Vicky didn’t want to be here.
It was Polly’s deathday though (or so she claimed, it was different every year, and sometimes she celebrated twice a year) so she had to at least make an appearance. But she also had at least six assignments due, was behind on her reading list and honestly hadn’t come to university to party. Well; she did enjoy the occasional rager, but not tonight. Tonight she had an Eternal To Do List running through her head while Polly poured her three more shots of something that looked electric blue. It would’ve been ironic if Polly didn’t have a shit sense of humour. As things stood she was on a roll pouring personalised shots - she worked part time as a bartender now and honestly thought she was the next great mixologist.
“And there; three Electric Vickys!” Vicky rolled her eyes but drank one down anyway. As the glass touched her lips Scott pressed a taser to her neck just above her left bolt and she screamed in exhilaration.
Fuck. The combination of electricity and alcohol almost made her Eternal To Do List shut up. The second shot did make it shut up. She didn’t remember anything after the third.
Vicky was never drinking anything Polly made ever again. (She’d said that after the toilet wine too, it wasn’t very convincing, even hungover and crashed on someone else’s couch...in someone else’s t-shirt?)
She stumbled to her feet in the dim light of a very...very nice living room. Her stitches protested and her neck ached from the taser. Whoever’s couch she’d crashed on, they were either not a student, or they were a very wealthy student. Vicky looked down at herself; she was wearing an unfamiliar grey t-shirt that hung down to her knees, and one sock. She was pretty sure she’d worn sandals to the party.
Her head throbbed and she reached up to press against her temple.
Oh fuck.
No way.
Who the hell...
“Who the fuck switched my arms last night?” She groaned. “What’s the point of that even? It’s just annoying!”
“Leonard thought it’d be funny after you passed out at Polly’s.”
Damien LaVey. Well, that explained the dark greys and torture weapons hung elegantly on the walls.
“What?”
“Yeah, I stopped him before he decided to switch your legs with your head or something, but I didn’t want to sew you back together while you were drunk or passed out.”
Vicky was so out of her depth. Damien LaVey had...helped her?
“Um thanks...” something occurred to her, “did you change my clothes?”
“You did that yourself. I got you here - didn’t know which dorm room was and neither did Polly - and you threw a fit about sleeping in jeans. So I gave you the shirt to shut you up.”
“Ah. I’m sorry. Thanks...for the help.”
He shrugged. “Just didn’t want to have to deal with Leonard thinking he’s more badass than me for pranking a sleeping chick.”
Sometimes Vicky wished she’d studied abroad instead of at Spooky U with everyone she’d been in high school with.
Damien looked annoyed and like he was trying really hard to be nonchalant. He was also only wearing a pair of low-sling sleep shorts.
“Um, do you know where my stuff is? I kinda need to sort out my arms before I leave, but I’ll be out of your hair soon, I promise.”
“What? You can’t leave. My dads saw me bring you in and now they want you to join us for breakfast. I was actually coming to get you for that.”
“Oh...um,”
“Look, if you tell anyone this I’ll kill you and watch your dismembered corpse go up in flames, but my parents actually never get to meet my friends, aside from Scott, and they love Scott. So now they think we’re friends and you can’t leave because they’ll never stop asking about you and it’ll literally drive me insane and I’ll kill you for that too. So you’ll be double dead.”
Vicky wasn’t sure she followed his logic, but she didn’t want to die - especially not via fire - so she nodded quietly and followed Damien LaVey (Damien LaVey!) down a tastefully minimalistic hallway into a kitchen that smelt like sulphur and bacon grease.
“There you are kiddo, we were worried about waking you up with what I imagine is a massive hangover; but we didn’t want you to miss breakfast!” The phrase sounded normal. It was a very dad thing to say.
But.
A seven foot blue demon with a voice like thunder had said it and the gears in Vicky’s brain chugged to a stop before rapidly spinning to figure out why what she was seeing didn’t match what she was hearing. She squeaked.
Fuck. She couldn’t show weakness here. Not in front of the royal family of the eighth circle of hell. She tried to cover her cough with a squeak.
“Thanks, that’s...kind of you.”
“Damien, you said you’d help her fix her arms when she woke up,” an ominous whisper came from the hooded figure at the stove. Damien’s other dad sounded like a bad omen whispered through the wind. This was worse than thunder.
“I was just getting her things, dad, sheesh. She needs needle and thread to fix it.”
“And how’s she supposed to remove and reattach her arms on her own? Help her out Damien. It’s not like we didn’t teach you how to sew.” Damien’s Thunder-voiced dad boomed.
“Oh no that’s okay, I’ve stitched myself together plenty of times...”
“Nonsense, Damien has a responsibility to his friends, and he should never have let it happen. It’s a sign of weakness when your friends are left vulnerable, and it’s your job to fix it.” The hooded dad hissed from where he was...frying Griffin eggs?
