I hope you’re not talking about me,” came a voice from your phone over on the bed. You hurried back over, cups in hand, which you quickly sat on the nightstand.

“No! No, Furlan, thank God--Levi’s...He’s hurt really bad. It’s some kind of bite he was hiding, and--”

“Bite?” Furlan asked sharply, and you knew whatever this was, it was major.

“Yeah, I saw it happen. Ripped right through. There’s this strange dark discharge mixed in with his blood, and it’s all swollen and red. Not to mention the veins around it are showing up black--”

“How far along?”

“Um...about two thirds, almost,” you said, getting cut off by a swear from Furlan. He was usually so composed, it made your heart drop down to your stomach to hear that change, knowing it could only mean one thing.

“Has it reached his heart?”

“Not yet--”

“I need you to get him in something close to a sitting position, make sure his heart is elevated above the wound, okay? Isabel--you need to walk her through first aid for a venomous bite from an Amanoyan, I have to get my hands on the antivenom in the next hour, or…”

You didn’t hear the rest, because Furlan had apparently passed the phone off to Isabel and was now running off to get an antivenom. “Amanoyan?” you asked as Isabel was giving a rushed reply to Furlan asking how the hell she was supposed to get ahold of him if she had his phone. She didn’t answer you until she had some kind of answer from Furlan that you did not hear.

“It’s named after the demon Amaymon, because Amaymon had a deathly poisonous breath. Have you moved Levi?”

“Um, yes,” you stuttered, still adjusting him to try and make sure he was comfortable but, like they’d told you, his heart was elevated above the wound.

“Okay...it’s to his torso, you said, so there’s a lot we can’t do to buy Furlan time to find the antivenom. But we still have some options. I need you to get your hands on some water, a lot of it, and rinse out that wound until you’re not seeing the discharge anymore,” Isabel coached.

Thankfully you’d had the foresight to get water, so you had some immediately on hand to do as she asked, flushing out the wound even though it took a few more trips to the sink to do it enough times you weren’t seeing that nasty discharge anymore. During the process, Levi came close to consciousness again a few times, squirming in place in reaction to the pain, his expression twisting, fists clenching into the sheets, moans or sharp gasps of pain escaping with initial surges of pain. You had to ignore each part and keep going, hoping he wouldn’t come to full consciousness and try to shove you off him or anything like that.

When you were certain that you got it all out, you spoke up to Isabel again. “Okay, it’s all cleaned out. What next?”

“Have you ever put a compression bandage on someone?” Isabel asked worriedly.

“No…”

“Okay, I’m going to need you to listen to me very carefully, because this has to be done properly or it can do more harm than good, but we need the extra time if he’s as far along as you’re describing,” Isabel said, every word clear and enunciated. You had a slight shake to your hands, but you were ready to try, intent to get it right for Levi’s sake.

You couldn’t do this, this whole thing with the twins, any of it, without him. You might not have known that before, but you sure as hell were aware of how obvious it was, now. “Okay...I’m ready.”

“Do you have access to a first aid kit? I know Levi was packing when he called.”

“There’s one in all this, yes.”

“All right, so, I need you to see if you can find some elastic bandages in there. It’s all you’ll need, but you have to wrap it up tight...Can you find some?”

Isabel gave you time to search, her question coming before you could locate the first aid kit itself. “Hold on, I just kind of threw everything in here, give me...a moment...here. Yes. There’s some in here. Looks like a new roll, too.”

“Good. All right, I’m going to need you to tell me exactly where on his torso the bite is, and I’ll tell you where to start and stop wrapping, okay?”

“Okay. Should be easy enough,” you mumbled to yourself before Isabel started to guide you through wrapping up Levi’s wound step by step. It was all fine and dandy until you did the first tightening of the wrap, and your back spasmed in pain, and you felt a bit of a dampness gathering along the back of your shirt after what felt like a bit of a tear. You let out a slight cry at the sensation, and Isabel immediately spoke up.

“Y/N? Are you okay? Did something happen?”

“It’s nothing, I’m...I’m hurt too, it’s just...I think that reopened some of the wounds on my back, pulling like that. I wasn’t expecting it. Just give me a second and I’ll keep going.”

“Normally I’d tell you if you’re hurting yourself, don’t, but you’re the only one there and Levi needs this, so…”

“I know,” you grunted as you worked on trying again, following Isabel’s instructions on how tight the wrapping was supposed to be and how much it was supposed to cover. It was slow work since you had to pause every now and then with the pain in your side and back, but you made sure you were wrapping it properly, tightly, and that it covered as much as Isabel told you to.

