Work Text:
Jane wasn’t known as being the most observant person when it came to her day to day life. Actually, unless it had anything to do with her research into the existence of Einstein Rosen bridges, she generally didn’t notice it at all. Things like who was running for president (who was the president), fashion trends, food hypes, or current movies weren’t anywhere on her radar. Bills, especially during particularly promising findings, were often only remembered when the utility they pertained to got shut off. She knew the date, day and month always simply because it was important to her research. Erik was only slightly less obsessive than her, and was no help with keeping their life on track.
So, she feels that she can be forgiven for not realizing that her new intern came from somewhere a lot hotter than New Mexico, Hell specifically, for quite some time. To be fair, Darcy was pretty good at hiding what she was, but after spending months living in cramped quarters anyone would have started to notice some glaringly suspicious personality quirks and it’s not that she didn’t notice them per se, they just didn’t matter compared to what her sensors were picking up out in the barren desert. Plus, she didn’t believe in all that religious whooie mumbo jumbo stuff (science was her co-pilot). And in complete honesty, short of finding her new intern like, mid-murder or something she wasn’t going to get rid of her as she was the only applicant and Jane really, really needed someone to keep her shit together for her. All the pros of Darcy outweighed her weird bits of Darcy-ness that slowly oozed out over time. If Jane had been less of a workaholic, she would have probably figured it out eventually, before it was too late.
Maybe.
Possibly?
Meh.
The facts:
1-Darcy wears layers in one-hundred-degree heat. Again, to be fair, Jane’s fashion sense had died somewhere in the grungy end of the nineties, back when it was okay for clothes to be functional and comfy, so like completely judgement free zone, but Darcy wears legging tucked into thick socks with long, heavy knit shirts and scarves and hats. In one-hundred-degrees. On a particularly hot day when the fan wasn’t cutting it and Jane had succumbed to boob sweat and the lure of shorts, she had turned to ask Darcy if she was hot when her eye had caught a spike in the data on Darcy’s screen and the question got shoved out of the way by the thrill of discovery.
2-She was pretty sure Darcy never slept. Like never ever. Again, pot meet kettle, but Jane had noticed that Darcy was always wide awake before her and was still going strong when Jane crashed out. A very admirable trait in an intern, sure. When on day six of Darcy’s third week Jane had woken up to the tap-tapping of nimble fingers on keys, she’d went to ask if the younger woman ever slept (or did drugs, which she really hoped was a hard no because she might cry if she had to fire her) when she had noticed the mountain of notes and data printouts on the table had been sorted into neatly labeled boxes. The portable scanner made a beep noise and Darcy absentminded fed another page in one handed. Months of work Jane had been putting off, all done without her having to lift a single finger. She’d hugged Darcy and made pancakes.
Though she did search Darcy’s stuff for drug paraphernalia while the younger woman took a shower. Luckily there were none.
3-Any coffee Darcy made stayed hot. At first, Jane had thought her intern was just swapping it out for fresh while she wasn’t paying attention, but one night when all her equipment had been frustratingly quiet, and Darcy had been out doing their laundry at the all-night laundromat in town, she snagged her mug that she knew had been left sitting there for a good five hours since Darcy had set it there on her way out and the liquid was still comfortably hot. Hadn’t even tasted stale when she’d taken a cautious sip.
Nothing beeped, blinked or popped out to distract her considerable mind from the curious oddity occurring in her cup.
4- Darcy has weird eyes. Not all the time. Just…sometimes. Mostly at night. Every once in a while Jane will do a double take when she looks into Darcy’s eyes and instead of their normal blue-green there will be orange. Like fire. Like the hungry coyotes that watch them sometimes when they’re sitting out in the desolate desert. Jane would like to blame it on the light from a screen glaring off of her geek-chic glasses but it makes no sense. Maybe its special contacts? Maybe it’s Jane’s sleep deprivation playing tricks on her? She asks Erik if he’s noticed anything odd about the intern and all he says is, “What’s not odd about her?”
These were the younger woman’s most glaring oddities. It doesn’t take into consideration the tiny, infinitesimal quirks that Jane’s subconscious picked up, (like the odd sulfur scent that sometimes wafts through a room when there’s no breeze, or how shadows get kind weird and squiggly around Darcy) but her brain didn’t put together. It wasn’t until the Dick Incident that the astrophysicist got slapped in the face with the truth about her intern.
Somehow in the middle of her quest for answers, Jane managed to not only meet a guy, but also hold an interest in him long enough to label him boyfriend.
