Chapter Text
There’s no pop, no sound to indicate his arrival, simply, one second there’s no one there, and the next a man wearing a black suit, black button-up, and blue striped tie is standing maybe three feet away from the dark haired woman. He adjusts the black framed glasses he wears, and blinks.
“Good evening.” He says, and the woman jumps and spins around, her dark eyes boring into the bluest she’s ever seen. As their eyes lock he blinks, and his eyes turn completely red, sclera, iris, and pupils, and it’s all the woman can do not to scream.
“I-it worked? Yo-you’re a. . .”
“Crossroads demon.” He agrees, blinking again and his eyes go back to their human appearance, irises almost looking more blue than they had been before. “And you’re desperate, for what? Fame, money?” The woman shakes her head.
“No, no not. . . I-I.” She shakes her head. “Noth-nothing like that .” She wraps her arms around herself. “Wh-what’s your name?” The demon wrinkles his nose a little at her question, as if trying to comprehend why she would ask it.
“Logan. Some call me Logos.” The woman nods distractedly.
“I ge-get ten years, right? Wh-whatever I ask for, I get it for te-ten years, right?” Logan nods.
“Anything directly related to you, love, fame, whatever, will last for ten years, or until it’s time for me to, collect . Anything not related to you, curing a friend, helping a sibling, will last indefinitely, but I will still collect after ten years.” The woman bites her lip.
“Okay, okay.” She nods. “I-I. . .” She shakes her head and exhales shakily. “My girlfriend, sh-she. . . The doctors say she has just, just a year? Sh-she doesn’t want to die, I-I. . . Help her, cure her, pl-please.” Logan tilts his head back a little, eyes glazing over red again. He stays still for half a minute, then blinks his eyes back to blue and looks at the woman again.
“Of course. Incurable by human standards. Sign here.” A clipboard appears in his hand and he offers it along with a ballpoint pen to the woman, who grabs both.
“Wh-where do I-?”
“There, there, initial here, and that’s all.” Logan pulls a blue pen out of thin air and marks the places she needs to sign. The woman nods, and “Caroline Matthews” is scribbled across the dotted line in pretty cursive. Logan takes the pen and clipboard back and they both disappear, then he smiles.
The woman knows she’s made a mistake the second he smiles, it’s cold, calculating, and his eyes are empty.
“See you in ten years, Caro.” He says before he’s gone again and she’s left standing alone in the empty crossroads.
There’s a sound like the fluttering of wings and the whoosh of displaced air, and the man is no longer alone. His new companion wears a patchwork hoodie, ripped jeans that are held together with a collection of safety pins, and a purple shirt that says “ chaos is what killed the dinosaurs, darling ” written in block letters across it.
“Vir- what are you wearing?” He blinks and sputters, and the man in the hoodie laughs and presses his hands into his pockets, seemingly completely relaxed.
“Dude, it’s called style.” He says with a lopsided smile. “Anyway, you need somethin’?” The other man sighs.
“Virgil, I swear to our father, you’ve gone native .” Virgil tilts his head a little to the side, his smile growing wider and more lopsided.
“Hey! Just because you’ve got a rod up your ass doesn’t mean I do, dude. C’mon Eli, chill, why don’t you? I can do whatever I gotta, whether I’m in a suit or hoodie. ‘Sides, Heathers is cult-classic for a reason. You watch it? Guarantee you chill out immediately .” The man exhales and appears to be counting to ten.
“It’s Eliel, not ‘Eli’, Virgil. I’ll thank you to use my full name.” Virgil rolls his eyes.
“ Eliel , then. You need somethin’? Because while I love a good social call, I do have things to do, man.” Eliel pinches at the bridge of his nose.
“As a matter of fact, Virgil, I do have an assignment for you. Crossroads deals in your area have reached an all time high, and I need you to find out why, and to take care of it.” Virgil nods.
“Sure, man. I got you.” There’s a fluttering of wings and a whoosh of displaced air, and Eliel is alone again.
“Crossroads deals?” Virgil mutters to himself as he paces around his apartment, “how did I not notice these?” Clipped pieces of newspaper articles fluttered around him as he paced in aimless circles around his living room, declaring “miracles” from the past few months, but ones that Virgil knows no angel would ever grant.
One catches his eye and he grabs it out of the air, it proclaimed that a woman’s incurable disease had cleared up overnight, and Virgil checks the date, it’s from less than a week ago. Chances are that if someone were to summon a crossroads demon it would be the same one who had cured the woman.
Summoning a crossroads demon is something no angel would ever do, but Virgil entertains the idea, turning it over and over in his head, thumbing over the rough edges as he weighs the pros and cons of doing so.
He places the idea on a back burner for the time being, deciding that it’s far too risky to invite a demon anywhere, and decides that it will be much easier to find all the crossroads in the area and keep an eye on them, to just wait until the next human decides that something is more important than their immortal soul.
“Fools.” Virgil says aloud with a shake of his head, letting go of the article and allowing it to float back to its place. "You're fools."