You little beauty

That was one of the benefits of what Death had turned him into after that damn shapeshifter had not only torn him up badly enough to kill him but had driven the coward Famine right out of him too – getting to travel in the blink of an eye. When Mystic Falls and the job he’d ended up with in a deal with Death to make sure he didn’t end up roasting for an eternity downstairs got too much a blink, a thought, just a little ounce of will could put him on the other side of the world. Lucian would likely be pissed, Damien thought as he headed for the bar whose lights had been glittering like a promise in the distance when he’d fetched up in the middle of Mystic Falls, but it wasn’t like he was disappearing for good.

It was just the reaper version of stretching his legs … across the whole country.

Damien adjusted his glasses, flashed the bouncer these places always seemed to have a grin and headed inside. In places like this half the guys lining the bar would probably have been months away from having someone like him swooping in for them when they coughed up their lungs or had their livers exploding from years of propping up the bar. This was LA though and LA wasn’t like anywhere else on earth. Not that he and Lucian had ever had a real chance to spend time here. The rare job, a couple of days in what he would’ve once thought of as whacko central. Not enough to really get to know anything about the place except for the fact that there was always a layer of glitz over the place and nobody gave a shit about who you were beneath what you pretended to be here. Everything in the city was an act.

And that was what he needed right now. Somewhere he wasn’t looked at like he was some fragile little chick to be fussed over. A little brother with such a penchant for trouble that he’d fucked them over royalty multiple times now.

He supposed he could’ve gone to the Blood Den, tried to find an escape the same way with another night with Aurora, if she was there drinking her fill, but as he’d stepped out of the motel room it had been LA and anonymity he’d headed for.

The crowd was thick in the small room. Music pumping out, an energy in the air that he could feel in his bones and the scent of liquor was heavy enough in the air that Damien was sure he could taste it. He moved through the tide towards the bar, letting himself get carried along to where he could order a triple and nurse it with the thud and pulse of this place driving everything out of him.

At least that’d been the hope. Within a yard of the bar he’d seen Leah leaning back against it. Her hand swiping across painted lips to chase away the shot if the glass behind her was anything to go by. Damien tipped his head back, smirking faintly as he eased into the space around his fellow reaper. ”Hello to you too,” he drawled. Damien raised his brows, glancing over Leah’s shoulder as the bartender approached. He gestured to the glass she held, held up two fingers and then gestured to the tequila glass for a couple more shots too. ”Could ask you the same thing. You slumming it or you planning on scooping and running somewhere in here tonight?” A low hum ran in his throat as she trailed a finger over his collar. Blue eyes narrowed faintly as he leaned in. ”I would’ve definitely said pleasure but I guess, if you’re here it’s gotta be some combo of the two.” The world was huge but if there was one thing he’d learned since he’d become a reaper, it was that it got a lot smaller when you could hop, skip and jump across it in an instant.

Tagged: LEAH SIVAN * Word Count: 675

It had always been him and Lucian against the world. The Fletcher brothers undivided, even when two things older than humanity had popped into their heads and taken the wheel so to speak. Lucian had even made some deal with Death while he’d been laying there on the ground in that shifter’s place, what blood hadn’t already pooled beneath him on the concrete sluggishly bubbling out of the hole in his chest. His big brother falling on his sword in some way he hadn’t gotten to the bottom of yet to get him back. And it was him, no more Famine cramming him back in some dark little cell in the recesses of his mind where he could barely see between the bars to see what he was doing, just him again … and in some way, Damon mused, it no longer felt quite right.

Hopping out of Mystic Falls and away from the expectations weighing on his shoulders wasn’t exactly gonna make it feel like any of his suits fit any better or that his skin didn’t belong to someone else, someone a half size smaller, but it was doing for tonight. An anonymous bar in LA, booze, music, a couple of hours without having to play the ferryman. He wouldn’t have laid money on anybody he knew being here but as the crowds had parted he’d seen her. Leah. A ferrywoman he guessed, although way less stuffy than most other reapers he’d met.

Damien found himself approaching, closing that last yard to squeeze into the scant acreage of bare bar around Leah. Shaking his head faintly, amusement a snorted breath of his nose. He signalled to the bartender the moment he’d managed to return her greet some way. ”Reaping not paying the bills?” he asked as he glanced back, one dark brow winging over the top of the thick rimmed glasses he still wore out of habit. ”I guess there’s no money in that game. Not unless you wanted to try and slip Death’s leash a little.” Something he’d gotten the impression would have Death’s resting heart rate rocketing from its usual 1 beat a century. The thing in his brother always seeming unflappable, unlike his sister War.

