Caffeine and Magix

writingpromptsandjunk:

“Oh shit, I think I cut the wrong wire.”

“Oh shit,” Xander hisses from behind the curtain, “I think I cut the wrong wire.”

It’s clear that he doesn’t intend for Basia to hear him, but she does anyway. Hard not to with the sort of hearing succubi have, but he’s clearly never worked with one of her kind before.

She glares at him, lowering her fake glasses so he can see the fire in her eyes across the stage. He looks over the shoulder of the main character (some sort of human prince a demoness falls in love with) and flinches.

He’s not the only one who flinches when, right on schedule, the catwalk above the stage drops a foot with a metallic crack! and then comes crashing down onto the stage.

Three feet away from their target, Bruce Widdershins, the demon playing the human prince.

This might be the last time she works with one of the club idiots, an affectionate name for demons with all brawn and no brains.

The crowd screams as the catwalk lands, nearly crushing the star of the show, and continues to scream long after it’s come to a full rest. That’s the herd mentality at play, long thought only to exist in the human world. Basia thinks that demons adopted it just to prove that demons could be just as stupid as humans if they really tried.

She dithers about what to do. She’s as new at this job as Xander (though, she’d argue, a lot better at it already) and she doesn’t know the protocol for a failed hit in front of an audience. She can see Xander booking it already, pushing past backstage like a common criminal. He’s definitely going to be caught on camera and noticed when they review the tapes. She hopes he has fun laying low while HPD (Hell Police Department) drops the hounds on his ass.

Luckily, with her particular skill set, she doesn’t need to worry about dogs. This failed hit? With her bosses being who they are? Yeah, she’s got that to worry about.

Which means it’s up to her to fix this…mess.

She pushes forward in the crowd, keeping a careful hold of her aura. Succubi, while not rare, are not normally seen out in public and she’ll attract attention if any hound hybrids, trolls, or hunter demons catch wind of her. She adjusts her glasses, the thick frames doing a great job at keeping her from catching anyone’s eye (got to be careful of mind readers), and reaches Bruce Widdershins’ side first.

“Mr. Widdershins!” she cries and lets her hands shake as she grabs his arm. “Are you okay?”

Bruce Widdershins gives her a charming smile, seeming to not be affected at all by his brush with death. “Please, call me Bruce.”

She blinks at him, momentarily throne. “B-bruce, are you okay?”

He pats the hand on her arm and nods, smile not slipping from his face. “Yes, thank you, luckily the catwalk missed me entirely. What an accident!” He seems admiring and she can’t quite wrap her head around it.

“…Right,” she says and squares her shoulders. “I think you’re in shock, Bruce. I think you need to sit down!”

“Great idea,” Tilde, Bruce’s manager, says, bustling up to them. She’s red in the face from exertion and fear, breath coming out in puffs of steam. Fire demons are notorious for their high temperatures and lack of control. It’s why they make such good entertainers. “I’ll hold off the press– goodness knows they’re chomping at the bit to get a word from Bruce! Vultures after such a traumatic incident…”

“Oh come now,” Bruce says, still smiling. It’s beginning to freak Basia out. “I’m sure there aren’t that many here. I’m not really that popular.”

“Not yet,” Tilde says, snapping her coat with long, striped fingernails. “But your talent is unmistakable! Now go, go, go, I can trust you, dear, to seee to him, yes?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Basia says in her best earnest voice. With her wide eyes and glasses, she’s sure it’s very convincing even without her succubus aura. “You can count on me, ma’am.”

“Ma’am,” Bruce says, snapping off a lazy salute. He lets Basia drag him behind the curtain, down a flight of stairs to the concrete hallway that leads to his dressing room. “I’m really fine…what did you say your name was?”

“Angela,” Basia says, snapping off her alias without a second thought. She glances down the hall both ways before kicking his dressing room door open with her foot. She ushers him inside and, after another scan, shuts it tightly behind them. “Stagehand. Hi.”

“Hi.” Bruce flops into his makeup chair and frowns at himself in the mirror. “My eyeliner smeared.” He grabs a makeup wipe and sets to work, hands not shaking at all.

Basia eyes him, not sure what to make of her target. Normally she never really sees them from this close. Xander does recon or one of the techies from her company and she comes in to orchestrate the “accident.” It seems to her that Bruce should be afraid, should be trembling, should be asking her to lock the door to his dressing room before she actually does it.

Instead he’s…humming? Humming. Really.

“Why aren’t you scared?” she blurts out. She almost claps a hand to her mouth, mortified at how easily she’s just broken cover, but recovers at the last moment. Angela could be curious too, not just Basia. She hasn’t blown it. Yet.

