#demon!levi ackerman

*Levi’s POV*

After that night, Y/N was...softer, with him.  It certainly wasn’t something he was used to, with how they'd acted towards each other so far.  And it happened almost overnight.  He, however, was not happy about it.  As much as it allowed the environment of the house to settle to something healthier for the twins, which was something he wanted, he hated the thought that it was out of pity or guilt.  And now, as much as he liked the quieter environment, the peace between them, it felt wrong because of where it seemed to be coming from.  He couldn’t take the thought of her pitying him or feeling guilty about how she’d treated him.

With his laundry list of things he’d done to her, he should be the guilty one--as he was--not her, she had nothing to be guilty about in his eyes because he deserved what she doled out.  As for the pity...he wasn’t the one on limited time and unaware this short span of a few years would be all the time had with the twins--again, his fault.

It was wrong, but he didn’t know what the hell to do about it without causing her more pain.  He’d done enough of that, he didn’t want to do it any more, but all he could think of in the moments when it bothered him were harsh-sounding words, so he held his tongue and endured.

It wasn't all fixed, though.  Some things remained.  She still wasn't comfortable getting too close to him beyond the everyday, and she still kept her distance and let him have his privacy and space.  What changed was the lack of harsh words, and how she was a bit more...open with her thoughts and questions.  More engaging instead of a brick wall that refused to interact with him more than the bare minimum.  It was like she was trying to warm up past cordial.  The part that made him uncomfortable about this, though, was all the questions.  All the poking and prodding that he worried would start to stray into matters he couldn't talk to her about, or he wasn't ready to talk to her about.

Of course, for the most part, the questions were pretty reasonable, even if some of them made Levi stiffen if it was a question that he knew exactly what had prompted it.  She kept to lighter things when it was random questions, but he could feel the serious questions coming, barely held back in the way her eyes would linger somewhere he'd had an injury the night he'd caught her, or where there should be a demonic feature but she saw none.

But he could also feel a more serious talk coming with the lead up of the questions she asked at random.

Like the time when, while cleaning up breakfast, she asked if the twins would ever reach a point where they didn't need to eat, like Levi.  And they would, eventually, but that was a little ways off.  For now they needed food and drink like any normal person.

Or how later that day while they were in the living room and she was playing with Asa, she asked if there would be a time when they showed some signs of their demonic blood, which was again far off, and not something she needed to worry about...though it would happen eventually, and not at all subtly.  But unlike his experience, they weren't going to be alone when it happened.

That part he kept to himself.  No point in worrying her over something she wouldn't be here for.

It was these little technical questions she was now comfortable asking him that eventually, predictably, led to them having a late night talk after the twins were put to sleep in their cribs.  They had both headed back downstairs, Levi to clean up the twins playtime mess, and Y/N disappearing into the kitchen for a little while.  She reappeared when he was almost done cleaning up, two glasses in hand and a bottle of wine in the other before she reached the coffee table and put them both down.  Levi raised an eyebrow, appraising her warily.  By now, he knew what it looked like when she was on a mission, and he was trying to figure out where this was going before she even spoke.

“I didn’t think it had been a day that required wine at the end,” Levi said pointedly, putting the toys he had gathered up in his arms into the toy box ottoman they used in the living room--one of her many touches to the house.

“Well...I just figured...can we talk?” she asked, clearly unsure about how to go about whatever it was she wanted to do.  That only put Levi on edge, worried that this could be very bad, or something...unwanted, depending on her intentions.  But he was also aware she was trying to be better, like he was, so he was at least going to give her the chance to speak and try whatever she was thinking before shutting her down or anything like that.  Besides, this hesitance to approach him, while it was something that also made him wary, was a little more comfortable and familiar to him after these past few months of her hating him or keeping her distance.  It was much more familiar than this shift in her since she’d caught sight of him the other night--he hadn’t known what to do with that sudden kindness and patience.  This he knew how to handle.

Levi rolled up the playmat on the floor, placing it on top of the toys in the ottoman before shutting the cushioned lid.  “All right...what is this about?” he asked slowly, coming over not to sit on the couch with her, but in the armchair off to the side, one of his legs coming up so his ankle rested on his other knee as he reclined in his seat, watching her and for the moment not partaking in the wine, even though she’d poured a glass for each of them.

“I have...questions,” she started hesitantly, pushing on quickly as Levi’s expression darkened slightly and he prepared himself to have to, once again, reiterate that there were things he wasn’t telling her for her own sake.  “I know you won’t tell me everything, but, I have a lot, and I figured some of them surely you can answer?”

Levi studied her for a moment, his eyes probing.  “Why now?  It’s been months.  Why start asking questions now?”

She took a deep breath, lowering her wine glass in her hand and looking up to meet his gaze head on.  “I think...I’m not scared anymore.”

Not scared of her situation, or not scared of him?  It felt like it could be either one, and while he felt she should still be scared of her situation because there was still danger, he also didn’t feel like he’d earned the right for her not to be scared of him anymore.  Well...no, no, he didn’t want her to be afraid of him anymore, he didn’t mean her any harm.  But he still felt like she should hate him--would again, eventually.

“Why not?”

She hesitated at his question, which was meant to make her second guess not being scared at all anymore.  But instead of rescinding her self-evaluation, or second guessing herself, she started to give him actual reasons.

“I’ve grown more...comfortable here.  More confident in taking care of the twins.  I’m starting a new life which is scary but also exhilarating and refreshing.  I don’t have people second guessing every choice and thought I have all the time anymore.  And...you’re not as bad as I thought you were.  And I apolo--”

“No apologizing.  Not to me,” Levi said quickly and a little harshly, cutting her off before she could finish saying it, getting up from his seat to leave.  “Never to me.”

“Wait, don’t run off--” she asked quickly, stopping herself from saying what Levi assumed was an apology for apologizing. “I haven’t asked any of my questions yet.”

Levi paused next to the couch, looking straight ahead at the wall instead of her off to his left as he took a deep breath and let out a slow sigh.  “If I say I can’t answer it, just drop it and ask your next question.”

She nodded slowly but reluctantly.  “I can do that.”

He hummed, not fully believing her but still going back to the chair he’d just tried to vacate.  Once he was settled back in, he gave her an expectant look, itching to leave simply because he wasn’t used to her treating him like this, and right now, it made him uncomfortable.  “What do you want to know?”

She let out a small sigh of relief, pulling her bare feet up onto the couch and leaning her back against the arm, her wine glass held with both hands.  “Okay...okay...first question, I guess.  Several months ago, Isabel said she was over two centuries old, but she was the youngest.  So you’re...centuries old?” she paused momentarily to see if he was going to correct her, but the only thing he’d done was shifted so that his chin was propped up on his fist, two fingers curled so they were cover his lips as he watched, waited, and listened.  “Are you immortal, then?”

“As long as I’m...feeding...I’ll live.  Unless an angel or a demon finally succeeds in killing me,” Levi answered stoically, dancing around the topic of what he had to do for more time and all the messy logistics of that affair.  Especially because even with the twins already almost a year old, he wanted her to have more time before he broke that bad news to her, or even hinted at it.

She shifted slightly in her seat, some discomfort returning to her demeanor.  “And what do you…” she started to say, but she trailed off at the Don’t even finish that sentence look that Levi was giving her.  She cleared her throat, worry flashing through her mind as she rubbed her neck.

Levi rolled his eyes at the assumption he thought she might be making.  If he had to guess, she might be worried he was feeding off her blood while she slept or something like that.  Still not over some of her darker assumptions about him, then.  At least there was still some normality in his apparently still-changing world.  “I’m a demon, not a vampire.”

She shot him an accusing look at his deadpan words, but apparently decided to abandon pushing that question further since he wouldn’t even let her finish it.  He wouldn’t give her any other answer besides No I don’t feed off blood, anyway.

“Okay...so if you’re immortal, will they be, too?” she asked.  Who she meant by they was rather obvious.

Levi nodded.  “Eventually.  Right now they’re still half-mortal so they age and grow properly, but once they reach maturity, it will be the same for them.”

“Right...because eventually the...the demon part is going to overtake the human part…”

“Physically, yes,” Levi said, voice a tad bit softer because he knew they were now addressing a concern of hers about them retaining their humanity.  Furlan had warned him about this months ago.  “They’ll become full blooded demons when they reach maturity.  Though it’s not going to do anything to them as people besides the fact they’ll have things they need to do to survive.  Nothing you need to worry about, though.  I’ll take care of it when it comes to that point,” Levi added before she could ask about what it is they’ll have to do. It fed back into the question he wouldn’t answer, anyway, so she probably wouldn’t push.  If she listened to his request that she drop any questions he wouldn’t answer.

“It’s not going to...change them?  I know I asked Furlan this a while back, but…I guess it just...it just helps to hear it from you.  Give me some more context, too, maybe.”

“No...not in the way you’re thinking, anyway.  Coming into their own as demons means there will be an expansion in how big their world is and a change in lifestyle, but whether that changes them as a person is up to them.  Again, it’s a long way off.  And something I’ll be taking care of,” Levi told her, a bit of a hint for her to drop it returning to his voice.  She didn’t need to know the ugly details of a life she wasn’t going to see or be involved in.  That was Levi’s burden to bear, and he was the one who had all the knowledge and expertise to teach them.

Y/N quieted for a few moments, likely fighting the urge to press for more or investigate the topic further.  Eventually, she spoke up again, and thankfully she was moving on to another question.

“I saw...do they...if they get hurt, will they bleed black, too?” she asked hesitantly.

Levi stiffened since this question brushed close to the events of the other night, which he really didn’t want her to pry into.  Still, it was a legitimate concern since she knew about that little detail of Levi’s physicality, now.  Of course she would worry about the twins.  What if one of them scraped their knee at the park and another parent saw?  How do you explain black blood instead of red?

“Not...for now.  Like I said, right now they’re still half human, and will be for a while.  At most, when they’re older, it might get a darker red, but until they become full demon they won’t be bleeding black.”

She nodded, the movement quick and jagged as she retreated again, able to sense ahead of time she was brushing close to a nerve.  “And...well, I guess first I should ask if you...I know sometimes I...I glimpsed something, or thought I did, but...there was once I thought your eyes were…”  She trailed off, holding his unwavering gaze and looking unnerved for a second before she abruptly switched tracks again, cheeks starting to flush.  “And those few times you had a...um...what I’m trying to ask...Are your eyes actually...that...color...and...do you actually have a tail?” she finished in a rush, the blush getting stronger.

Levi’s chin lifted slightly, and his lips twitched towards a smile for a brief second before disappearing, as if it hadn’t happened at all.  “I...do.  Sometimes.  I’ve got...another form.  Sometimes it bleeds through.  But this is what I look like, too.  What I look like, human.  Just like the twins look perfectly human.”

Best to get a jump start on that inevitable question of will the twins have a tail, different colored eyes, anything like that.  He could feel it coming.  Which is why he was trying to stress that yes, he had another form, but that technically came later.  He was pure human in how he looked before anything demonic started to peek through.

“So...this other form you have a-a...a tail...gold and black eyes...anything else?” she asked hesitantly.

Levi sighed, dropping his hand to the arm of the chair.  “Some.  Nothing I don’t think you’ll be seeing, though, so--”

“It’s just...curiosity, it’s been itching at me for a while, it’ll keep itching at me otherwise.”

Levi just hummed, refusing to divulge more on what his demon form looked like and waiting for her to continue.  He didn’t want her looking at him and seeing his demon form instead of him.

“Okay…” she eventually said slowly.  “So...do the twins…?”

“No,” Levi said with quick ease, ready for the question since he’d been expecting it.  “Almost anything to do with their demonic nature won’t show up or take place until they reach maturity.  And what is active at this point in their life is more of...passive traits that you won’t see manifest.  For all intents and purposes, right now, they’re human.  Think of their demonic heritage as lying dormant inside them until their late teens, early twenties.  You’ve got some time before anything like that starts happening.  My advice is to not worry about it, just focus on taking care of your children and enjoying their younger years.  Most of the demon stuff I’ll be handling when they get older.”

“And how will you be...handling it?  What will you be teaching them?” she asked cautiously.  Levi stayed quiet for a few moments and just watched her, getting a sense of what she was looking for.  It seemed, thankfully, that she was working on giving him the chance to give his view and opinion instead of just jumping to conclusions.  But, at the same time...this was something she wasn’t going to live to see, and he didn’t want to bog her down with worries and stress over something she wouldn’t have any control over, didn’t want to let her peek at the dark world behind the curtain, a world she would then have to be aware her children would eventually be a part of.  She didn’t need that on her conscience with everything else that she would eventually have to be weighed down with.

“If you’re worried I’m going to teach them to be soul sucking, heartless monsters, you can be rest assured I want the opposite...as much as possible with the demon thing, anyway.”

He decided to give her an answer of more substance to put some of her concerns at rest so that she could rest a little easier, but he also kept the gritty details to himself.  How he was going to handle their first experiences with their demon forms, talking to them about being demons, walking them through their diet, sweet mercy, he was going to have to guide his own children through the nitty gritty of being a succubus and incubus.

Nope.  He was not going to be entertaining that thought. No, no, no, not at all, not until he absolutely had to, and certainly not while his children were still too small to even crawl.

All those parents that just had to give the sex talk once and it was over with were fucking lucky.

She was nodding slowly, taking the time to nurse her wine before she spoke again.  “Well...on another note...I noticed...You said that almost every time in the past, mothers give up the babies if they don’t terminate the pregnancies.  So if it’s so uncommon...how do you know so much about raising demon children with a human parent?  The...safety parameters you keep talking about and all that?”