Dick Richard. Local high school AP science teacher. During one of her rare solo grocery runs for essentials, Jane met Dick in the snack aisle. He was tall. He was cute. He was smart (enough). He was funny.
He also turned out to be a research stealing thief that worked for some gun toting assholes who knock Erik out and shoot Darcy to prove to Jane that they meant business.
Darcy, who promptly sprouted demon horns and wings and fangs and a few other terrifying features and literally tore Dick and his evil crew apart limb by limb until there was nothing left but a bloody pile of flesh then promptly snapped her finger turning the pile into dust that was promptly blown away on the steady night breeze.
“WHAT ARE YOU?!” Jane demands hysterically.
Darcy just gives her an ‘are you serious’ look with her burning eyes, “Come on, Jane. I think it’s pretty obvious,” she points one claw tipped finger at head, “Horns? The smell of brimstone? The amazingly awesome ability to turn those assholes into dust?”
Oh, god- God! If you’re real, then God’s real, then-“
Darcy shrugs, “Sure God’s real.”
Jane suddenly feels faint and nauseous at having her entire belief system completely upended.
“Woah there boss lady, you’re looking kind of green,” Jane startles violently as a decidedly human-er looking Darcy gently guides her down to the ground, “Maybe you should sit down for a second. Put your head between your legs or something.”
Jane takes deep breaths until she doesn’t feel like dinner is going to make an encore appearance before raising her head, locking her eyes on a very calm and normal looking Darcy sitting in front of her.
“Alright. Okay. Alright.”
“You said that one already Jane.”
“Okay,” Jane runs a slightly unsteady hand over her hair, “So. So, okay. You’re a demon—devil?” She asks, not quite sure on the proper terminology.
Darcy shrugs, “Demon’s good.”
“A demon. With demon powers, who’s going to school for political science—“
“Gotta keep myself busy what with, you know, the eons of life I have to live.”
“—and interning for me for six science credits.”
“That about sums it up in a nutshell,” Darcy says, leaning back on her hands. The ground was not the best place to do this.
“Why?”
“I don’t know, because I can? Because I consider you my friend now? Because I like your work and helping you achieve your goals? Because even demons get bored with a monotonous life?”
Jane tilts her head to the side in contemplation, trying not to preen at the fact that a demon considered her a friend and found her research interesting, “I get that. I can’t imagine what thousands,” here she glances at Darcy for confirmation who face shrugs a yes, “of years of life is like.”
Darcy snorts, “A lot less interesting then a lot of people think. The human species is stupidly repetitive and predictable.”
“I can see that. So,” Jane adjusts her seat. God the ground here is hard, “Demons and angels and God and the Devil are all real.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So Noah and the whole thing. Jesus. Moses. Or is it Allah or were the Greeks right? The Sumerians? Egyptians? Maya? No evolution. Science is wrong.” Jane feels like she’s being pretty grown up about this. Admittedly, she knows very little other than the basics of a handful of religions and even those are fuzzy. It’s going to be a rough ride accepting all these things she actively didn’t believe in.
Darcy rolls her eyes, “Jane. Please do not get hung up on specific religions and all the weird shit people are willing to do in the name of them. Just accept the existence of an other worldly being who happens to be the reason for all life on this planet. And that that being has an opposite being that, you know, comes into play with me. But you don’t have to worry about that. Are they Gods? Sure, you could call them that. But really that could mean anything. They could be aliens from a far advanced planet who treated Earth as a giant science experiment. Who’s to say that they didn’t just drop a hodgepodge designed to evolve?”
Jane perks up at this. Aliens. Of course. A super advanced alien race creating all life on Earth scientifically makes so much sense, “That’s true. All ancient civilizations tell stories about how gods came down from the sky in ships.”
“That’s right,” Darcy says with a proud smile and pats her on the shoulder, “See? All better. Now maybe we should go back inside and check on Erik?”
The two rise to their feet and brush the dirt off before heading for the back door. Jane looks at Darcy in contemplation out of the corner of her eye, “You’re not going to try and steal my soul are you? That’s a thing demons do right?”
Darcy snorts and rolls her eyes, “I can’t steal souls. I buy them. For a price. Very contractual. Totally legal. So unless you have something you want to sell it for, your soul’s safe from me.”
“Oh. That’s nice.”
“You know,” Darcy says looking slyly at her as she opens the door, “I could give you the formula for creating an Einstein Rosen bridge. For a price.”
Catching the teasing tone in her voice Jane just rolls her eyes at the demon, “Oh, ha, ha, ha.”
She’s not ashamed to admit that she thought about it for a second. Alright, maybe it was thirty minutes and she might have made a pro/cons list.