“Okay...okay, I wrapped him up. Is there anything else I can do for him?”

“No. Nothing that’s safe to you, anyway. Now it’s just a waiting game until Furlan can get his hands on the antivenom and can get it to you. Where are you staying?”

“Um...let me...look,” you muttered, grabbing your phone to get a location so you knew where the hell you were, and then promptly copy and pasting it into a text that you sent to Isabel’s phone. “There. We’re in room 219, when Furlan comes looking. I won’t be going anywhere,” you told her.

“All right...just hang in there, keep an eye on Levi. If he gets worse, call me. There’s...options, we can consider if he’s getting worse. Keep an eye on his heart rate, and if those veins spread beyond the bandages, especially if they show up on his upper chest or neck, call me back immediately, okay? I’m going to get off the phone so you can take care of the twins and I can get back to finding out who’s behind all this, okay?”

“Okay...thank you, Isabel,” you said sincerely, and Isabel responded with a quick ‘you’re welcome’ before hanging up the phone, leaving you with the unconscious and currently fatally wounded Levi and the sleeping twins.

You looked over at the other bed where the twins were still in their carriers, and then down at Levi, who had sweat-soaked hair sticking to his face and a deathly pale complexion, eyes moving rapidly beneath his lids and breathing shallow and labored. As much as you didn't want to leave his side right now, you kind of had to in order to take care of the twins.

Quietly, you went over to the other bed and set about getting the fold out, detachable 'cribs' off the diaper bags. Setting them side by side on the bed allowed them to still be comfortable and soft despite the sheer bottom, and a stuffed animal in each with a travel baby blanket in each crib made the temporary bed more comfortable and close to their usual setup. Trying to continue the trend of moving quietly so you wouldn't disturb their sleep, you unbuckled them from the carriers and laid them down in the cribs. Once they were put to bed, you cleaned off the bed, then headed over to the bathroom section of the small hotel room with the first aid kit to do some cleanup on yourself.

You were hurt, too. You hadn't been envenomed like Levi had, but you were still hurt and needed to attend to washing and dressing your own injuries. So, after a shower to wash out all your injuries and sooth your bruised and beaten body, and after some rooting around in the first aid kit for what you needed and some googling for basic directions on how to stitch closed wounds yourself, you started with the easier to reach injuries to work on, placing yourself in front of the mirror to get extra angles as you worked slowly and carefully to stitch up the gashes in your skin that you could reach. It was painful work, made even more painful with how slowly you were moving, but you were trying to do it properly so it wouldn’t have to be redone and so that it wouldn’t do more harm than good.

After some time, you managed to do most of the worst of your injuries, stitching some and simply putting a bandage over others. You would have continued, but while you were looking in the mirror, you caught sight of Levi’s feet moving in the background, and quickly realized he was convulsing again, and much more violently this time.

“Shit,” you cursed again, putting down what you were doing immediately so you could rush back into the main room, cursing yourself for staying out of the room as long as you had. Even if you hadn’t expected it to take you this long to try and treat your own wounds so you could be more useful, you should have known better than to stay out of the room as long as you had without checking on him.

You pulled your shirt back on as you rushed into the room, getting beside Levi on the bed and glancing at the clock to see that hour Furlan had said he needed to act in was very nearly up. On the bed, Levi was in the middle of some violent convulsions, his skin burning to the touch, lips looking paler, almost bluish.

A thousand myths and theories were running through your head, trying to remember what you were and weren’t supposed to do when someone was having a seizure, completely unaware of what rules still applied when you were dealing with a poisoned demon. Worried that he might choke on his own saliva while he was on his back, you at least gently rolled him onto his uninjured side, moving the bed pillows under his head to give his head a bit more support, and then simply watched helplessly, hands fluttering over his body without doing anything since you didn’t know if there was anything you could do.

Scattering up his neck from his torso like lightning through the sky were those blackened veins, sticking out against even the nasty bruise along his back from where he landed multiple times while getting thrown around in the fight.

Feeling panic starting to settle in, you eased onto the bed next to him, one hand lightly tangling in his hair and brushing it out of his face and away from his neck as you sought out the phone again, staring at the veins in fear.

He’s getting worse. Veins blackening at the neck. Seizing. Lips blue.

You didn’t need to be near Isabel or Furlan to know they were cursing wherever they were, you were cursing, too, helpless to do anything except sit nearby and watch. You had no antivenom for the demon that bit him, you’d already cleaned and wrapped his wound...you had no experience with this kind of thing, no idea how to handle this or what to do but wait and pray.