Levi quickly retreated further behind any and all emotional walls he had, tension gathering in his muscles.  “I don’t see what this has to do with the twins and you living under the same roof as me,” he said tersely.

She took a moment to rethink her words, continuing in a careful tone of voice.  “It’s just...you pushed so hard for me to give them up...because you were so certain it would save everyone pain--that’s what you said.  And you said it was an experience that let you know how the kids might feel.  Were you...one of those rare ones--”

“Stop,” Levi said firmly, cutting her off once again.  But this time, it was because it was personal.  And she was right.  And he didn’t want her to poke at this old wound in particular.  “We’re not talking about this.”

He could see it in her eyes, though.  She knew her hunch was right.  She knew his mother had been human, which is why he got so testy whenever the subject was about her and the kids, keeping her safe, reducing damage done and time spent with the kids.  She knew that he was guiding her through this with personal experience through the eyes of the child rather than the parent.  She knew he was a rare case that had the human touch when he was being raised and it made him different.

A touch that was part of the reason he was such an outcast in the demonic community besides being a lower class demon.  Having some humanity and an actual heart instilled into you in your youth instead of the usual drill of hatred and cruelty and chaos right from the start made quite the difference.

Thankfully, she backed off.  But they both knew she was right, and that would be enough for her.  For now.  Maybe in the future she might want more details, but for now, she seemed to be backing off, and in the future he wouldn’t talk about it, either.  He didn’t like to go back to those last few days before she…

No.  He wasn’t going down that road.  Not right now.

And now he was getting antsy again, feeling like these questions were building into bigger questions, questions he didn’t want to tackle even if it had been almost two years since he got her pregnant.

“Okay then…” she muttered, fingers idly tracing through condensation on her wine glass.  “Last question for today, then, I guess, then.”

She paused, and as the silence stretched past seconds and into minutes, Levi arched an eyebrow, wondering what this big final question was that she was hesitating to ask.  She’d already started to ask about his mother and childhood, his demon form, all kinds of strange or sensitive topics.  So what had her hesitating?

“You never told me, and I want to know...why?  Why did you...have to get me pregnant?” she said in a tiny voice.

Fuck, he jinxed himself by thinking it.

Immediately, Levi dropped his semi-relaxed position in the chair and got to his feet, starting to walk out of the room without stopping this time.  “No,” was all he said in parting.

“No?  Wait, why--” she stopped talking for a few seconds as she scrambled off the couch after him.  “Why not?  It doesn’t have anything to do with me besides why you did it, so it’s not an ignorance thing.  You only ever told me it wasn’t personal, and Isabel mentioned you didn’t want to, so I--”

Damn it, Isabel, what the fuck?

“It’s not going to make you feel better,” Levi said curtly as he was rounding the corner into the foyer.  Y/N was not giving up, hot on his heels as they both approached the stairs.

“That’s not why I’m asking.”

“Yes, it is.”

She huffed as they both climbed the steps, hands trailing along the banisters on opposite sides of the steps.

“Even if it was, it’s up to me to decide how I’m going to feel about it.”

Levi scowled, but he kept walking, almost at the crest of the stairs.  “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said darkly.

“I have the right to know why, Levi.  It’s been almost two years.  I have the right to know by now why all of this is happening in the first place,” she said firmly behind him, and he finally stopped at the top of the stairs.

His fingers tapped at the banister as he took a deep breath.  She did have the right to know why this had happened to her.  He didn’t...think that it would hurt her chances with the strict angels.  He wasn’t sure how it would make her feel about him.  He didn’t like the thought that it might influence her to take even more pity on him, on top of recent events.  But the why had to be confusing as hell for her.  Between Isabel’s apparent comment about Levi not wanting to do this in the first place but he’d very clearly gone through with it with vigor, his own back and forth with stances and emotional reactions to what was happening…

The why had to be killing her, and she only ever got breadcrumbs--and confusing ones at that.

He might not like it...but she had a point.  Two years almost...she deserved an answer.  Maybe it would help clear some things up for her.  Help put her mind at ease.

Help ease the blow later when he had to tell her what he’d done was going to kill her in a few years.  At least she’d know he didn’t want to do it.  She’d still be pissed at him, hate him, when he told her.  But maybe not as long.  Maybe they could at least preserve a coexistence with the kids, make something work still.

This could help...but he also really didn’t want to let her see too far into his dark world.  Again, he didn’t want her to fear for her children’s future when it was all going to be at a point she wouldn’t be there for them.

But again...she deserved what truth he could give her.  Wasn’t there already enough being kept from her?  Surely telling her this wasn’t going to do anything that would hurt her chances for redemption when she died.  Part of the reason he’d kept it from her originally was because of that fear, but now, thinking about it...it wasn’t going to effect her choices any more, was it?  She hadn’t known any of this when he got her pregnant, and not during, and almost a year after she gave birth.  Maybe it was safe to say it by now, because by now, it wouldn’t influence any key decisions...that he was aware of.  Her choosing to stay and raise the kids was her own choice, one made without any context of the circumstances.  The only way this could effect them was in their own strange relationship, right?

Fuck, this made his head hurt.  Why did this have to be so difficult…

Slowly, Levi turned partially back around, leaning back against the banister, each foot on a different step.  He took a few moments to choose his opening words, and thankfully Y/N was waiting for him to speak.

“What Isabel said, about it not being entirely voluntary...was true,” he said with a tired sigh and in a measured voice.  “I don’t exactly comply with what’s expected of a demon.  I’ve stepped on quite a few toes in the past, and I pissed off the...law, I suppose, of Hell one too many times.  They gave me a sentencing.  I had to either...sire demon offspring in three months, or be thrown into The Pit.”

She seemed frozen on those steps for a few seconds, staring at him with partial understanding.  He was leaving out a lot of important details--his repeated rebellion against acting like a demon, centuries of defying the Infernal Court and causing problems for his fellow demons and their dastardly activities, centuries of refusing to strike deals when that was one of ‘the main reasons for his existence,’ the circumstances he’d been brought to the court under on that day (Costing them a gold mine of so many souls in one fell swoop because he interrupted the ritual and then destroyed the instructions so no one could get their hands on it ever again), who the Infernal Court were in the first place, how they actually threw him into the pit for a few seconds to give him a taste…

Partially to act with caution and try to keep some of that ignorance intact, and partially to keep from revealing too much of his world to her.

“What’s the pit?” she eventually asked after a few moments of processing what he’d told her, currently not giving anything away in her expression while she was still gathering and understanding the information he was telling her.

“It’s...A place where souls are broken down until...you don’t want to know this stuff,” he said stiffly, turning away to fully crest the stairs.  Where was he even trying to run off to?  He didn’t have a direction when he tried to retreat, he just started walking hoping she wasn’t going to follow...apparently.

The study was probably the best option, since he knew he likely wasn’t going to sleep.  Especially after this discussion.

“Yes, I do.”

“No--”

“Yes, I do.”

“Fine,” Levi almost growled, running a hand through his hair as he turned back towards her.  “A fate worse than death.  Even demons are afraid of it.  Let’s just leave it at that, all right?” he said in an uncomfortable tone.

She nodded, stepping back a stair step.  “Um...all right.  All right.  So...you were put in a position where it was either...get someone, in this case me, pregnant...or a fate worse than death.  You didn't really...have a choice."

"No, I had a choice.  I could have told them to just throw me in The Pit," Levi said distantly.  He'd already wondered several times why he hadn't just gone with The Pit, why did he have to inflict all of this, going with The Pit might have saved more people.

"Yeah, but who's going to actually choose that?" She said softly.  "We're hardwired to survive, so when you're told to either suffer a fate worse than death or do this simple task--"

"It's not simple," Levi corrected her quietly.  "We actually have a low fertility rate, it...it's nature's way of keeping us from infesting the earth, I guess.  Normally it takes years, decades, centuries for this to happen."

"And they told you to do it in three months," she said slowly, realization in her eyes.  "They asked for an impossible task for your alternative...they wanted you to fail."

Levi wasn't looking at her anymore, he was staring off into the empty space across from him, waiting for this line of questioning to end.  After a few seconds of silence he focused more on the present, looking around briefly before he started walking towards the spiral staircase.  "If that's all…"

"Levi?" Y/N called out, causing him to pause, tense in anticipation to hear what she had to say now that she had the why that sounded so much like a pathetic excuse.

"Thank you for telling me," she said instead, and Levi started to turn to look at her in surprise before he stopped himself.  He let out a breath he was holding, waited a few seconds to make sure he was composed, then gave a small nod without looking at her.

"...Get some sleep," he said in a gruff voice, finally fully retreating to the office and leaving her standing on the steps.

*Reader’s POV*

While Levi had shut you down on a few topics that you’d tried to pry into, you’d gotten a surprising amount of information from him despite the blocks.  Some you’d pried for but hadn’t expected to receive an actual answer to, which made the answers you received all the more...shaking.

The little things had been relieving, at least, somewhat reassuring, calming to your curiosity.  Knowing your children weren’t going to be acting or looking or displaying anything demonic put to bed a lot of fears you’d been having for their childhood.  They would fit into normal society and you wouldn’t have to worry about people seeing them bleed black, or them suddenly displaying a tail in P.E. and all the concerned parents or bullying they’d have to encounter, men in black suits showing up to whisk them away…

But, Levi had assured her nothing like that would be an issue until they were older, practically adults, and Levi had talked like he knew exactly how to handle it, like he knew how to control the situation enough to avoid any messes like the nightmare scenarios in your head, like he wasn’t sharing the same concerns.

It was also nice to know you weren’t crazy, that you had, in fact, glimpsed his eyes shifting color.  And it hadn’t just been a weird dream fantasy that he had a tail.  He had a whole other form.  Of course, if you understood it correctly, he looked like this, first.  The demon form came later, as it would with your children.

And the immortality...that was something to get used to.  The thought--no, knowledge--that your children were going to far outlive you, would live centuries after you died.  It was a sobering, strange thought.  One you didn’t want to dwell too long on.

The main, interesting and jarring bits of information was what you found out about his past.  Knowing that he’d been raised by a human mother put a lot of his past comments into perspective.  His little comments that made no sense before, like his comment that they would remember everything they could about you, even with how young they were, suddenly shined a bright light on another side of who he was.  He was talking about himself--he clung to every memory he had of his mother, which is why he knew they would.  And his strange insistence the twins keep your last name, that they have that part of their mother…

Had Ackerman been Levi’s mother's last name?  And what happened to her to make him feel so strongly on the topic of mother's now?

Considering he'd cut her off with that question, and his silence and insistence you drop it had been the confirmation of your theory, you had the feeling he wouldn't give you those answers.  If anything, you might have to figure it out on your own.

But, obviously, the big thing was the revelation of why?  Why was all this happening to you in the first place?  He'd already told you that you'd been a randomly picked target, that there was no personal reason you'd been chosen, but that hadn't explained why it had to happen in the first place.  Now you knew, now you had answers...and it changed things.

Some of your previous theories had been that he just wanted the twins--and at the very beginning you’d feared it was for some nefarious, twisted reason, though the care and devotion he showed to them had quickly assuage that first fear--or that it was just something he did as a demon.  Really, you had always assumed it was all him, that he wanted it for whatever demonic reason.  Isabel had made you wonder, but it hadn’t really convinced you, yet, and you were still convinced that something cruel and dark in him had caused him to do it.  But hearing that he hadn’t wanted to do it in the first place, that someone had made him, that he’d been faced with doing this or a fate worse than death...it took so much of the perceived malice in his character and made it start to fade away.

It still took a couple days to really sink in, but...when it did...you knew how you felt, even if some of it was a little confusing in its logic.  You pitied him, and even felt bad for treating him like a fiend for so long.  No, it didn’t make that first year okay, where he got you pregnant on purpose and then disappeared for the whole pregnancy.  That would always hurt.  But the pain and anger softened and faded when you thought of what you knew of his side of the story.  Now you really could believe his words that he had no desire to hurt you, and he was doing the best he could with the situation.  He really was trying, and you certainly hadn’t made those efforts any easier--probably made it hell for him.  You didn’t feel in danger or threatened anymore, didn’t feel like he was cruel and trying to inflict all this pain on you and make your life miserable out of malicious intent.  And you couldn’t bring yourself to hate him anymore, knowing he'd been forced into this by vicious circumstance and had silently taken the brunt of your hatred and venom (for the most part), knowing perfectly well what he’d done, feeling like he deserved it so he just took it.  Knowing he was suffering more to protect you and the twins, somehow.

You could go on and on about the new light you were seeing him in.  It felt strange to have your heart pitying and feeling for him while your brain was still insistent and convinced that he’d wronged you, and you weren’t giving him a free pass for what he put you through...but you understood more of what happened now, and maybe you hadn’t entirely forgiven him, maybe you were almost there, but you certainly weren’t holding it against him anymore.  In a way...you wanted to just try and move past it by now, to be able to move on.  Maybe eventually you could forgive him.

Maybe.

There were still a few missing pieces, but what you’d become aware of had already shifted your stance so close to forgiveness you thought anything else he might reveal to you might further sway your heart to forgiving him.  Not yet, though.  You weren’t quite ready to let go, but you knew that someday, you could.

You just needed a bit more time--something he was always acting like you didn’t have enough of.

Well, when your children were apparently going to be immortal, that suddenly made sense.  You would be present for what would amount to a speck, a small blip, of their potentially endless long lives.