Vicky expected Damien to deny even being friends with her at this point. She wasn’t worth royal power-plays and court politics like his dads were making it sound.
“I know, I know, and believe me did I give Scott shit for the taser thing, like once, that’s badass, but three times was overkill and then I was running damage control between Brian and Vera because Polly’s zombie cotton candy brain shots sent him into a zombie brain rage and -“ Damien seemed to realise he was rambling. “I’ll get the fucking thread!” He spat and stormed out.
Vicky was still standing awkwardly in the kitchen entrance, but thunder-voice dad ushered her in to sit at a stool next to the massive island in the center.
“Usually we have our staff cooking for us, but Damien likes to pretend that he’s normal so we humour him when we visit,” Thunder-voice grinned.
“That doesn’t sound like Damien, he loves to lord the fact that he’s royalty over everyone,” Vicky said before thinking. Her blue eyes widened and she clapped her hand over her mouth.
“I’m sorry - your majesty? I shouldn’t speak badly of Damien.”
“Nonsense. We like hearing honest opinions of our son; and call me Stan, and my husband is Lucien. You don’t have to call us by our titles; you’re not our subject.”
“Yet,” Lucien hissed and Vicky shivered. She was technically undead, the chances of her going to hell were slim, she thought. There wasn’t really any evidence to suggest that the reanimated dead had souls. So what had Lucien meant?
Did she have a soul?
“Got the stuff,” Damien grunted. He pulled up a stool next to Vicky and sat down heavily on it, facing her. “Gimme the arms.”
Vicky, grateful for the distraction reached up and tugged her left arm out of her right socket without flinching. Damien looked almost impressed.
“I’m sure that’s not good for the skin, Vicky,” Stan warned, sounded like a much, much louder version of her own father. “It’s not...the Doctor wouldn’t be very happy with me doing that.” She admitted. “It’s just easier than having to tug all the stitches out,”.
Lucien turned then, and Vicky saw his red face, as haunting as his voice. He had no mouth, just two slits of glowing yellow as eyes. “Damien,”
“Yeah yeah, I’m on it. You don’t have to be a badass all the time Vicky, you can just let someone do it properly.”
Vicky didn’t know what to say to that, and honestly, she was too tired and hungover to actually think anymore about the bizarre the situation she was stuck in.
“You’re literally always a badass, dude. And I’m not...ever.”
Damien eyed her as he gently tugged her stitches out of her right arm - left socket. Something about his posture portrayed vulnerability and Vicky did not want to deal with this.
Maybe. Maybe at one point she had wanted to see a vulnerable side to Damien. Meet his dads. Had daydreamed about prom with him but...she’d taken Vera to prom instead. They’d had a weird, definitely illegal business venture together at the time and it was fun. Vera had told Vicky after that she wasn’t cool enough to be her romantic partner and Vicky figured she’d just fade into obscurity after that humiliation.
Her arm came loose and Damien set it down and started threading the needle. “Sure you are. I’m literally removing your arms and you’re not flinching. And you let Scott tase you every time you took a shot last night. I didn’t even know you had a thing about electricity, I mean, I read Frankenstein, but I didn’t think feeding you the shit would - I don’t know, get you high.”
“It’s just...energy,” Vicky shrugged; which felt very weird without her arms. “It’s like slamming an energy drink; just, more...sparky,”
“That’s fucking cool. I tried tasing myself once but it wasn’t as fun. I’d rather tase noobs and losers instead. Hey, maybe I could tase you sometime. I bet that would be a blast. And I’d be better at it than Scott.”
Vicky longed to rub at her neck. “He did tase just the one spot repeatedly. It kinda aches,” she admitted. Damien grinned. “See? I’d be better than that; I’d tase you everywhere.”
“Have some Oj kids,” two glasses were set in front of them. Vicky stared longingly at the glass, before she shook her head and turned to Damien. “It’s gonna pinch a bit, my nervous system does actually work, do you ah...do you have any painkillers?”
“Why the hell would you want to kill the pain?” Damien gaped at her.
Stan rolled his eyes and placed two tablets in front of Vicky. She cursed inwardly at her situation.
“Help her,” Lucien hissed and Damien fumbled. “Oh yeah, right,”.
Vicky would really rather have just tried to sew her own arms back on at this point. Or maybe she should have just let Polly ply her with enough alcohol to kill her. Dying sounded like a fantastic option right about now.
(It’s not like her dad couldn’t bring her back).
Being fed pills and orange juice by Damien LaVey was the most awkward moment of her life. And that included Vera’s rejection.
“Uh, thanks.”
Damien grunted and started sewing.
It was...honestly, Damien was a lot better at it than she was, and he was gentler than her dad which she had not expected. While he worked his dads set the island around them with plates, and started loading the plates with food. “What do you prefer Vicky? Griffin eggs or chicken eggs?”