Not that praying for a demon was going to do either of you any good.

Almost. If you have to do CPR, do it. Furlan’s almost ready.

What kind of instruction was that? You didn’t have anything you could do to give him more time? Hadn’t Isabel said there were last ditch options to buy him time, and wasn’t now the time for that? Especially if you were officially being told that your main goal was to keep him breathing and his heart beating. Or were they really going to bank on Levi being able to naturally hold on until Furlan got here?

You glanced fearfully at the twin travel cribs over on the other bed, terrifying scenarios flashing through your mind of what would happen if Levi died from this, especially now that you’d just had an up close and personal look at one of the threats out there to the twins' safety. Knowing that there was probably more, knowing that there was so much you didn’t know, knowing that you had been overwhelmed and terrified staring down single parenthood before all this Heaven and Hell stuff came into play...you didn’t want to do this without him. The thought terrified you, now. All those times earlier on you’d practically or blatantly told him to go die, and now that he might, you were petrified by the thought.

Of course, now you were more aware of the person who was currently dying in front of you. You were no expert by any means, many parts of Levi remained a complete mystery, but...you didn’t want him to die. And you wanted him in the twins' lives. And you wanted your...your...companion in raising them. You didn’t want him leaving you alone with all of this. The thought of him dying left you with the feeling of standing alone in a vast darkness holding a weight that was dragging you deeper and deeper down when he’d been helping you hold it high enough to see a light in the far distance. This was supposed to be a shared weight for a reason--especially in such unique and stressful circumstances.

Gently, your free hand moved to run along his arm, the other still absentmindedly running through his hair as you gazed intently at his face and neck, watching him struggle for breath, watching his eyes moving rapidly behind his eyelids, watching the convulsions out of the corner of your eyes.

“Levi,” you whispered to him in the eerily quiet room, where the only sounds were his sounds of pain and convulsions. “You have to hold on, just a little longer. I can’t do this without you.”

You paused for a moment, even though you were aware he probably couldn’t hear you, especially since there was no obvious reaction to your words. “Levi...you’re a good father. You are. I’m glad it’s you,” you finished sincerely, leaning down to very, very gently press a kiss to his temple, one that lingered as long as it could with the muscle twitches he was currently suffering. His breath caught as he managed to suck in a steady, heavy breath, and for a few minutes, the convulsions started to calm as you pulled away, feeling a little dizzy yourself and rather exhausted, the day seeming to catch up to you all at once.

You couldn’t fall asleep, though. You needed to stay awake to keep an eye on Levi, to make sure he lasted until Furlan got here.

You stayed next to Levi as some of the convulsions momentarily died down, hand threaded through his hair, the other rubbing gently at his shoulder, gazing down at him with continued concern. Over and over you found yourself telling him to hold on, stay with you, you needed him here, the twins needed him...sometimes you just said his name softly into the darkness of the room, occasionally leaning down to give his head another gentle kiss, feeling more and more tired as time passed, wondering how long it had been, and where the hell Furlan was.

The pounding on the door cut through the silence and the darkness simultaneously, startling you and the twins awake. You must have nodded off, lying beside and partially on Levi on the bed as you sat up, completely missing in your disoriented state that the black veins had retreated back below the bandage line sometimes during your unconsciousness...or perhaps even before that.

Oblivious to that little fact, you simply hurried to the door, knowing that it had to be Furlan with the antivenom, and that you needed to let him in to treat Levi before you could take care of the now-awake and crying twins.

You hardly undid the deadbolt and turned the handle before Furlan pushed in looking uncharacteristically ruffled, stepping through the slightest opening in the door and shutting it behind him for you with one hand, the other stretched out and clutching what seemed like some kind of thick dark green liquid. Not like what had been coming out of the wound, that had been runnier, and again, you were certain part of that coloring was because it was mixing with Levi’s blood. This looked...foul. And like something else.

Was it the antivenom?

“Is he--?”

“Still hanging on,” you told him as he pushed passed you, right to the bed. He paused, hesitating for a split second as his attention seemed to be drawn to something else. You didn’t know what, though, because you were staring at his back as you moved over to the twins, pulling them out of their cribs one at a time to check them over and make sure their needs were all met.