Still, like Levi had mentioned, that was a long way off, and right now you had quite a few important things you needed to be giving your attention to.  Such as figuring out how to make up for how awfully you’d been treating Levi up until recently.  He was no longer in a ‘trial period,’ by now it was obvious that his intentions were pure now, even if some of his methods had been seriously misguided in the past.  Hopefully he’d learned from them by now.

Though, if his guilt was anything to go off of...you’d have to get him to let you forgive him, most likely.

One step at a time, then.

*Levi’s POV*

Y/N had been gone all day, since it was one of her glass-blowing lesson days, and she tended to make it her me-time day.  Which meant that Levi had been in charge of the twins and puppy all day, making sure everyone’s needs were met and that all three stayed out of trouble...which was a hell of a lot harder to do all day than he’d expected it to be.

He tried immensely not to think about how this was going to be his normal in a few years, having to manage it all on his own.  He really didn’t want to think about that--it made him sick to his stomach, anxiety oozing off him in waves of his impending single-parenting.  Was he cut out for that?  Yeah, he’d been managing so far, but Y/N has been monopolizing control of the twins until recently, and even now he was aware that he still had less time with the twins than she did--which was not something he complained about.  They needed all the time they could get with their mother, since it was already so limited.  It just also meant less time for him to prepare and adjust to taking care of them by himself for long periods, let alone until they were adults.

At the moment, Captain was running free in the fenced in yard, his yips able to be heard from inside as the bundle of boundless energy ran unsupervised through the grass and around some of Y/N’s more recent additions to the yard--mostly plants and the occasional rock bed around a shrub or tree.

Inside, Levi was entirely focused on the twins in front of him, focused on trying to get them to crawl.  They’d been trying to for a little while, now, and since they were roughly about that age where they should be crawling about, he was trying to get them to make the proverbial first step.  Well, he was trying to get Ida to take that first step.  Asa didn’t give a shit and was laying on his back gumming mindlessly on the teething ring.  Ida, however, was entirely focused on her father, shifting from a sitting position to an at-the-ready crawl, in position to start moving but not yet moving, a position they’d both been stuck in for a while.

Every now and then Captain would start barking excitedly at a bird or a squirrel or a passerby outside, and Ida would momentarily lose concentration as she tried to seek out the source of the sound.  However, Levi would patiently reclaim his daughter’s attention, trying to get her to focus on him and come towards him.  He had all kinds of toys and snacks laid out in front of him like he was trying to lure her in with a buffet of favorites, but she would not budge.

Sighing as she returned to her hindquarters and stared with a perplexed look at her content brother, sat back and tried to rethink his approach and how to get this to work, especially when she kept getting distracted every two seconds.

“Ida,” he called again, getting the ten-month old’s attention as she blew little spit bubbles and kicked her feet against the ground.

Cute, he thought sarcastically…though if he was being honest, it was a little cute.  Grabbing the nearby burp cloth, he wiped her mouth and then scooted back against the couch, reaching out to place his hand just out of her reach and tapping his fingers on the ground in front of her.

“Ida...come here.  Can you catch me?” he asked, wiggling his fingers enticingly at watching her movements.  She tried to catch his hand from where she was sitting, but soon found it out of reach, and with burbling noises, she started to lean forward into that crouch, hoping that extra couple inches would help her reach his hand.  However, as she was shifting into position, Levi slid his hand back just out of reach again.  Once she discovered she still couldn’t reach, she let out a little frustrated yell, as if demanding he put it back in reach.  However, Levi’s hand stayed just barely out of her grasp.

“You can get it.  Come on, Ida.  You can crawl forward.  You just need to move your hands...come on,” Levi coaxed, making sure to wiggle his fingers here and there to keep up the enticing act. Ida continued to yell, bouncing in place with hands and legs planted into the ground, face scrunched up in frustration.

Eventually, she moved one of her hands while slapping the ground, and Levi’s heart skipped a beat for a second.  Was she about to move?  She was still throwing a fit, but maybe, if she realized she was a bit closer to his hand after doing that.

“That’s it, come on, more of that,” Levi encouraged, fingers wiggling more once she had moved her hand and was stretched out a little closer.  He’d even take an army crawl at this point.  They’d been relatively on time or even early with all their other developmental stages, but for some reason, crawling was taking a while for both twins.

Maybe it was because their parents had been spoiling them always bringing things to them and wanting to hold and carry them.

Well, not today.  She was going to move, damn it.  Asa he’d work on another day, that boy was so relaxed he could pass as a sloth right now.

Levi’s fingers wiggled again, and Ida tried to grab it with her other hand, fell onto her stomach--without hurting herself, otherwise Levi would have intervened--and then pushed herself back up to discover a bit of her leg action while pushing herself up had moved her forward a bit.  Levi’s hand scooted back minutely, since he was hoping to get her to crawl to his lap.

It took a couple more moments of this barely inching progress for Ida to realize she was getting closer to her father, and she started to wiggle about excitedly, getting up quicker (though more unsteadily) and belly flopping her way towards him in a messy way that looked more like she was doing a weak version of The Worm along the floor.  Even Asa had turned his head to watch his sister, though that was the most movement he did besides the constant gumming on the teething ring.  Maybe from watching Ida, Asa would be able to figure it out soon.

Safe from all onlooking eyes, Levi’s lips were fixed in a soft smile as he watched Ida inching her way after his hand, coming closer and closer and slowly gaining speed and momentum.

“Just a little further...that’s right, Ida, just a little further…” he encouraged her, eyes fixed on her as she got closer...closer…

When she was nearly touching Levi’s leg, he finally let her catch his hand, his smile widening slightly as she squealed in happiness to have finally caught his dancing fingers, legs kicking against the floor in a rapid thump.  He let her celebrate her capture for a few seconds before he snatched her up into his arms, feeling a warmth in his chest as he held her close in a hug, kissing the top of her head as he continued to smile, a bit of pride soaking past the joy he was currently radiating towards her in warm waves.  He gave her a few more kisses as she giggled and buried into his chest, Levi gently resting his cheek against her head as she dug in deeper, cocooning in his warm hug while he ignored any excited kicks that got him square in, say, the kidneys.

After a few minutes of her burbling giving him time to cool down from the excitement, Levi grimaced as more practical things started to settle in his mind.

“...Fuck...I have to babyproof the whole house now.”

“Not to mention there’s no more leaving them unsupervised on their playmats even for a second.  Not until we get past the don’t put that in your mouth stage.”

From the doorway behind him, Levi heard a familiar voice pipe up, causing his head to turn to see Y/N leaning in the living room doorway looking relaxed and refreshed.  She straightened up when he caught sight of her, coming over to where they were all gathered to kneel down next to Asa and tickle his tummy, getting a pleased giggle out of the boy as he dropped the teething ring to grab at her hand and hold her captive, his vice grip keeping her there as he tried to gum on her hands instead.

Levi sighed at her comment, already mentally coming up with a list of wall socket protectors, edge protectors, gates, what things he needed to move up out of crawling baby reach, and much, much more.  “At least right now it’s just crawling.”

“I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t make a difference.  I’ve heard horror stories about how fast a crawling baby can move.”

Levi glanced at her, doing a quick sweep over her to see what he could see.  It looked like she had a burn here and there from the glass blowing, but it looked like she’d also had a hair appointment, maybe a trip to the spa.  No, definitely a trip to the spa with the fragrance he was starting to catch wafting off her.  “I take it you had a good day.”

“I did,” she said honestly, gingerly replacing her hand with Asa’s teething ring and looking for a burp cloth to wipe her hand off on.  While she was doing that, Ida was set carefully in Levi’s lap as he gave her one of her favorite toys to play with while he talked to Y/N in what was turning into a reflex movement.  “Don’t you think you should have some break days, too?  So far it’s just me with a relaxation day.  The only time I see you go out…”

She trailed off, and Levi looked down at Ida.  “I’ve seen the world ten times over.  My idea of time to relax is a cup of tea and a book.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Y/N commented, moving over to sit near him, but on the couch instead of the floor.  “So...I made something in the glass blowing class today.”

“You normally do.”

“Something other than dishes,” she said with a slight roll of her eyes, reaching into her bag to pull out a small box.  Considering the lack of rattling, whatever was inside had to be wrapped and padded like it was in a bubble wrap suit.  To his surprise, she offered it to him.  “I suggest you put Ida out of reach, just to be safe.  It is glass.”

Levi looked at her curiously, carefully setting Ida on the ground next to him, pressed up to his knee where she was still there and making contact, but he could easily hold whatever this was out of her reach.

Carefully, Levi opened the box, peeling back tightly wrapped layers of tissue paper to eventually reveal...a tiny glass bird.  It wasn’t anything intricate or streamlined, but he could tell with the general silhouette, the unmistakable bird head with the tiny beak, the way the lines in the glass along the sides were meant to take the place of wings as it all smoothly went into a point in the back.  There were no legs, no defining differences in the shape, just the streamlined almost checkmark shape to its form, with the slight curves around the neck and curves of the head and the point of the beak marking the difference of the head from the body.  And again, the ‘wings’ were just there in his mind’s eye, since he knew that’s where the wings were supposed to be, and the lines in the glass helped him mark where they were supposed to be (and what they were).

“It’s supposed to be a blue jay, but...I’m not that good yet,” she mumbled in embarrassment, watching as he pulled it out of the box and fit it neatly in the palm of one hand with how tiny it was--the hand that was further from Ida, who was already trying to view the pretty glinting in the light that her father had.  “The beak isn’t long enough, it’s short and stubby, and there’s no little plume on the back of its head, but that’s what I was thinking when I made it.”

“It’s more complicated than anything else you’ve brought home,” Levi commented, wrapping it back up and putting it back in the box.  When he tried to hand it to her, though, she stopped him by shaking her head.

“No need to give it back to me--it’s for you.”

Levi blinked, staring at her.  “What?”

“It’s a gift.  It’s for you,” she repeated, raising an eyebrow when the box continued to hover in the air between the both of them.

Levi’s mind, however, was racing.  What did this mean?  Why the hell did she want to give him a gift?  Why a little glass bird, of all things?  What was he supposed to do with this?  Had he ever been given a gift--a real gift--before?  Besides a few trinkets from his mother in his early years, anyway.  Forget what he was going to do with the little figurine, how was he supposed to react to this?  He felt like his brain was crashing just looking at the little box between them that was still in his now hesitant grip.

He was just now starting to adjust to the cordial, calm, even friendly conversation.  Now she was gift giving, too?

I don’t deserve this.

Levi’s grip tightened slightly on the box, and he attempted to give it to her again.  This time she held up a hand to stop him.  

“It’s yours.  And you’re going to keep it even if I have to sneak it in or on your things for the next several months,” she said with a firm nod of her head.  “You might as well just accept it now because I plan on winning any debate you try to strike up in the end.

“Tch.”  Levi looked away, placing the box on the couch seat near his head out of Ida’s reach, picking her up once again now that the glass object was well out of reach.  She’d grabbed another toy while she was on the ground, so she was content for a while longer.  At the same time, Y/N had decided to pick up Asa, who smiled brightly at her when he got wrapped up in Y/N’s arms, cooing happily at her as Y/N gave him her modified version of a ‘kiss’ as she’d told Levi the other day--gently brushing their noses together side to side before letting Asa cling to her while she held him close, Asa continuing to coo.

“You’re such a little angel, aren’t you?” she murmured, mostly to herself speaking about Asa, but Levi still overheard it with how close they were to each other, and he couldn’t help the slight scoff that burst past his lips.  She glanced over at him, her cheeks starting to tinge pink.  “Sorry...bad choice of words.”

“Incredibly,” Levi said with a tinge of bitterness in his voice.  And he wasn’t just talking about the fact that everyone in this room but her was demonic.

Her gaze focused on him a little more at his statement, head cocked to the side as she seemed to notice something.

She was getting too good at picking up on his subtle cues...it was all this time spent around each other, the proximity.  They had no choice but to learn more and more about each other.  She was getting better at reading him--though Levi could write that off as survival instinct with how rough their first few months were--and was able to anticipate his routine by now, as well as the best actions around each routine--cold water in a water bottle in the fridge for the morning run, Captain’s needs taken care of and the twins put in the cribs in his room before he came home on Saturdays, messes cleaned up almost as soon as they happened if they could be addressed that soon, things like that.  For him, he was finally getting a grasp on her décor taste, had figured out the kinds of books she liked to pick out in the study, knew her most played songs right now, and had finally figured out what kind of breakfast foods she liked.  They were learning about each other every day--it was only a matter of time before they started getting to the deeper stuff.  She’d already started digging into some tough subjects the other day with all her questions.  He could try to do the same, but...he was afraid to get too close to the woman he knew would die in a few years.  It would make it all the harder when it inevitably happened--it was already going to be hard enough trying to get the twins through the fallout and to be a single father afterwards, he didn’t want to compound that suffering with grief over losing...whatever they might become if they got closer.  Friends, perhaps.  Right now they were more cordial partners in raising children.  But it seemed she wanted to mend this bridge between them into something a bit stronger, if the gift and her recent attitude towards him was anything to go on.

“I wasn’t thinking about, y’know, demons and angels and all that.  Just thinking of the sentiment.  Asa’s such a sweet, pure little boy,” she said lovingly in response to Levi’s tone, pulling Levi out of his thoughts as she started to coo over their son, tickling his sides and making the boy laugh and squeal.

