Chapter Text
It was well past the witching hour of the night, a typical scene in apartment 27a. Lydia Martin holding a cold coffee in her hand as she goes over her student's paper for what seems like the millionth time. Being a teaching assistant wasn't the highlight of her year, but it helped her get into her dream Ph.D. program and she certainly wasn't complaining.
But, when one has to read a paper with the words "like" used over twenty times, and no citations or references, they can hit a bit of breaking point. Blowing a breath out her cheeks, she underlines the colloquialisms in her favourite red pen, tucking the paper under her arm before shoving her feet into her flip-flops and padding over to her kitchenette.
The apartment was small, sure, but it was enough for her and her Pekingese, who was spoiled rotten as if it was a baby. She got it mainly for the location, it sat in the downtown core, above a hipster-like coffee shop that served dreamy almond milk iced lattes and fresh scones. When she moved in, she placed everything just as she imagined it, it was perfect.
She opens the fridge, leaning into the freezer section and pulling out a pint of frozen yogurt, sticking a spoon into it while it sat and defrosted. The diet didn't count on weekends, and alcohol doesn't have calories on a Saturday night - right ? She pulled herself up onto the countertop with ease, plucking out the pencil that currently sat in her bun.
Flipping to the next page of the paper, the grandfather clock struck three, its choral notes echoing through the hollow space of the hallway.
"God! How can someone just bullshit their way through almost two years of a degree!" She exclaims frustratedly to no one in particular.
"You'd be surprised what people get away with, ever heard of OJ Simpson?" a voice responded back, a deep undertone, something devious and dark.
A voice... In her hallway... at 3 am. Her heartbeat quickened, was it an intruder? Or was she slowly getting sick from all the sleep deprivation and it was her brain's sign of a slow hemorrhage? Either way, her fight or flight kicked in and she reached her arm for the knife block, pulling out a simple chef's knife.
"Love what you did with the place by the way, the other owners were so boring, no posters, not even pictures!" It spoke again, seemingly getting closer. She could even hear it's footsteps, heavy and dragging like it was scuffling their shoes together.
She slid off the counter, silently mouthing a string of f-words as her feet hit the linoleum with a slapping sound. She was definitely dead now.
"Get out of my house! I've got a knife and I'll scream so my neighbors can hear!" Her manicured fingers tightened around the handle, stepping behind the wooden kitchen rack. Maybe not the best thing to say to a potential burgular, but they don't teach you this in history lectures.
"Miss Lydia Martin, you're a feisty one- aren't you? A won't go quietly type? You're the type of girl that's in my five-year plan." It was even trying to be charismatic, to be charming. Lydia had read too many serial killer Wikia articles at night to know exactly what he was planning to do.
"What the fuck? What kind of psychopath says that? Who are you? Why are you here?" Her voice was growing louder, syllables trembling. Her eyes were red-rimmed from not blinking consistently, her gaze locked onto her hallway.
And then,
All at once it emerged from the shadows of the hallway, followed by a trail of smoke. It took on the form of a twenty-something unworldly gorgeous male, dark hair impeccably styled and soft.
Eyes that surely didn't have anything behind them, focused on her, a dark colour.
Retinas that weren't fully black, but a sinister colour.
His eyelids were a smattering of red blood veins and purple and black blooms of bruises, almost as if he punched himself in the eyes, or as if someone else did.
And he was wearing a suit, a flat black dress shirt. no tie.
Crackling his knuckles with a satisfying sound, the sides of his mouth pull up into a grin, laughing to himself.
"See, this is exactly what I expected, what I planned for. I really like you Lydia, which is why this perfect." Smoke tumbled from his lips in plumes, reminiscent from the blue caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland.
He paused to cough twice, touching a fist to his chest as he did so, blood dried fingers tucking into palm. "Sorry, so ungentlemanlike of me, you'd think Mama would've raised me better right?"
She stood in place, frozen, her brain screaming at her muscles to run, to move, to push him over and jump out the window, to do anything, but she just stood.
He walked to her, maintaining that uncomfortable distance that made her very skin crawl.
"What.." she sputtered out, her own chest heaving with breaths that struggled to come. "What are you?"
Another wicked smile, and an extended hand
"Mieczyslaw Stilinski, shadow demon, at your service my love." He rasped the last word, tinting it with something she didn't understand.
"You were supposed to die today, in fact, if we're getting into specifics, I was supposed to be the one to kill you, but my committee petition went through with the Big Guy downstairs, and well, there's a plan B"
Dark eyes searching her face and seeing her mixture of shock and fear, he retracted the hand, shoving it into the inner pocket of the blazer.
" Ha! I'm just shitting you, Lucifer didn't actually view my petition, he's on vacation, he has higher people who view that. But don't get me wrong baby, I still have my share of awards back home, I'm quite popular, so you can say you've got yourself one Hell of a catch"
And he winks