Furlan didn’t hesitate long, only a few seconds before he carefully reached out and shifted Levi, supporting his head and then forcing the vial of thick green substance down Levi’s throat. He did in fact have to force it, because as soon as the substance touched Levi’s tongue, he seemed to retch and try to reject it instinctually, and Furlan had to keep his jaw shut and mouth covered to make sure it actually went down. There were a few seconds Levi might have been conscious, moving around voluntarily for the first time in what felt like days, even if it was just slight shifts in place and a fluttering of the eyelids, plus the slightest movement of his lips. However, he was unconscious again in the next several moments, sweat-soaked hair falling in a tangled mess to the pillow beneath his head.

As Furlan pulled back with a slightly relieved sigh, you spoke up.

“Why didn’t he say anything?” you asked, staring at Levi’s unconscious form.

“I don’t think he expected it to spread this fast. The spread depends on the person, that’s part of what makes it so deadly--the unpredictability. It took him faster than even I could have predicted. But Levi’s very...slight, and that’s a nasty bite from a large Amanoyan. This wasn’t going to be pretty even if he said something sooner.” Furlan turned to look back at you, his expression serious. “He wanted to get you and the twins to a safe location before treating himself. You were his first priority, and he thought he had just enough time.”

He took a chance, valuing your life and the twins before his own. Unfortunately, this gamble backfired and almost cost Levi his life before you could even make it to the beach house.

“I thought you said it spread to his neck?” Furlan asked suddenly. You were taken aback, looking over at Levi to see it hadn’t spread any further than the last time you looked, and that there were no longer black veins showing up on his neck.

“It did. Around the time he got really bad for a while.”

Furlan stared at you long and hard for a few moments, something akin to realization sparking in his eyes and disappearing as soon as it appeared. However, he didn’t say anything, making you shift uncomfortably as you shifted from taking care of Asa to Ida, planning to feed them both once they were both changed.

“So...if Levi has the antivenom now...do we need to get back on the road?” you asked, loath of the thought of moving Levi considering the state he’d been in before you nodded off, but understanding there was a reason he’d been willing to risk his life to get you and the twins to the safe house, first.

“You need to...but you can’t. Not until Levi’s a bit more stable. Give him until tomorrow afternoon, and he might be ready to be moved.”

“Might?”

Furlan shrugged. “That’s entirely up to him. And knowing him, he’ll want to move sooner. You’ll have to play it by ear. If he does try to leave earlier, and he can’t be talked out of it, make sure you’re the one driving, at least, so he can rest in the car.”

You nodded hesitantly, staring at Levi on the bed instead of Furlan, even though Furlan was the one talking to you. Was he really going to be okay, now? That was it, just that little vial and one hell of a scare? What was the mark? What were you going to do if something else showed up to finish you all off now that Levi was still returning from death’s door?

“I’m going to get the room next to you, that way you have someone on hand if something goes wrong or Levi gets worse. Once he wakes up and is well enough to travel, though, I’ll go back to my search, since you will all be on the road again,” Furlan told you, moving towards the door. You reached out to grab his wrist as he was leaving, stopping him in his tracks and meeting his gaze with a sincere and thankful look.

“Thank you, Furlan. Really.”

He gave you another hard, studying stare, as if trying to probe into your every thought and intention. “He’s been my friend for many centuries. What else would you expect of me?” he eventually answered in a measured voice, and you let go of Furlan’s wrist on instinct, allowing him to leave the room with those words.

Demons...you just couldn’t figure any of them out no matter how many pieces you thought you had, could you?

Shaking your head, you turned your attention back to taking care of the twins, unable to help the fact that you kept a sharp eye on Levi the entire time, watching every twitch, every breath, every change in his status, and praying that it would only continue to improve.

Next Part---->

(Strikethroughs Couldn’t Be Tagged)

Everything Tags: @antistellxr @mochicheeks-world

Levi Tags: @clary-quinn @babydabi @whalerus @sunny-flo @thirstyforsometea @hauntedhousecat @peaches-and-clouds @chaoticyuna@wubbawubwub04 @lollobos @pasteldays @itsmeaudrieee @macaronnv @tokyo-banana @apuci-kis-szornye @morgana-olson @yellowminb @ashikothedog @spnwinchestersd

A Demon’s Promise Tags: @wo-ming-bai @rindulacre @sandieee @drakens-scar @drunkenlionart @roseestuosity @mikamaek @logicallevi @whore-for-anime @krissykat0207 @september-sunsets @rockssocksthou @french-girl-online @cheoriemoawa @beaniebanby @leviandhisgoonsquad @nandee-mo-nay @a–nonymousse @aot-fanatic @jencyib @zombiukas @tartxglia

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