Levi snorted.  He understood what she meant, but he didn’t even like the saying because it was so far from the truth.  “Angels are a bunch of self-righteous pricks who don't care what happens to anyone else so long as they get what they want,” he said, his bitterness more open this time.  Y/N seemed taken aback, but not upset.  More curious.

“Lots of personal experience with them?”

Levi glanced at her briefly, then shook his head.  “No.  Never met one that wasn't fallen.  But I've seen enough of their aftermath and ‘judgement’ to know.”

That’s enough of that shit, he thought to himself, gathering up Ida in his arms and standing up to start taking her to the kitchen, making sure she didn’t have any toys in hand so that she wouldn’t be distracted this time.

“C’mon.  I haven’t fed them yet.  Wanted to see if you were going to be here in time,” Levi said in a gruff voice, leading the way into the kitchen so they could feed the two tykes before they realized how hungry they were and got restless.

They fed the twins in comfortable silence, each of them doting on their held twin in the process and earning a couple glances from each other, always when the other wasn’t looking.  After being fed, both twins were fairly sleepy, which meant they were brought upstairs to go to bed, with how late it was.  Levi handed them both over to Y/N to put them to bed without any fuss since she’d been gone all day and would probably appreciate the special time with them.

With her preoccupied putting the twins to sleep, Levi retreated to the study with his unexpected gift to find a place for it.  He wasn’t going to be putting it in his bedroom, since the only time he really stayed in there was when he was injured or exhausted--or was trying to hide from Y/N for whatever reason, usually because he was injured and didn’t want her to know.

So, if he was putting this somewhere he was going to see it frequently, he should put it in the study, right?  That was the right thing to do with this, put it somewhere it was seen frequently?  At least that’s what he felt like he was supposed to do, like he should do.

Carefully and quietly, Levi pulled out and unwrapped the little glass bird, holding it in his hands for a few moments and gently setting it down on the front of the desk after a few moments spent looking over it again.  His fingers lingered over the cool glass surface before pulling away, feeling the slightest tingle in his fingers and his lips twitch slightly towards a smile as he thought of how...peaceful life with Y/N and the twins had started to become, how it was starting to feel...right.

Was this what it felt like?  Healing?

(A Few Weeks Later)

*Reader’s POV*

You were trying to get the twins down for a nap that they desperately needed, but, of course, they just weren’t having it right now.  Something was bothering them, you just didn’t know what.  They were screaming and crying like they were scared of something, but there was nothing to be scared of.  The house was empty and quiet, Levi was outside mowing the lawn--terrifyingly normal, that thought was--and Captain was sniffing around downstairs in vain for something other than his chew toys to munch on.  The puppy had already been taught not to chew on the furniture, and all the twins toys were packed up and out of reach, so eventually he would have to admit defeat.  Plus, he’d already been let outside to go about his business before Levi started mowing and Y/N put the twins down.

Maybe it was the lawn mower they didn’t like.  It was fairly loud, but all the way in here it was more like a background hum.  Did babies get nightmares this early in life?

Both twins were standing, holding tightly to the bars on their cribs and scream crying, making your head throb painfully with each ear-splitting cry.  “Shh, shh...I don’t know what’s wrong, you two, you’re going to have to help me, here.  What is it, what can I do?” you asked in a quiet but desperate voice.  They were changed, fed, and burped, they’d been playing for hours and were exhausted, they were comfortably dressed so temperature wasn’t a problem, you’d already checked them for fever or little injuries that might have escaped your notice, but you couldn’t find anything.

A tiny little snarl at the door caught you off guard, looking down to see tiny Captain standing at full attention and snarling with his gaze fixed at an empty corner of your bedroom.  The twins shrieked, making you wince, and you tried to figure out what the hell was going on as Captain started howling and barking in his high pitched puppy voice at virtually nothing.

“Captain, please, can you not do that right now, it’s too much with the screaming--” you started to plead, but of course, since he was a dog and couldn’t understand what you were saying, Captain just continued to bark and howl.  You groaned, lowering your head into your hands and trying to block out all the noise for just five seconds.  “Can everyone shut up just for five--”

The screaming got much louder, but this time you didn’t need to ask why--you were a contributor to the noise this time as you shouted out, feeling something sharp slicing into your side as you were flung backwards across the room, away from the crib.  Any more distinct scream you were about to make was cut off as the same clawed hand that just threw you like a rag doll and raked along your side was now wrapped around your throat.  A sudden weight was holding you down, knocking the breath out of you as you were pinned to the ground, suddenly feeling hyper away and immensely vulnerable with the position you were in, not even fully aware of what was happening yet and unable to call out for help with the hand cutting off your air supply.

Though, when you looked up, you sincerely hoped that whatever you were seeing was an oxygen-deprived hallucination.

It...it was a demon.  It had to be.  Colored in black and a sickly dark green, it was scaled from head to toe, looking more serpentine than anything right down to its reptilian eyes of burning red and the slimy tongue that was slithering out of its mouth between sharp fangs.  There were porcupine like spines running down from its neck down its thick tail, and more going from wrist to shoulder, and from it’s back protruded scaly, ripped up bat wings, currently stretched out as if to shroud you in further darkness.  Some of its saliva slipped off its tongue and onto your cheek, and it burned immediately on contact.

It didn’t need to cut off your oxygen, you stopped breathing from shock and fear the moment you looked up at it.  You were tense, feeling a warmth at your side and staying rigid in fear of what came next, what it was going to do, if it was going to kill you or worse.  You couldn’t even get its hand off your neck, you knew you had no hope of getting it off you, that you couldn’t do anything to kill it.  Levi had said no human means could kill him, which meant you couldn’t do shit against this thing.

And this thing was terrifying, its red eyes holding you hypnotized below it as it squeezed harder, and you realized it was going to either crush or snap your neck in the next second.

Another snarling sound ripped through the room, and suddenly another creature was on the back of the one attacking you, shifted to the side to avoid the spines along its back as it’s much smaller fangs sank into its neck, a tail and arm wrapping around one of the creature’s wrists to pull it by force away from your throat, giving you a bit of reprieve.  With legs wrapped around the creature to keep the new one on them, the other arm grasped at one of the spines protruding from it’s arm, broke it off to elicit a scream of pain from the reptilian creature, and buried it into the other side of its neck.  The reptilian was reeling back in pain at that point, both arms scratching for the smaller and slighter being that had attacked it from behind.  The reptilian got ahold of them fairly easily, considering the way the second being had attached to them focused more on doing damage and distracting than holding on.

The second arrival was ripped off the reptilian’s back and flung across the room, crashing into the dresser with the noticeable sound of cracking and splintering wood.  After a grunted groan, the second figure stood to attack again, and you got the briefest glint of familiar eyes, jarring you into sudden realization.

It was Levi.

You knew those gold and black eyes.  That slender tail.  The rest was all strange and new to you, that demonic form he hadn’t wished to speak of the other night.  The powerful draconic wings with their claw tips, the horns that curved over his head, the strange markings of black across his body that occasionally started to glow golden.

He lunged at the reptilian demonic creature again, nimbly moving around it’s larger, thicker limbs, using the bulk of his opponent to his advantage as his slighter build allowed him to move faster, coming at the creature with the spine he’d ripped off once again, holding it like a knife instead of the organic protrusion it was as he stabbed at what you assumed were weak points in the creature’s reptilian armor.

“Get the twins!” Levi barked at you as he raked fingers into the creature’s serpentine eyes and pushed its head to the side, causing it to stagger in a direction away from the cribs, giving you a momentary opening.  You darted by, shrieking as it’s arm barely missed your head, a deep lash from Levi’s tail causing it’s hand to recoil.  You heard Levi cry out behind you as the creature snarled again, glancing over your shoulder as one arm lifted Asa into your embrace first, seeing Levi drop with a hand covering claw marks that had raked across his face.  The reptilian demon was rushing you, and you tried to jump out of the way, while keeping Asa out of harm’s way, and trying to get Ida out of her crib with your other arm because this thing was bulky and you were afraid it’s charge was going to crash into Ida’s crib as well.  It resulted in a painfully awkward movement, your back to the creature as you shielded the twins with your body, Ida barely in your arms, losing your balance and starting to fall, desperately trying to position yourself so the twins were still shielded and you fell on your side with the twins off the ground.

The thing’s hand swiped through the air where you’d been before you fell, eliciting an instinctual scream before it’s tail swept across the ground, spines slicing up your back and causing you to see spots, too disoriented for a few seconds to immediately react, even as your brain was screaming for you to get up and get the twins out of there.  You pushed up with one arm into a position on your knees and tried to scramble up and away, hearing the snarling right behind your head and too afraid to turn your head or stop moving, your mind imagining jagged fangs about to sink into the back of your neck, paralyzing or killing you in the next moment.

A furious sound came out of Levi, and that terrifying presence lessened as you scrambled to the door, hoping you could make it down the stairs before it came at you again, mind flashing through scenarios of being pushed over the bannister around the balcony styled U hallway, or being pushed down the steps--or worse falling down the steps yourself in your haste to escape.

There was a very human scream of pain behind you, and you couldn’t help but look back towards the room you were vacating, catching sight of Levi and the creature grappling on the floor in what had to have been a desperate move to yank the thing away from you and the twins, since Levi was on the bottom and in a very, very bad position because of it.  But they were fighting very basely with claws, teeth, fingers, anything they could use, and Levi was pulling the creature’s head back from his torso with a spray of black blood, enduring another slash of claws along his side as the clawed tips of his wings sunk between scales across the creature’s flesh and he pushed the thing back long enough to go for the front of the throat with his own, smaller fangs.

You looked away before you could see that gruesome scene, or if it even hit.  You had to get out of here, before something terrible happened.  Levi was hurt badly, and you didn’t think he was going to win this fight.  Which meant you had to get the twins out of here while he was buying you time.

Captain appeared at your heels, barking and racing down the steps beside you, making it harder to focus on keeping from falling down the stairs since you now had a puppy right there yipping in alarm.  He must have been hiding from all the fighting and commotion and scary creatures in the house until he saw you running and decided to stick with his fleeing, hurt, secondary master.

You almost made it to the door, heart pounding in terrifying volume as you realized there wasn’t the sound of a fight upstairs anymore, hearing movement behind you.  The twins were clinging to you like a lifeline and screaming, so it was easy to shift them so they were both held in one arm, the other that had been prepared to open the door grabbing instead an umbrella by the door when you felt the presence right behind you, swinging wildly and managing to connect against something solid with a resounding crack that broke the umbrella.

However, it wasn’t the reptilian creature now staggering backwards at the attack, but Levi, holding a hand up to catch the broken umbrella you had been about to stab with, since it now had a jagged and pointy edge.  You stopped halfway through the motion after seeing it was the blood soaked and very injured Levi in his normal human form, black smeared across his face where he’d wiped blood away from his eyes.

“Good hit,” Levi grunted, tossing the umbrella aside after pulling it out of your hands.  His hands gently grasped your shoulders, mindful of the spots the spines had raked across your back.  “Get the twins and Captain in the car, I’ll pack necessities.  We’re going on that trip you turned down,” he said flatly, the only emotions you could pick up on being pain and haste.

“Are you--” you started to ask, but Levi pushed you towards the door.

“Go!” he barked, hurrying towards the living room where the two of you kept the twin’s diaper bags mostly packed.

Thank God they were fancy ones with portable crib bassinet things--it was a place the twins could sleep even if wherever they ended up didn’t have cribs.  You were surprised you were able to have that logical thought after what you just witnessed, but there it was.

You did as Levi told you to, heading right out the door with Captain still yipping on your heels as you made a beeline for the car.  The first thing you did was get the twins into their car seats, relieved that at least all their needs were taken care of, they just needed to be calmed down after all that chaos, now, so you didn’t have to worry about pulling over to handle any dirty diapers or feeding time for a while.  Though, with their screaming and fussing and flailing, it made it difficult to get them both into their car seats, especially since you were hurt and trying desperately to ignore it long enough for all of you to get out of there and get somewhere safe.

While you were trying to get the twins in their seat, Levi was moving surprisingly fast for the most injured one in the group, throwing the diaper bags into the back, disappearing a little longer to throw in a small suitcase for himself, and a larger one with you--likely packed with the milk pump.  He also added some of Captain’s things, some formula, you saw a first aid kit shoved onto the dash in the front as he darted past to throw in a third suitcase.  You also saw him pause to make sure he had his black card, and when he was finally slowing down on packing things into the car after scooping up Captain and adding him into a safe spot in the back where none of the bags would fall on and hurt him, Levi pulled out that cellphone of his you rarely saw and started to make a call while you worked on calming the twins down, giving them little pats and your nose kisses and butterfly kisses and shushing and singing to them to try and calm them down.  When they started to calm down, Levi waved for you to get into the passenger seat as he slid into the driver’s seat, somehow able to temporarily ignore the heavily bleeding wounds that had him limping around, even favoring one of his sides.  He was hurt, and it was affecting him, but he was pushing through it on either necessity or adrenaline or both.

He seemed all right for the time being, so you let it go and decided not to say anything...for now.  Right now, it seemed you were the most hurt one, crawling into the front seat to discover he’d thrown two towels into the passenger seat as well.  One you placed up on the dash since you didn’t need it, but the other you grabbed and pressed into your side as you got into the seat, forced to sit strangely curled up on your side since the placement of your injuries made it painful for you to lean back against the seat.  With the towel, though, you were able to press against the wounds and start to staunch the bleeding, squeezing your eyes shut and trying to focus on your breathing as Levi started the car and started flying down the road in what you were sure had to be illegal speeds, or at the very least flirted with the line of what a cop might excuse.