“Do you like grilled tomato?”
“Coffee? Or do you want to stick with the juice?”
Vicky felt disorientated, honestly. At least the painkillers had killed the headache.
By the time Damien was done, his cheeks flushed a lighter shade of pink than the red of his face - was he holding his breath in concentration? - breakfast was ready.
It was amazing; honestly some of the best food she’d ever eaten. She told Damien’s dads this and they accepted her compliments graciously. Honestly, why were the rulers of the 8th circle of hell so nice? Why wasn’t Damien this nice?
Well; actually, considering that Damien had rescued her from further tampering from Leonard, she probably shouldn’t consider him mean.
“You eat like you’ve never seen food before.” Ugh. No, he was still kinda an ass.
“Have you ever tried living with a mad scientist? I can turn almost any element into a different element and reanimate dead bodies but I cannot cook an egg. And I’m a student. I live off of cafeteria food and coffee.”
Damien choked. “You mean you eat that crap they serve in the cafeteria?”
Feeling suddenly self-conscious, Vicky shrugged. “I guess. Don’t have much choice.”
Stan and Lucien voiced their horror at the fact too, and insisted that Vicky come over for a meal whenever she was hungry. Lucien even offered to teach her how to cook; but Vicky got the feeling she wouldn’t be invited back after Damien had finally gotten her out of his house and away from his very enthusiastic and friendly dads.
Finally, Vicky left the house, arms where they should be, hangover gone, jeans back on (and her favourite fuzzy blue sweater) and belly full. She thanked Stan and Lucien profusely, but when she exited the house and started walking, Damien called after her.
“Where the hell are you going?”
“Home?”
“Dumbass. Do you have any idea where you are?” Vicky took in the very suburban, upmarket neighbourhood. “Uh, Shadow Valley?” The area known for its elite residents, she was pretty sure Miranda lived somewhere here too when she stayed on land. “It’s a half hour drive back to campus, which is like, a ten hour walk. Get in the car.” His math did not pan out. But before she could protest, Damien clicked a remote and - Vicky wished she’d made this up - the doors to a very red, very expensive sports car she hadn’t noticed opened on their own; flipping upward like something out of a car show Brian’s dad liked to watch, or like the DeLorean on Back to the Future.
“I can-“
“Get in,”
Well. Who would turn down a ride to campus anyway?
The ride was...just as weird as her morning had been.
“So I don’t actually remember much after the uh...shots Polly made me. Did I...”
“Did you what?”
“Do anything stupid?”
“Stupid? No. Badass? Fuck yeah. You were wild. It was hilarious.”
Vicky absolutely did something stupid. dread settled in her stomach.
“You know, I’d always thought you were the quiet, nerdy type. I mean, you are a nerd. But you’re also pretty badass.” Damien said thoughtfully.
“I...try to be. Honestly though, I thought I’d just fade into obscurity when Vera dumped me.”
“You went to prom with that poisonous bitch and you still showed up to college after that, and didn’t let her stop you from partying. That’s badass. Vera’s got too much of a stick up her ass to see how fun you are. All she wanted to do was use your smarts for profit.”
“You want to use my wild side to tase me;” Vicky pointed out.
“Cause that would fucking rock,” he grins. “But I wouldn’t just want to use you, you know? I’d want you to enjoy yourself too.” He sounded oddly...wistful. Vicky was used to the confusion this morning was bringing with it at this point though, and rolled with it.
“When you tase me?”
“Yeah. When I tase you. Or...if we did other stuff together.”
“Would you want to?”
What what what what? Was she? Were they? Was this a hypothetical what if we date conversation? How did she end up here.
Was he talking about sex?
“Maybe...you’re not as much of a noob as I thought you were in high school.”
The car pulled into the campus dorm parking lot.
“Thanks Damien. And thanks for the ride. And the save last night. And for breakfast. And sewing my arms back on properly. I guess I owe you a lot now huh?”
Damien’s strange mood seemed to dissipate before her very eyes. He smirked. “I can think of a few ways you can make it up to me. If you wanted to.”
“Yeah? Like what?” Vicky let her eyebrow pull up inquisitively. Her dad did that a lot when he was studying something new.
“Dinner for one. And we cab fuck around with a taser after.” He was full on smirking now, though his left hand held the steering wheel pretty tightly. Vicky pretended not to notice.
Figuring she’d go for it, she leant forward and, almost brushing his lips with hers, she whispered: “I guess it’s a date.”
He lunged forward and she stopped thinking again.
It wasn’t until she was in her dorm room answering a hundred texts from Amira and Oz that her Eternal To Do List finally flared back to life.
She sat down at her computer; but the Eternal To Do List was competing for headspace with the feel of Damian LaVey’s lips hot and wet against hers.