Blue eyes narrowed further behind the pointless lenses as he leaned back against the bar, studying her. He hadn’t exactly stopped to get anybody’s life story as those of them gathering in Mystic Falls for the tidal wave of bodies that continued to drop. Hadn’t known that Leah had any tether to the town at all. Shocker for him. ”Animal attacks, right, everything attacks there. If I were you, I’d tell your family to get out while they can. Place is a cess pool.” One that he and Lucian had been dragged to by the things in them. Damien laughed low, reaching out for the glass. ”Other than cleaning up those bodies in the cess pool? Not much. Yeah, I’ve heard of the place. Never took you for one to head there though.” It wasn’t like they had control over where that tether snapped but this … the bar, the city, seemed far more Leah’s speed.

Setting the glass in front of himself Damien echoed Leah’s move. Tongue slicking the back of his hands, a sprinkle of salt. Licking it back up before he dowsed that sudden bite in the tequila. It burned going down, as it always did, only faintly tempered by the wedge of lime he bit down on. He hummed around it, teeth nipping the sour flesh out of it before he tossed it down. ”Shame on him. Guess he didn’t give you the full Reaper Induction session. We’re definitely not in Oz anymore. Guessing he didn’t tell you about the rest of it either?” He didn’t wait to explain. One moment he was standing in front of her, the next, under whatever sort of veil they disappeared under when they were doing their thing, he was behind the bar. Glancing at the bartender who’d served them, one now down at the other end of the bar, Damien willed himself back. He winked at Leah as he reappeared, twisting the lid off of the bottle to fill their glasses to the rim again.

Tagged: LEAH SIVAN * Word Count: 706

Once upon a time the Beck brothers had been lawfully employed. Sonny up to his elbows in whatever secret shit the defence facility in Lake Success was pumping out – if I tell you about it, I’ll have to kill you, laughed out at the kitchen table when Connie had pushed him for what was happening out there – him behind the counter at the back. Soft hands and a long future ahead that looked a hell of a lot like his dad’s at that point. A couple of drinks in the woods, an asshole driving drunk and that had been it for them. Damien rolled his lower lip between his teeth, eyes narrowing as he studied the bartender. It had been all on the other side of the counter after that, palm sweaty on the grip of his dad’s service revolver, the plastic mask grating against his skin. A place like this would’ve been small potatoes for the two of them.

It kept a roof over head for some though, and gave a reaper a place to hide out, like there was anywhere to do that while the grim reaper’s leash was still around their necks. A supernatural choke chain to make sure that the grand balance remained in check.

Damien’s teeth flashed a little in a feral smile as Leah leaned in to him, that purr rolling out of her as the conversation took on a very different air. Women were always what got him in trouble but he’d never learned his lesson, seventy plus years of life and pretty faces were all that were needed to have his laugh turning low and husky. ”It takes me choking to get my attention so pretty tight. Think you can get half as bad as the big guy?” He raised his hand, stroking fingers over his own throat above the starched collar of his shirt. Death might’ve thought his grip was the only one that mattered but from the moment he’d agreed to that deal it had been Sonny’s fingers that could choke his air off, leave him gasping and desperate for a world where that thing wasn’t jerking his brother around like a glove puppet steeped in blood.

Now Crowley’s hand was the one around his brother’s throat instead. The puppet master hiding out in a town at the butt end of nowhere that currently seemed like Death’s favourite playground. Bodies dropping often enough that even with reapers thick on the ground the pressure was real. Surely it was only a matter of time before Lucifer made his grand appearance on the stage and Sonny was gonna end up right there in the spotlight with Death hovering over him. A cesspool in more than just name. Damien shook his head as Leah explained further, eyes squinting against the low lights of the bar. ”Preaching to the choir,” he told her dryly. Only he imagined her family business didn’t come complete with a demon riddled brother she’d spent decades trying to save. ”What if the boss man puts a ‘keep your ass there’ order in place?” It wouldn’t just be straining the leash then, it would be a choke hold or even worse. Bye bye reaper. There was always another to take their place.

The next asshole to try arguing unrighteous death, just someone snatched up on that brink who was willing to toe the line on it all. And that had never been him.