During the drive, Levi kept talking over the phone, and while you couldn’t hear the other side, the conversation made it easy to guess who was probably on the other side of that call.

“No...this one was a stranger.  I don’t know who they were, what they wanted specifically, or how the hell they found us, but I have theories, and none of them are good,” he said darkly, glancing over at you with his expression lightening to concern for a moment.  “Are you okay?  Are any of them hospital treatment deep?”

“I don’t know,” you said in a small voice.  You’d never been in this situation before, and you weren’t sure what the hell he meant by ‘hospital deep.’  Was he suggesting that you weren’t going to go to a hospital for this?  That you were just going to drive to a different house and hope you weren’t hurt too badly?  “Your face…”

“I’ll heal, he said curtly, shrugging off the inquiry with his eyes fixed on the road, phone straightening to bring the speaker closer to his mouth again.

“They got a few good hits in...no, I’m taking them to the beach house.  The twins aren’t hurt, just Y/N and me.  I think she’ll be okay, I need to take a closer look when we stop, but I don’t think that’ll be necessary.  I would, but we’d be sitting ducks until she got discharged.  We’ll have to make due.  Just see what you can find.  There’s still one hell of a mess at the house, you might be able to find something.  And figure out how the address got out, and what the hell we can do to fix this mess.”

Levi hung up, wincing slightly and shifting in the seat.  It was then you could see that he had black soaking through the shirt in his side and staining the clothes so deeply it looked sticky.  “We’re going to a small beach house I have on the coast...until Furlan and Isabel can make sure the house is safe again.  It’s got the basics, but we might have to buy some necessities beyond what I packed.  It’s a bit of a drive, but...I think I can make it.  I don’t sleep much, anyway.  Just...keep applying pressure.  I want to get as far as possible before we have to stop, there might be more.  Maybe, I don’t know...I don’t know who that was or why they were there, I just know we can’t stay there right now,” Levi rambled to you, gaze fixed forward but occasionally flickering to the rearview mirror and the twins, or you nursing your injuries.  “How are you feeling?  Light headed?  Dizzy?”

“I think...shock…” you mumbled, and to your surprised, Levi reached out to touch an uninjured part of you.

“Stay with me, all right?  I can get us somewhere safe, just hang in there.”

You nodded weakly, surprised by but not unwelcoming to the small gesture of comfort and protection he was currently giving you as you sat there trying to staunch the bleeding and stay awake and alert, while also ruminating on what the hell just happened.  Not even Levi knew, but it sounded like he was going to find out one way or another.  Or at least Furlan and Isabel were going to try and find out for him while he kept an eye on you and the twins to make sure you stayed safe.

As much as you tried to go through what happened and wrap your head around it, you couldn't, not yet anyway.  It was like you were in a functioning state of shock, able to move around and take care of yourself and the twins but not quite processing what the hell just happened.  Eventually you would, and you were certain when that happened you were going to have a meltdown, but at the moment, the shock was delaying that freak out.

You mostly stayed curled up in your seat trying to stay calm and make sure you weren't going to bleed out, aware that Levi didn't want to have to stop at a hospital for safety reasons and sincerely hoping that you weren't going to need a hospital.  Every now and then you would hear Levi grunt and shift next to you, which at first you ignored.  However, when his breathing changed, something that was noticeable to you in the silence of the vehicle with him right next to you, you turned just enough to look at him.

He only had one hand on the wheel now, as his other was pressed into his side, fingers clenched into the fabric over the dark black spot that seemed to only be getting worse, black seeping through and staining his fingers.  It should have been clotting by now, on its way to healing based on the way Levi talked.  He was also paler than normal, and you could see a sheen of sweat appearing on his face, neck, even glinting on his arms.  He also looked stiff, rigid, and he was blinking rapidly, shaking his head as if he kept having to shake himself awake.  Not to mention his breathing had picked up, heavier and quicker than it should have been.  He was struggling, and it looked like he was only getting worse.

“Levi, you don’t look good,” you said quietly, attempting to sit up a bit more properly in the seat.

“I can make it to the house.  Don’t have much of a choice,” Levi grunted, voice clearly strained.

Now you were more than just a little concerned, reaching over to try and touch and see what was going on with him, trying to teach the wound to see if there was something about it he was trying to hide.  When your fingers brushed along the wound for the briefest moment, Levi grunted and flinched away, his grip on the wound and steering wheel tightening.

“Don’t, just...don’t,” he ground out, his grip loosening when his arms quickly began to shake from the effort.  “I’ll live, just...don’t touch it in the meantime.”

You didn’t quite believe him, but with him driving and not willing to be touched, there wasn’t much you could do to help or pry further besides annoyingly press the subject in conversation.  So you had to settle for watching him.

You were content for a short while, not able to pick up anything other than what you’d already seen that something was wrong.  Besides him seeming to get paler...shaking more...sweating more...it seemed like it was getting harder and harder for his eyes to stay open.

When he swerved on the road, swearing as he got back inside the lines but he continued to sway back and forth for a few more beats, was when you reacted again.

“Levi!” you said loudly, sitting up sharply as the car swerved and he cursed, a hand out on the dash, heart pumping rapidly.  You were still hurt, but you were alert all over again, not about to let the matter slip again.

“Shit…” he breathed, and to your surprise, he roughly guided the car to the side of the road.  “Shit...take the wheel...you want exit...27…for...Fuck--”

Levi cut off as the rough grind to a halt jostled him, and he put the car in park long enough to stagger out of the vehicle.  Realizing that you needed to move because he was going to try and sit where you currently were, you got out as well to see him leaning heavily on the car and keeping one hand on the vehicle to stabilize himself.  He was walking unsteadily, and suddenly you were afraid that he was just going to get worse and worse until…

You tried to reassure yourself that he was immortal, that he couldn’t die, but he had said, specifically, he couldn’t die by human means.  And that thing was not human, and Levi had been hurt badly.  The gashes across his face were still prominent, but you thought they looked like they at least started to heal.  A bit.  Maybe.  Maybe you were just hoping for things so hard that your eyes were deceiving you.

You touched his arm briefly as he slipped past you, gaze roaming across what you could see to try and tell if he was hiding any other injuries that could further explain his rapid decline--besides the obvious bite to his torso he was trying to staunch the bleeding from, and the scratch across his face.  It looked like there were claw marks, places where those wicked talons dug into his body in the struggles, random places that looked like it had just been a place within reach during the struggle.

Levi didn’t do anything to stop your passing prod, too focused on trying to get to the passenger seat to really complain about it.  He simply passed by without a word, getting around the door you left open to slide into the passenger seat before you only because you stopped by the driver’s side door to watch him and make sure he would get in without incident.

Once you were both in the car, he slumped into the passenger seat and grabbed the other towel, dabbing at his face before pressing it into his side with a muffled moan.  Hesitantly, you got back onto the road, knowing what exit you were waiting for, but not where exactly you were going, and now further concerned for Levi’s health.

“Levi, where am I going?” you asked, glancing at him to see his face twisted in pain, his breathing labored.

“Saint Augustine Beach.  It’s an adobe house.  Big drive up.  You can’t miss it.  Address is...in my phone.  Pre-programmed under...Open Air”

“Shouldn’t we...I don’t know, get you to a hospital?  Is there some kind of back room healing for demon kind or something if you know where to look?  That kind of thing happens in the movies--”

“This isn’t the movies.  They won’t know what to do with me.”

“Well, I don’t know!” you said in frustration, some of your worry and panic leaking through.  “It looks bad, Levi, and it looks like you’re getting worse instead of better--shouldn’t we pull over and do something?”

“Gotta keep moving, in case there’s more.  At least until we get to the next safe house.  We don’t want to be sitting ducks,” Levi forced out.

“Are you sure you’re going to make it there?” you asked in concern.

“Don’t have much of a choice.”

That didn’t instill much confidence in you.  Especially since he appeared to still be bleeding, albeit slowly.  That wasn’t normal, even by normal standards he should have either bled out or the wound should have clotted by now.  And as the silence in the car prolonged, his breathing got faster and heavier, his clothes started to stick to him because of sweat as much as blood, he couldn’t keep his eyes open, and he would...convulse.  Mildly, at first, with just some tensing and relaxing over and over.  But it was getting more noticeable, until he suddenly went rigid, grunted, and then promptly passed out instead of relaxing.

Nope, no arguing, no going with his plan, no asking for permission.  He just had...did he just have a seizure?  Whatever precluded it wasn’t normal, and he was unconscious now.  Which also meant he couldn’t protest what you just decided you were going to do.

You took the next exit near a town that you passed, slowing down the high speed you’d both been keeping while driving to match the more in-town acceptable speed.  You passed by the gas stations, the fast food restaurants, all of it until you reached the motels.  The hotels.  A place to stay.

A place where you could stop and figure out what the hell was wrong with him, and then go from there to figure out how to help him.

You pulled into the motel, just in front of the reception area, and then got out of the car, rushing to the back to open the suitcases until you found your clothes, so you could quickly change into a shirt that wasn’t bloodied and torn up, just long enough so you could get the rooms.  You were in and out in no time with the key to a two bed room, driving the car closer to the room before starting the rush to get the twins safely inside, first, and then rushing the bags in, and then finally coming back for Levi once everything was inside.

You didn’t bother with unpacking.  That could come later, after you were certain Levi was stabilized and no longer…

You really didn’t want to think he might possibly be dying, you didn’t know enough to confirm that, but it looked like it.

Carefully, you got your arms around him, pulling him towards you and wincing at how hot he felt to the touch, how feverish he actually was.  You couldn’t lift him on your own, not with your injuries as well, so you paused in a rather compromising position, moving his head side to side and lightly slapping his cheek to try and get him to wake up, or at least get conscious enough he could stagger along with you.

“Levi...Levi, wake up.  Just for a little bit, please?  Levi,” you repeated as you worked on waking him up.  It took a few moments, but eventually he was roused, just barely, his eyelids fluttering as he tried to focus back on the present.  “C’mon, up you go, just for a few moments, I have to get you inside,” you said in a low murmur, hefting Levi up and glad to feel a bit of a grasp on your shoulders to show he was putting in the effort to get up with you, however slight.  He still put almost all of his weight on you, which meant you did most of the work, but his own two feet at least were under him, and he was trying to move with you instead of being dead weight you had to drag or carry.

You got him inside with quite a bit of effort, shutting the door behind you both with your foot and lugging him over to the clear bed--the twins were on the other one--and laying him down on the bed.  He was semi-conscious...though that might have been a stretch.  At the most it was just a bit of head tossing and little moans or groans of pain while he was still conscious at least.  However, he was in no position to be protesting right now, and even if he was, you wouldn’t let him.

Now...to get a better look at that bite.

Carefully, you peeled off the shirt that was practically attached to him like a second skin, revealing what was far beyond the nasty bite wound you’d been expecting to see.  It was ripped open and nasty like you had envisioned, but even further that that, a dark, almost black green discharge seemed to be oozing out with the black blood--maybe that was why it was so dark, mixing in with his black blood.  The area around the wound itself was swelling and red, and the skin was discolored around it, black veins spider webbing quite a ways up his torso.

“Shit...shit,” you cursed, sliding back off the bed to shuffle through the mess of things by the door, looking for your phone.  It took you a few seconds to find it, but when you did, you quickly hit one of the pre programmed quick dial numbers, putting it on speed dial as you hurried back to Levi’s side.

Fuck, why the hell did he think he could hold out until they reached a beach house that was still quite a damn ways away?

You paused for a moment as your gaze swept over him again, this time noticing a strange mark that almost seemed burned into the center of his upper chest, one that meant nothing to you, but still stood out as something...important.  You didn’t know why, but it made you feel uneasy, foreboding, with a cold chill running down your spine.

Now wasn’t the time to be focusing on strange markings, though.  Right now, you needed to be focused on that bite.  So, you shook your head violently to get rid of the more random thoughts, snapping back to the present as you waited for the other end of the line to connect.

“Fucking dumbass,” you swore at him, getting up again to cross the room and grab some of the little paper cups at the sink and start filling them with water.

“I hope you’re not talking about me,” came a voice from your phone over on the bed.  You hurried back over, cups in hand, which you quickly sat on the nightstand.

“No! No, Furlan, thank God--Levi’s...He’s hurt really bad.  It’s some kind of bite he was hiding, and--”

“Bite?” Furlan asked sharply, and you knew whatever this was, it was major.

“Yeah, I saw it happen.  Ripped right through.  There’s this strange dark discharge mixed in with his blood, and it’s all swollen and red.  Not to mention the veins around it are showing up black--”

“How far along?”

“Um...about two thirds, almost,” you said, getting cut off by a swear from Furlan.  He was usually so composed, it made your heart drop down to your stomach to hear that change, knowing it could only mean one thing.

“Has it reached his heart?”

“Not yet--”

“I need you to get him in something close to a sitting position, make sure his heart is elevated above the wound, okay?  Isabel--you need to walk her through first aid for a venomous bite from an Amanoyan, I have to get my hands on the antivenom in the next hour, or…”

You didn’t hear the rest, because Furlan had apparently passed the phone off to Isabel and was now running off to get an antivenom.  “Amanoyan?” you asked as Isabel was giving a rushed reply to Furlan asking how the hell she was supposed to get ahold of him if she had his phone.  She didn’t answer you until she had some kind of answer from Furlan that you did not hear.

“It’s named after the demon Amaymon, because Amaymon had a deathly poisonous breath.  Have you moved Levi?”