“Why should I be?” Bruce carefully wipes under his eye, the wipe taking off the eyeline so easily that he barely has to apply any pressure.

“B-because a giant piece of metal just nearly crushed you?” Basia says. She worries the bottom of her blouse like Angela would, but frowns internally. From her calculations, the catwalk would have done more than crush him–it would have obliterated him.

“But it didn’t,” Bruce says. He nods at his reflection after the last of the makeup has been wiped off.

“But it could have,” Basia insists. It should have. I made it so that it was nearly impossible to avoid. If Xander hadn’t fucked up…

“Hmm,” Bruce says. He picks up a tube of lotion and begins to moisturize. “I suppose it could be because I’m used to it.”

Basia’s so angry with Xander she doesn’t really hear him. “Used to what?”

“The assassination attempts,” Bruce says. He caps the lotion and turns in his chair, a small smile quirking his lips. “After the first three it just seemed a waste to react, you know?”

Basia’s world comes grinding to a halt. “Attempts? With an S?”

“Oh yeah,” Bruce says, leaning back. He grins. “Started when I came into my inheritance. My mom’s a bit of a mutt, you know, so it was unexpected when my great-grandfather’s lineage came through strong. I got on the radar a few years back and it’s been near constant assassination attempt since then.” His face turns thoughtful. “This one was actually fairly close, considering.”

Basia’s mind whirls. She can’t understand why someone would try so many times to kill one person. An actor at that! She licks her lips and breaks her company’s one rule. She asks, “Why?”

Bruce is already turned back around, packing up his makeup kit with practiced hands. “Excuse me?”

“Why?” she asks again. Her heart is racing and she feels like her bosses are going to leap through the concrete walls at any moment. “Why are they trying to kill you?”

“My inheritance, like I said,” Bruce says. “Troublesome, very troublesome.” He turns back to her, lips still quirked like it doesn’t matter someone’s been trying to kill him for– for what must be ten years now, based off his age. “You see, my great-grandfather was a very rare sort of demon. So rare that you could say I’m the one of ten left.” He pauses, expression flickering before going back to his smile. “Well, seven now.”

She’s done three hits since coming into the company’s employ. Three. “What type of demon.” Was this a race thing? She’s not racist and no matter what they pay her, what they promise her, she’s not going to commit a hate crime for them.

“That’s not–”

She snaps, throwing her glasses off. She’s sure that her eyes are violet as she looks at him and she’s barely holding onto her aura as it is. “What. Type. Of. Demon.”

Bruce, instead of being afraid, just observes her. “Noble. Noble demon.”

Basia’s world crumbles. She finds herself staring at him without seeing, eyes wide as she tries to remember clues, any clues to corroborate his claims. She–she couldn’t smell them, couldn’t sense them (she hadn’t tried). It was possible. It was fucking possible.

“Fuck. Fuck.” Did she– she killed three. She must have. She didn’t know, didn’t mean to, her family thought they were all dead!

She killed three.

“It’s not really a big deal,” Bruce says. He’s carefully not moving from his chair, which she appreciates because she’s having a fucking panic attack. “I mean, I don’t–”

“It is,” she says through gritted teeth. Her stomach hurts. Fuck. “It is a big fucking deal.”

Bruce watches her, bright eyes cataloguing the sincerity in her words, the beginnings of her aura leaking out. This time, he’s the one who asks “Why?”

“Because I’m a succubus,” she says, looking down so she won’t see the typical disgust. She’s not ashamed of who she is, but damn do people try to make her feel ashamed. “A succubus.” She brings one of her fists down hard on her thigh, rage and guilt and everything she tries not to feel racing through her. Three, I killed three.

“Whaaat does that have to do with anything?” Bruce asks. He stands, being careful not to move too quickly.

“Succubi are supposed to protect Nobles,” she says. She squeezes her eyes shut tightly, trying to fight back the power she feels surging in them. “We’re supposed to–to advise you, manipulate the court in your favor, gain favor for you.”

“That’s archaic,” Bruce observes. “Um, thank you? I’m an actor though, so I don’t really need a, um court–”

“We’re supposed to protect you,” she repeats. She forces herself to look up, forces herself to meet his eyes, forces herself to bind her power. “And I just tried to kill you.”

Bruce’s eyes sharpen, shoulders tensely. She waits for him to lunge, waits for him to kill her for the admission, but he doesn’t. “…I think you’d better start from the beginning.”

She bows her head and starts talking.

(via writingpromptsandjunk)