Looking for that pressure to pop off like a cork Damien disappeared behind the bar, question left dangling in the air while he helped himself to the bottle of tequila their drinks had been poured from. A wink and he was back, the amber liquid gurgling out. ”Always,” he promised, dead pan. Looking up as he shoved the glass towards her Damien winged a brow. Was he meant to be the font of all knowledge now? ”Memories. You wanna go into some poor sap’s head, make him forget he ever saw you?” Lips pursing for a moment before he licked another swipe up the back of his hand, Damien shook his head. ”Never had to but I doubt it’d be hard. I mean vampires manage it, just a little eye lock and … zip.” Damien salted the back of his hand, gave another lick and was shaking his head as he slammed the shot down and hissed out its heat. Blue eyes were already roving the bar around them as he turned away, cramming the slice of lime back in his mouth. Spotting some asshole pressed against a girl who had to be young enough to be his daughter Damien lifted a hand, beckoning the guy close.

Tagged: LEAH SIVAN * Word Count: 780

A woman had brought the Beck brothers’ reign to an end. She’d had a good heart, he supposed, but in the end her conscience had gotten the better of her and she’d gone from whispering all those sweet nothings to him to singing like a canary to the cops. Maybe if she hadn’t he and Sonny would’ve been long gone out of town. Some other sap could’ve played glove puppet to the thing that had been riding around in Sonny since. Maybe it would’ve been like that film, he and Sonny driving off a cliff at some point, or like Butch and Sundance, meeting their match somewhere south of the border – but it wouldn’t have ended up like it had. Damien was sure of that. A human life, one pockmarked by grief, those scars turn nothing something more.

Tiny moments life swung around changed it, a bed luring him in and sending them tumbling. Damien glanced around as he considered getting free of Death’s hold finally. What would he do? Drag another woman off for what he hadn’t had that way in decades? The red headed vampire came to mind before his eyes turned to the blonde in front of him and he was grunting. A narrowing of his blue eyes as he studied her. Leah would’ve been just as fiery, if he tipped those scales in her direction with something more than that grin and the offer of a night of something more than cleaning up after the big man.

Death’s trash collectors. Damien snorted, dark brows rising above those thick black frames of his glasses. Leah would’ve protested that label as fiercely as most other things. Those weren’t hands likely to get dirty that way, even if Death was keeping them occupied now, shackled to what he wanted for the universe. ”Politely?” he asked, amused. ”It won’t be someone else. You’re not wrong. Mystic Falls is a cess pit, can’t go a block without tripping over a body somewhere. Think you can handle the work if the big man tags you in?” How much could she handle before Leah strained at the leash harder than he was now. Snapping the yoke around her neck. Damien made a low sound, shifting his weight. There’d been a bunch of warnings about what happened to bad little reappears but he’d never actually seen the chain pulled.

Once upon a time the FBI had liked to string up a series of photos. Most wanted, men and women they wanted to take off the board. Some had gone down slow, mouldering behind bars, others in a flash, burning out. Few got to linger or become something more. He had and even then Damien hadn’t found himself satisfied, couldn’t even on nights like this. There were flashes, moments of the old him but it wasn’t the same.

Not even as he appeared back on the customer side of the bar, the bottle in hand. Damien grunted, pouted for a minute before he grinned at her. He settled back in, licking at his own skin. ”Is that something like getting to know a black widow? Dangerous for the one sidling up to you?” He tilted his head at the suggestion that he was lucky, his lips curling. There’d been an edge to Leah since he’d met, one that he wasn’t entirely keen on sliding his thumb along to test. They’d dipped a toe, going neck deep could quiet easily get him drowned and there was plenty that could do that already.

The liquor burned in his throat, almost leaving hum feeling human for a moment. He could drink it til the cows came home and still wouldn’t be as drunk as he had been the night his sister had been hit, but each one still felt as it had for an instant. ”You wanna test the limits?” he managed hoarsely around the lime wedge, letting Leah pluck the salt from his fingers. Damien plucked it free, licking at his lower lip before he tossed it down on the bar and started pouring for himself again. Blue eyes fixed on the guy in the crowd as he did, Leah’s words swimming around in his head. ”Maybe … seems like something you can do stirring shit up in there.” He grinned as the guy walked up, confidence in his voice.

Humming, Damien poured Leah another shot too. ”How about we see?” he suggested to Leah. One hand reached out, curled claw tight around the side of the guy’s head even as Damien was lifting Leah’s wrist to his mouth, licking it, whispering into her skin. ”Let’s go…” An urge for her to try even as he sprinkled the salt, licked again, shot his drink back and turned to the guy with that grin bursting bright in the dark. ”Who’re you with…” he called over the music. Already probing, pushing into a guy’s mind just as easy as he had a bank.

Tagged: LEAH SIVAN * Word Count: 824