“Um, yes,” you stuttered, still adjusting him to try and make sure he was comfortable but, like they’d told you, his heart was elevated above the wound.

“Okay...it’s to his torso, you said, so there’s a lot we can’t do to buy Furlan time to find the antivenom.  But we still have some options.  I need you to get your hands on some water, a lot of it, and rinse out that wound until you’re not seeing the discharge anymore,” Isabel coached.

Thankfully you’d had the foresight to get water, so you had some immediately on hand to do as she asked, flushing out the wound even though it took a few more trips to the sink to do it enough times you weren’t seeing that nasty discharge anymore.  During the process, Levi came close to consciousness again a few times, squirming in place in reaction to the pain, his expression twisting, fists clenching into the sheets, moans or sharp gasps of pain escaping with initial surges of pain.  You had to ignore each part and keep going, hoping he wouldn’t come to full consciousness and try to shove you off him or anything like that.

When you were certain that you got it all out, you spoke up to Isabel again.  “Okay, it’s all cleaned out.  What next?”

“Have you ever put a compression bandage on someone?” Isabel asked worriedly.

“No…”

“Okay, I’m going to need you to listen to me very carefully, because this has to be done properly or it can do more harm than good, but we need the extra time if he’s as far along as you’re describing,” Isabel said, every word clear and enunciated.  You had a slight shake to your hands, but you were ready to try, intent to get it right for Levi’s sake.

You couldn’t do this, this whole thing with the twins, any of it, without him.  You might not have known that before, but you sure as hell were aware of how obvious it was, now.  “Okay...I’m ready.”

“Do you have access to a first aid kit?  I know Levi was packing when he called.”

“There’s one in all this, yes.”

“All right, so, I need you to see if you can find some elastic bandages in there.  It’s all you’ll need, but you have to wrap it up tight...Can you find some?”

Isabel gave you time to search, her question coming before you could locate the first aid kit itself.  “Hold on, I just kind of threw everything in here, give me...a moment...here.  Yes.  There’s some in here.  Looks like a new roll, too.”

“Good.  All right, I’m going to need you to tell me exactly where on his torso the bite is, and I’ll tell you where to start and stop wrapping, okay?”

“Okay.  Should be easy enough,” you mumbled to yourself before Isabel started to guide you through wrapping up Levi’s wound step by step.  It was all fine and dandy until you did the first tightening of the wrap, and your back spasmed in pain, and you felt a bit of a dampness gathering along the back of your shirt after what felt like a bit of a tear.  You let out a slight cry at the sensation, and Isabel immediately spoke up.

“Y/N?  Are you okay?  Did something happen?”

“It’s nothing, I’m...I’m hurt too, it’s just...I think that reopened some of the wounds on my back, pulling like that.  I wasn’t expecting it.  Just give me a second and I’ll keep going.”

“Normally I’d tell you if you’re hurting yourself, don’t, but you’re the only one there and Levi needs this, so…”

“I know,” you grunted as you worked on trying again, following Isabel’s instructions on how tight the wrapping was supposed to be and how much it was supposed to cover.  It was slow work since you had to pause every now and then with the pain in your side and back, but you made sure you were wrapping it properly, tightly, and that it covered as much as Isabel told you to.

“Okay...okay, I wrapped him up.  Is there anything else I can do for him?”

“No.  Nothing that’s safe to you, anyway.  Now it’s just a waiting game until Furlan can get his hands on the antivenom and can get it to you.  Where are you staying?”

“Um...let me...look,” you muttered, grabbing your phone to get a location so you knew where the hell you were, and then promptly copy and pasting it into a text that you sent to Isabel’s phone.  “There.  We’re in room 219, when Furlan comes looking.  I won’t be going anywhere,” you told her.

“All right...just hang in there, keep an eye on Levi.  If he gets worse, call me.  There’s...options, we can consider if he’s getting worse.  Keep an eye on his heart rate, and if those veins spread beyond the bandages, especially if they show up on his upper chest or neck, call me back immediately, okay?  I’m going to get off the phone so you can take care of the twins and I can get back to finding out who’s behind all this, okay?”

“Okay...thank you, Isabel,” you said sincerely, and Isabel responded with a quick ‘you’re welcome’ before hanging up the phone, leaving you with the unconscious and currently fatally wounded Levi and the sleeping twins.

You looked over at the other bed where the twins were still in their carriers, and then down at Levi, who had sweat-soaked hair sticking to his face and a deathly pale complexion, eyes moving rapidly beneath his lids and breathing shallow and labored.  As much as you didn't want to leave his side right now, you kind of had to in order to take care of the twins.

Quietly, you went over to the other bed and set about getting the fold out, detachable 'cribs' off the diaper bags.  Setting them side by side on the bed allowed them to still be comfortable and soft despite the sheer bottom, and a stuffed animal in each with a travel baby blanket in each crib made the temporary bed more comfortable and close to their usual setup.  Trying to continue the trend of moving quietly so you wouldn't disturb their sleep, you unbuckled them from the carriers and laid them down in the cribs.  Once they were put to bed, you cleaned off the bed, then headed over to the bathroom section of the small hotel room with the first aid kit to do some cleanup on yourself.

You were hurt, too.  You hadn't been envenomed like Levi had, but you were still hurt and needed to attend to washing and dressing your own injuries.  So, after a shower to wash out all your injuries and sooth your bruised and beaten body, and after some rooting around in the first aid kit for what you needed and some googling for basic directions on how to stitch closed wounds yourself, you started with the easier to reach injuries to work on, placing yourself in front of the mirror to get extra angles as you worked slowly and carefully to stitch up the gashes in your skin that you could reach.  It was painful work, made even more painful with how slowly you were moving, but you were trying to do it properly so it wouldn’t have to be redone and so that it wouldn’t do more harm than good.

After some time, you managed to do most of the worst of your injuries, stitching some and simply putting a bandage over others.  You would have continued, but while you were looking in the mirror, you caught sight of Levi’s feet moving in the background, and quickly realized he was convulsing again, and much more violently this time.

“Shit,” you cursed again, putting down what you were doing immediately so you could rush back into the main room, cursing yourself for staying out of the room as long as you had.  Even if you hadn’t expected it to take you this long to try and treat your own wounds so you could be more useful, you should have known better than to stay out of the room as long as you had without checking on him.

You pulled your shirt back on as you rushed into the room, getting beside Levi on the bed and glancing at the clock to see that hour Furlan had said he needed to act in was very nearly up.  On the bed, Levi was in the middle of some violent convulsions, his skin burning to the touch, lips looking paler, almost bluish.

A thousand myths and theories were running through your head, trying to remember what you were and weren’t supposed to do when someone was having a seizure, completely unaware of what rules still applied when you were dealing with a poisoned demon.  Worried that he might choke on his own saliva while he was on his back, you at least gently rolled him onto his uninjured side, moving the bed pillows under his head to give his head a bit more support, and then simply watched helplessly, hands fluttering over his body without doing anything since you didn’t know if there was anything you could do.

Scattering up his neck from his torso like lightning through the sky were those blackened veins, sticking out against even the nasty bruise along his back from where he landed multiple times while getting thrown around in the fight.

Feeling panic starting to settle in, you eased onto the bed next to him, one hand lightly tangling in his hair and brushing it out of his face and away from his neck as you sought out the phone again, staring at the veins in fear.

He’s getting worse.  Veins blackening at the neck.  Seizing.  Lips blue.

You didn’t need to be near Isabel or Furlan to know they were cursing wherever they were, you were cursing, too, helpless to do anything except sit nearby and watch.  You had no antivenom for the demon that bit him, you’d already cleaned and wrapped his wound...you had no experience with this kind of thing, no idea how to handle this or what to do but wait and pray.

Not that praying for a demon was going to do either of you any good.

Almost.  If you have to do CPR, do it.  Furlan’s almost ready.

What kind of instruction was that?  You didn’t have anything you could do to give him more time?  Hadn’t Isabel said there were last ditch options to buy him time, and wasn’t now the time for that?  Especially if you were officially being told that your main goal was to keep him breathing and his heart beating.  Or were they really going to bank on Levi being able to naturally hold on until Furlan got here?

You glanced fearfully at the twin travel cribs over on the other bed, terrifying scenarios flashing through your mind of what would happen if Levi died from this, especially now that you’d just had an up close and personal look at one of the threats out there to the twins' safety.  Knowing that there was probably more, knowing that there was so much you didn’t know, knowing that you had been overwhelmed and terrified staring down single parenthood before all this Heaven and Hell stuff came into play...you didn’t want to do this without him.  The thought terrified you, now.  All those times earlier on you’d practically or blatantly told him to go die, and now that he might, you were petrified by the thought.

Of course, now you were more aware of the person who was currently dying in front of you.  You were no expert by any means, many parts of Levi remained a complete mystery, but...you didn’t want him to die.  And you wanted him in the twins' lives.  And you wanted your...your...companion in raising them.  You didn’t want him leaving you alone with all of this.  The thought of him dying left you with the feeling of standing alone in a vast darkness holding a weight that was dragging you deeper and deeper down when he’d been helping you hold it high enough to see a light in the far distance.  This was supposed to be a shared weight for a reason--especially in such unique and stressful circumstances.

Gently, your free hand moved to run along his arm, the other still absentmindedly running through his hair as you gazed intently at his face and neck, watching him struggle for breath, watching his eyes moving rapidly behind his eyelids, watching the convulsions out of the corner of your eyes.

“Levi,” you whispered to him in the eerily quiet room, where the only sounds were his sounds of pain and convulsions.  “You have to hold on, just a little longer.  I can’t do this without you.”

You paused for a moment, even though you were aware he probably couldn’t hear you, especially since there was no obvious reaction to your words.  “Levi...you’re a good father.  You are.  I’m glad it’s you,” you finished sincerely, leaning down to very, very gently press a kiss to his temple, one that lingered as long as it could with the muscle twitches he was currently suffering.  His breath caught as he managed to suck in a steady, heavy breath, and for a few minutes, the convulsions started to calm as you pulled away, feeling a little dizzy yourself and rather exhausted, the day seeming to catch up to you all at once.

You couldn’t fall asleep, though.  You needed to stay awake to keep an eye on Levi, to make sure he lasted until Furlan got here.

You stayed next to Levi as some of the convulsions momentarily died down, hand threaded through his hair, the other rubbing gently at his shoulder, gazing down at him with continued concern.  Over and over you found yourself telling him to hold on, stay with you, you needed him here, the twins needed him...sometimes you just said his name softly into the darkness of the room, occasionally leaning down to give his head another gentle kiss, feeling more and more tired as time passed, wondering how long it had been, and where the hell Furlan was.

The pounding on the door cut through the silence and the darkness simultaneously, startling you and the twins awake.  You must have nodded off, lying beside and partially on Levi on the bed as you sat up, completely missing in your disoriented state that the black veins had retreated back below the bandage line sometimes during your unconsciousness...or perhaps even before that.

Oblivious to that little fact, you simply hurried to the door, knowing that it had to be Furlan with the antivenom, and that you needed to let him in to treat Levi before you could take care of the now-awake and crying twins.

You hardly undid the deadbolt and turned the handle before Furlan pushed in looking uncharacteristically ruffled, stepping through the slightest opening in the door and shutting it behind him for you with one hand, the other stretched out and clutching what seemed like some kind of thick dark green liquid.  Not like what had been coming out of the wound, that had been runnier, and again, you were certain part of that coloring was because it was mixing with Levi’s blood.  This looked...foul.  And like something else.

Was it the antivenom?

“Is he--?”

“Still hanging on,” you told him as he pushed passed you, right to the bed.  He paused, hesitating for a split second as his attention seemed to be drawn to something else.  You didn’t know what, though, because you were staring at his back as you moved over to the twins, pulling them out of their cribs one at a time to check them over and make sure their needs were all met.

Furlan didn’t hesitate long, only a few seconds before he carefully reached out and shifted Levi, supporting his head and then forcing the vial of thick green substance down Levi’s throat.  He did in fact have to force it, because as soon as the substance touched Levi’s tongue, he seemed to retch and try to reject it instinctually, and Furlan had to keep his jaw shut and mouth covered to make sure it actually went down.  There were a few seconds Levi might have been conscious, moving around voluntarily for the first time in what felt like days, even if it was just slight shifts in place and a fluttering of the eyelids, plus the slightest movement of his lips.  However, he was unconscious again in the next several moments, sweat-soaked hair falling in a tangled mess to the pillow beneath his head.

As Furlan pulled back with a slightly relieved sigh, you spoke up.

“Why didn’t he say anything?” you asked, staring at Levi’s unconscious form.

“I don’t think he expected it to spread this fast.  The spread depends on the person, that’s part of what makes it so deadly--the unpredictability.  It took him faster than even I could have predicted.  But Levi’s very...slight, and that’s a nasty bite from a large Amanoyan.  This wasn’t going to be pretty even if he said something sooner.”  Furlan turned to look back at you, his expression serious.  “He wanted to get you and the twins to a safe location before treating himself.  You were his first priority, and he thought he had just enough time.”

He took a chance, valuing your life and the twins before his own.  Unfortunately, this gamble backfired and almost cost Levi his life before you could even make it to the beach house.

“I thought you said it spread to his neck?” Furlan asked suddenly.  You were taken aback, looking over at Levi to see it hadn’t spread any further than the last time you looked, and that there were no longer black veins showing up on his neck.

“It did.  Around the time he got really bad for a while.”

Furlan stared at you long and hard for a few moments, something akin to realization sparking in his eyes and disappearing as soon as it appeared.  However, he didn’t say anything, making you shift uncomfortably as you shifted from taking care of Asa to Ida, planning to feed them both once they were both changed.

“So...if Levi has the antivenom now...do we need to get back on the road?” you asked, loath of the thought of moving Levi considering the state he’d been in before you nodded off, but understanding there was a reason he’d been willing to risk his life to get you and the twins to the safe house, first.

“You need to...but you can’t.  Not until Levi’s a bit more stable.  Give him until tomorrow afternoon, and he might be ready to be moved.”

“Might?”

Furlan shrugged.  “That’s entirely up to him.  And knowing him, he’ll want to move sooner.  You’ll have to play it by ear.  If he does try to leave earlier, and he can’t be talked out of it, make sure you’re the one driving, at least, so he can rest in the car.”

You nodded hesitantly, staring at Levi on the bed instead of Furlan, even though Furlan was the one talking to you.  Was he really going to be okay, now?  That was it, just that little vial and one hell of a scare?  What was the mark?  What were you going to do if something else showed up to finish you all off now that Levi was still returning from death’s door?

“I’m going to get the room next to you, that way you have someone on hand if something goes wrong or Levi gets worse.  Once he wakes up and is well enough to travel, though, I’ll go back to my search, since you will all be on the road again,” Furlan told you, moving towards the door.  You reached out to grab his wrist as he was leaving, stopping him in his tracks and meeting his gaze with a sincere and thankful look.

“Thank you, Furlan.  Really.”

He gave you another hard, studying stare, as if trying to probe into your every thought and intention.  “He’s been my friend for many centuries.  What else would you expect of me?” he eventually answered in a measured voice, and you let go of Furlan’s wrist on instinct, allowing him to leave the room with those words.

Demons...you just couldn’t figure any of them out no matter how many pieces you thought you had, could you?

Shaking your head, you turned your attention back to taking care of the twins, unable to help the fact that you kept a sharp eye on Levi the entire time, watching every twitch, every breath, every change in his status, and praying that it would only continue to improve.

Next Part---->

(Strikethroughs Couldn’t Be Tagged)

Everything Tags:  @antistellxr @mochicheeks-world

Levi Tags:  @clary-quinn @babydabi @whalerus @sunny-flo @thirstyforsometea @hauntedhousecat @peaches-and-clouds @chaoticyuna@wubbawubwub04 @lollobos @pasteldays @itsmeaudrieee @macaronnv @tokyo-banana @apuci-kis-szornye @morgana-olson @yellowminb @ashikothedog @spnwinchestersd

*Levi’s POV*

Considering Levi didn’t want to risk Y/N stumbling across his more demonic activities, he followed Furlan’s advice and ended up sending her away with the twins for a little while, under Isabel’s protection, of course.  He wasn’t going to send her out there alone after what happened, he was going to make sure her and the twins always had help within reach.  However, the house was quiet after her departure, and for the sake of being able to sleep comfortably in the room, Levi moved to one of the extra guest bedrooms for whatever was about to happen, that way it was in a room separate from where Levi would be sleeping, just to put his mind at ease a bit, or at least compartmentalize whatever happened tonight away where he wouldn’t have to deal with it constantly.

After that, it was simply a matter of waiting for Furlan to arrive with the target he snatched up for Levi under mysterious circumstances with mysterious criteria.

Trying not to think about it until Furlan got here was proving to be a challenge, since his brain repeatedly wanted to analyze what was going to happen, how he was going to go about it, what might Furlan do to get whoever it was here, who they were, if they met his criteria or not, if Furlan was acting on his comment that Levi didn't have the luxury to be picky.

With all the thoughts swirling around in his head, it was a relief when he heard the front door open and Furlan call out Levi's name to announce his presence.  No more worrying about it, it was happening.

Carefully, Levi stepped out into the hall and left the door open, leaning against the wall just beside the doorframe--secretly for support, though the move was perfectly normal for him, arms crossed over his chest as he scowled down at the floor.  "Over here."

Furlan appeared around the corner, carrying a human female like a sack of potatoes over his shoulder.  Levi's eyebrows rose, but he jerked his head in the direction of the bedroom behind him to tell Furlan where to put her, momentarily ignoring the…interesting sight.

"Right," Furlan grunted, carrying the unconscious woman into Levi's room as Levi worried over the ethics of how Furlan got her here.  Kidnap?  Sedation?  That's what it looked like.

Once the woman was slung onto the bed inside, left sprawled atop the sheets, he stepped outside to speak with Levi.

"All right...they're sedated right now, so they didn't see the drive up.  I also remember something along the lines of that making it slightly easier to get into their heads?"

"That's a myth," Levi said flatly, staring at the room.  "Who are they?"

"The first person I could find that was ready to make your kind of deal.  You know I can sense a person that's in a situation that makes them liable to make deals, and the thread to pull on to make them commit.  I didn't have time, but I still managed to find someone, and as soon as I did, well, here we are."

Levi turned to face him fully.  "You have no idea who she is, do you?"

"No."

"What she's done with her life, if she's done anything bad, nothing at all?"

"I didn't exactly have time to run a full background check and write up a complete history on her, Levi."

"Fucking hell, Furlan--" Levi swore, turning away and on the edge of exploding at him about dragging a possibly innocent woman to his house to have him lure her into a binding damnation to Hell.

"You don't have options, Levi,” Furlan argued back before Levi could start yelling at him.  “You have, what, hours left?  You need someone susceptible that isn't going to tear you apart in your current state since you're still recovering from almost dying, and that's the only criteria you have the luxury of having right now.  She'll make a deal, and that's what you need right now."

"I can't.  If they haven't done anything wrong, they don't know what they're doing--"

Levi started to argue for his usual standards, the requirements, his code, so to speak.  Before he could get too deep into the argument, though...pain lanced through his chest, and he cut off as the seal on his chest burned as if it had just been inflicted again.  The wind was knocked out of him, and he leaned heavily against the wall to avoid falling to his knees.

Furlan came up behind him, keeping his hands off, thankfully, in acknowledgement Levi probably didn’t want the assistance right now.

"You don't have a choice, Levi,” Furlan said in a low voice.

“There's always a choice.”

“Except dying isn't an option if you don't want to abandon your kids, and that’s the only other choice you’ve got right now.”  Furlan’s voice was harsh at first, but after a moment of pause, it softened to something more sympathetic and understanding of the situation Levi was in.  “It's only one time, Levi.  It'll be okay.”

Levi turned his head to glare at him.  “The last person who convinced me of that...you know what happened “

Furlan frowned.  It might have been some time ago, but Levi had a point.  He’d been down a darker path once or twice, and it always started like this.  With the reasoning that it would be okay if he let himself loosen up his requirements just this one time, just one time wouldn’t matter.

One time was all it took.  If you rationalized it once, it was so much easier to rationalize it again and again, because you’d already done it once.

And the last time he’d been down this road...the last time, it hadn’t ended well.  For anyone.  If he could scar, he was sure he’d still have the small scar just to the left of his heart where he was almost killed when he finally woke up and tried to get out of the spiral he’d been dragged into.

This was not a path he wanted to travel down again.

“I'm not her, Levi.  I'm not trying to lead you astray.  I'm trying to save your life.  Again.  You’ll only have to do it once, and you can go back to your usual standards.  You don’t have to repeat it.”

Levi’s hands curled into a fist against the wall, swallowing thickly as he struggled for his composure.  He didn’t want to give in to the easy way out...but Furlan was right.  He didn’t have any other options he could afford to choose instead--they weren’t options for him.  He was cornered into this position, and he hated it.

Had that been the Infernal Court’s intention?  It wasn’t like he couldn’t change anything about his current situation knowing that now, though, if it had been.

He didn’t look at Furlan, but he did push away from the wall, turning back around to head towards the guest room.  Furlan spoke again, though Levi wasn’t acknowledging what he was saying.

“I'm sorry, I know it's not easy, but...it's the hand you've been dealt. We have to make the best of it.  You'll get through it.”

Levi didn’t say anything, stepping into the guest room and looking over at the stranger on the bed, going to shut the door behind him.

“I’ll wait in the tearoom until you’re done to take her back,” Furlan said once he accepted Levi wasn’t going to say anything to him.

“Clean anything you use, put everything back when you’re done,” Levi said flatly before shutting the door behind him with a definite click.

He stood there for a few moments in the silence, taking a moment before he reacted or did anything, focusing on his breathing and trying to decide how he was going to do this, as well as steeling himself to do it.

Letting out a slow breath, Levi straightened up and moved closer to the bed, sinking down into place beside her on the bed with a sharp eye fixated on her.  The mark on his chest flared painfully on his chest again, and he grimaced, well aware he didn’t have the time to be dragging his feet.

“Sorry,” he murmured in a low voice before reaching out to touch her head, brushing back her hair as he closed his eyes and focused on the more subtle technique he hadn’t used since Y/N.

He hadn’t fed on anyone else after all the time he siphoned off her--he was set for several years after those three months.  And when he made the deal with the Infernal Court, he’d been keeping those interactions to in person to make sure it was a cemented, strong deal that the people he was targeting couldn’t wiggle out of.

The Court never said it had to be a set in stone firm deal, though, like he’d been doing with the carefully chosen targets for the past ten months or so.  So maybe he could get away with something a bit more loose with this one, something she might be able to wiggle out of if she led a good enough life.  Hopefully.

That was the best he could do in a situation like this.

Leaning in, Levi decided on a dreamscape for her, and began to murmur his soft words of temptation in her ear.  Promises of wish fulfillment, fulfillment of desires, coaxing her to let him in, there’s no harm in it.  Just let him in…

This one, it seemed, wasn’t as susceptible mentally as Y/N had been when Levi approached her, so it took some coaxing her subconscious before he finally felt a widow crack open, something for him to slide into so he could elevate her dream to the pocket dimension he usually operated in for these things.

It was a much different environment than the one Y/N had--he really had to lock those thoughts away and stop comparing experiences here, that wasn’t going to help him focus and do his reluctant job--pale pastels and stiff surfaces that looked comfortable but weren’t the sink in comfortable kind of pillows and mattresses and cushions.  He came to in the pocket dimensions near a window that didn’t have a set view--it flickered and changed too much, though that might have been because it was still solidifying.

Turning, he could see the woman on the full size bed a few steps behind where he’d appeared, stretched out and looking a little confused about what was happening, eyes fluttering around the room that must have been strange to her before settling on an approaching Levi, dressed in just the sweatpants barely clinging to his waistline, his usual first approach appearance for these dreams.

By the time she focused on him, he was at the bed’s edge, coming over to sit on the bed much like he was doing in the mortal plane, hand reaching out to tangle in her hair as he leaned in and kissed the still only half-aware woman like it was the most normal thing in the world.

Furlan had said she was ready to make his kind of deal, and he was going to bank on that.

She kissed him back for a few moments, before she pulled back, logic working slowly since she was technically asleep.  “Who…?”

“Shh…” he murmured, moving down slightly to start kissing her neck, starting to work on keeping her distracted.  “It’s been so long since I got to hold you like this.  I just want to...savor it.  No talking, just...this.  Promise?”

Yup, he was going with the whole, it’s all a dream, and here, its normal, we’ve been together for a while now approach to this.  It tended to work for the groggy, especially if the surroundings stayed dreamlike, especially if he managed to pull off acting like everything was entirely normal--which he did, these days, considering how much practice he had by now.  Plus, the more touch he got in, the more he could influence them, distract them, make them think of other things besides the holes in the logic, make them think instead of how damn good it all felt.

“This?” she asked in confusion as Levi shifted slowly onto her little at a time, playing the situation by ear and making sure he was in a position to pull back if he pushed too far.

Levi hummed as if he was half asleep.  “Mm...Whatever you want it to be, tonight, I’m all yours.  I just want to be close to you.”

“...Whatever I want?”

By that point, he was straddling her, kissing along her neck, making her breathing come faster, luring her in little at a time...The important thing right now was that she was almost at the point of accepting the dream and letting him pamper her.  Almost.

“Anything.  I’ll make it happen.  Just tell me what you want from me, and it’s yours,” Levi murmured as he came up to be face to face with her again, leaning into her suggestively with just enough pressure, watching her bite on her lip in response.  After seeing that, he leaned in to kiss her deeply again, ignoring another burn in his chest telling him to hurry it up, rocking into her again, slowly for emphasis, hearing a small noise escape her in reaction, his clear sign to keep going.  She hadn’t asked for anything specific, yet, but he could already tell he had her drawn in.  He just needed to keep at this pace.

He’d get her going, and then in the heat of the moment he would strike the deal, when she wasn’t thinking straight and would be willing to say anything if it meant she was allowed that sweet release and a bit more.  He knew how to work a person, when to strike a deal, how to distract them and how to make them want it.

He had this in the bag.  The hard part was basically over.  All that was left was to give her a good time and strike the deal when she was too caught up in what was happening to think of what she was saying, or probably even remember it.

Just another deal.  Just another fucking day.

That’s what he was telling himself, anyway.

When Levi eventually, finally left the room, he didn’t say anything to Furlan--he wouldn’t even look the other man in the eyes.  He just knocked on the tearoom door to get his attention and left, heading slowly up the spiral staircase to the top floor, where he promptly locked himself away in his office to throw himself into something, anything, other than what happened.

Not that he could focus on anything, he was too busy swimming in self-loathing, between not knowing if he’d just struck a deal with an innocent woman, the memories of what he did to Y/N rising to the surface, and a wrongness he hadn’t had to deal with in centuries rising back to the surface.

When Y/N came home, he avoided her--refused to make an appearance.  Right now, possibly for the next few days, the last thing he was going to want was to look at her.  It wasn’t anything that she did wrong, it was just that...thinking about having to look her in the eyes right now, after what just happened, was...he wasn’t sure if he didn’t want to do it or he couldn’t do it, but whichever one it was, he was going to wait a few days before...he didn’t feel like he should be...no, rather like he didn’t deserve to be around her or the twins for a while.  So he’d just keep to himself.  Sleep in his office in the chair instead of in his bedroom.  Use the helix staircase to the pool for his exercise so he could skip running into anyone.

Get his strength back up so he could make proper deals instead of having to compromise.

Throw himself into research so he could find proper targets again.

Try to put this as far behind him as fast as possible.

But for now, he simply sank into his chair at his desk, currently with old books, drawings, and notes sprawled in organized chaos across the surface in front of him, staring at an old sketch of one of the blades he was making a shot in the dark to find, not really seeing it or the carefully drawn identifying features of the blade, simply...brooding over his situation and what the fuck he was supposed to do if he’d already been pushed to this point so early on.

It was only going to get worse.  And eventually he was going to have to do it on his own.  Sooner, now, thanks to her saving his damn life...something she shouldn’t have had to do, but because of his stupidity…

Levi leaned forward, burying his head in his hands and trying to calm down his breathing again once he realized he’d started breathing heavy and fast.  The silence pressed in on him, suffocating, not a single sound making it into this airtight office he’d built to shut out noise so he could focus.

Look at you, Levi...you’re like a little angel.  My own special little angel.

If she could see him now…

She’d probably hate what he’d become.  Mother’s love or not.  She’d hate him...She’d hate him.

(Two Weeks Later)

*Reader’s POV*

Levi’s progress towards recovery had been slow, and it was easy to tell that he was irritated at the lack of progress, easier to annoy than usual.  Maybe that was part of the reason why you saw less of him than normal, why he seemed to be keeping his distance, most of his time spent in the office part of the library which recently had remained locked and beyond your reach for some reason.  It wasn’t just when Levi was inside doing whatever it was he was up to, either, but constantly.

Maybe he was working on something he didn’t want you to see…

It wouldn’t be the first time, even recently.  Levi was more withdrawn than usual, even when the two of you were around the twins--he usually preferred to separate himself from you in some way to spend one on one time with whichever twin he was taking care of.  You don’t know what caused this change, or if it was in some way related to what happened with the demon that attacked you, but it made you nervous.  Shouldn’t an attack like that have brought the two of you closer, should have made him stick closer to you to keep an eye on you, right?

Well...he wasn’t ignoring you.  He kept his distance, but you knew he was still watching you.  You could see him watching from the balconies of the house, or standing at the windows in one of the rooms, and there had been a few times when, waking up in your room and walking to the windows to open up the room for the sunlight, seeing occasionally Levi already at the windows in his room when you pulled back the curtains, gazes meeting briefly before continuing about your morning routine.  He was distant, but not fully absent.  Just...distant.  And you couldn’t figure out why.  Was it a reaction to you trying to make things more cordial and pleasant between the two of you?  Had you moved too quickly and startled him somewhere along the way?  Was it something you did, or was he just in a mood, going through something you weren’t aware of because it was one of the many things he kept hidden away behind a curtain?

Whatever it was, he wasn’t being hostile, and he wasn’t being cold or anything like that.  If anything, aside from withdrawn, he seemed...troubled.  Deeply troubled and upset.  Something was definitely on his mind.  Maybe he did just need some time and space before you could work on repairing your relationship with him again.

Whatever your relationship was with Levi.  There wasn’t really a name for what the two of you were, was there?  You were just...coexisting right now, with undefined roles and connections with each other.

Despite his overall distance, he was still around you with the twins in moments like this one, where you were both spending some time on the beach with the twins.  At the moment, Levi was making sure that Ida didn’t try eating the smooth sand she grabbed in messy fistfuls, while you were watching Asa--who had finally started crawling in the past week--army crawl his way across the sand.  You were keeping a sharp eye on Asa to make sure he didn’t wander into the reach of the tides, or stumble across crabs or sharp shells and rocks that might hurt him, allowing him to explore the outside on his own but of course keeping an eye out for his safety.  As such, you were slowly wandering away from where Ida and Levi were, since Ida was currently stationary but Asa was very mobile.

You knew the limits of the property, however, so you were also aware of when you needed to turn the little boy around and face him in a different direction.  He hadn’t reached those edges yet, so you weren’t worried about it at the moment, but you kept it in mind as he crawled around excitedly, babbling nonsense along the way.

It was quite a peaceful moment.  You could hear the murmur of Levi speaking softly with Ida several paces away, though the words weren’t distinct enough to know exactly what he was saying.  The waves washing onto the shore was almost right next to you, and of course Asa was babbling as he crawled along the sand in front of you.  Besides that, it was just the sound of the breeze and the shifting of sand under Asa and under your feet.  Soft sand that gave way just so under your feet but didn’t cause you to lose your footing entirely, that wasn’t scratching and irritating, but smooth and airy against your skin.

You loved the beach here.  Right now it was good weather to be on the beach, as well--not terribly cold, yet, but not as warm as it would get around summertime.  It was a nice in-between, which was why you were trying to get the time on the beach in now, before the weather got colder, so that the twins could be familiar with it early.  Plus it was cute to watch them squish sand between their little fists and start giggling at the sight.

As you were keeping a sharp eye on Asa below you, and fixed in your perception of this small section of the beach as your private section of the beach, you weren’t exactly looking for any obstacles or people that Asa might run into besides the borders of the property.  Because of that, you were rather startled when Asa suddenly almost crawled onto a pair of bare feet in the sand, which stepped back when the little boy got too close, and prompted you to immediately lean down and sweep the infant into your arms while looking up to see who Asa had almost run into.

Standing in front of you was a young man--well, maybe that wasn’t the right word, it didn’t look like there was much of an age difference between the two of you.  And looks could be deceiving--with blond hair that barely passed his ears and barely passed his eyebrows, blue eyes, and a slightly rounded face.  He was dressed for the beach, a plain white button up t-shirt and white shorts, a brown satchel at his side that you could see flip flops sticking out of, and a trail of footprints just beside and sometimes wandering into the waves that splashed against the shore that stretched out behind him, suggesting he was walking the length of the beach.  He had a seashell in his hand, and seemed to be halfway towards putting it away in his satchel when Asa had decided to nearly crawl onto his feet.

Propping the sand covered infant in your arms, you gave the stranger an apologetic smile.  “Sorry about that--I was so busy watching him I forgot to watch for other people.”

“It’s all right, I don’t mind,” he said in a surprisingly gentle voice, offering an equally gentle smile in response.  “How old is he?”

“Almost eleven months--just started crawling, so he’s rather exploratory right now,” you said, leaning your head to try and avoid Asa’s hands as he tried to stick his hands in your face.  Normally, you wouldn’t blink at the action, but right now...he was covered in sand.

“That’s good--the curiosity, I mean.  There’s a whole world out there full of amazing things to see.  Nature’s stunning like that,” the young man remarked, tucking the shell he’d been holding away into his satchel as he spoke.  The conversation might have felt a little off for whatever reason, but you didn’t think much of it.  Something about him...put you at ease, though you weren’t sure why.  Probably that gentle look in his eyes, the tone of his voice, the kind face.  He had one of those faces, and a voice to match.

“Do you find it challenging?  Parenthood, being a mother?” he asked conversationally.  You pondered his question for a few moments, brushing some of the sand off Asa as you considered your words.

“Sometimes, but...just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s not worth it.  I certainly don’t regret it, if that’s what your asking.  They were certainly...unexpected, and it wasn’t exactly the happiest of circumstances they came into, but...I want to do right by them, as much as I can, no matter how difficult it may be,” you told him.

And why were you telling him this again?  Had you even had this kind of conversation with Levi, yet?

The young man gave you a gentle smile, the thought chased away for a moment as your full attention was called back to the conversation.  “Is there a purer love than a mother’s?”

You chuckled slightly, flattered enough that you did blush a little at the comment.  “I don’t know...it’s no exaggeration to say their father would do anything for them.  If there’s a love to rival a mother’s, it might be a father’s love.”

He inclined his head as if in acknowledgement.  “Parents, then.  I’ll amend the phrase next time I use it.  I assume that’s him, then, giving me the threat assessment gaze--the father, I mean.”

You blinked, turning back to see that Levi was, in fact, watching this exchange from a distance with Ida in his arms, gaze sharp as a razor’s edge, looking like he was ready to get up and intervene at the first sign of trouble.  Considering what happened a little more than two weeks ago, you couldn’t blame his antsy behavior seeing a stranger so close to you and one of the twins.  But, speaking from experience, people tended to come up and dote on people with newborns in public, so you were slightly accustomed to these kinds of interactions from your brief stints out in public with the twins.  Levi was a bit more intimidating when he went out with the twins, so no one really came up when he was around.  Just you, however, was a different story.

“Yes, that’s him.  Don’t mind him, he’s a bit protective.  It’s been a rough first year,” you said with another apologetic smile as you turned back to the stranger you still didn’t have a name for.

“I don’t blame him for being on edge with a stranger talking to his wife and child, then--it’s understandable that any father would get protective.”

You blushed at the misunderstanding, suddenly embarrassed as you rushed to correct the assumption, even if you didn’t know why it mattered to you that this stranger not have an incorrect assumption about your private situation.  “Oh, we’re not married, we’re not even together, it’s...it’s a long story.  Nothing I want to unload on someone just trying to enjoy a stroll on the beach, anyway.”

“My mistake.  And my apologies,” he said sincerely.  “And don’t worry about interrupting my walk--it happens walking the length of these beaches--you run into all kinds of interesting people.  And things.  Speaking of…”

He paused, opening his satchel to reveal a jar he was putting shells in, the jar partially full as he dug inside and pulled out one of the larger ones, one in purples and reds and creams in rings that expanded in size the closer to the rim of the shell.  He held it out towards you in offering.

“It’s a sunray venus shell.  I like to collect things like this when I take my walks, but I already have one in my collection.  You can keep it, if you want--I’m sure there’s a place in a house that big for one.  Besides, what’s a beach house without a shell somewhere inside for decoration?” he was with a bright smile, the venus shell still outstretched towards you as you shifted Asa on your hip so you could take it with your now freed other hand.

“Oh...thank you, though...you didn’t have to do that,” you said, feeling a sudden warmth rush through you as you took the shell from him, fingers momentarily brushing against his in the process.  You turned over the shell, noting how the inside was so polished and gleaming that it seemed to shimmer with a rainbow as the light danced across its surface.  It was quite a beautiful shell.  You looked up to see him watching you closely as you examined the gift, as if trying to gauge something about you in the process.  Whether you liked the gift or not, most likely.  “It’s beautiful, though.”

It was a slightly delayed reaction, but he nodded decisively, the smile a little smaller and softer this time.  “They’re sometimes attributed to the root, heart, and throat chakras, you know.  It means they’re associated with...lots of things, actually.  Pure love, forgiveness, compassion, family, safety and security, belonging, faith, will, choice...among other things, but those might be of more interest to you,” he commented.  Your eyebrows rose slightly at his perceptiveness, and you were about to finally ask the man’s name before he could leave, when his gaze shifted away from you just off to your side, and you realized you weren’t alone anymore.  Levi had approached.

“Sorry to interrupt, but Ida’s getting tired, and I don't think Asa will be far behind her.  Do you mind getting them inside and cleaned up?  I’ll pack up our stuff out here,” he said, maneuvering Ida into your free arm before you could say anything and guiding you back towards the house with a firm hand on the small of your back pushing you in that direction, the silent command to leave the beach not as well hidden as he might have hoped it was.

He wasn’t lying, though.  Ida had that sleepy look in her eyes, which meant she probably was going to fall asleep soon.  His excuse was legitimate.

“Oh, okay--um--thank you, again, excuse me,” you said in a fairly rushed voice to the blond young man as Levi was ushering you away, reluctantly leaving without a name to go inside and wash up the twins, wondering what prompted Levi to intervene--and if there was something you were missing here.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

*Levi’s POV*

As Y/N took the twins back to the house, Levi turned to face the blond stranger again, his sharp gaze studying the young man all over again now that he was up close.

He didn't sense anything supernatural about the young man in front of him, but that didn't mean shit--if he was strong enough, if he was a high ranked demon or anything like that, he could hide his presence from the lower beings like himself.  It was paranoid, maybe, but Levi was going to concern himself with and be suspicious of anyone that took an interest in his little family for longer than normal.  In Levi’s eyes, this guy should have left already, and the gift was also unnecessary, and therefore suspicious in Levi's eyes.

"Who are you again?" Levi asked sharply once Y/N was out of range.  The young man appeared unfazed by Levi's hostility, that calm and pleasant air lingering around him even if the smile had faded from his eyes.

It seemed Levi wasn't the only one sizing the other up.

"No one.  I'm just walking the beach looking for seashells for my collection, and your son almost ran onto my feet, nothing more.  I even intend to go back to doing just that once you've sated your curiosity," he replied calmly.

"You sure lingered a while for someone that was just bumped into," Levi remarked suspiciously.

“Your...partner, apologized and we had casual, passing conversation.  It’s a rather normal thing to do,” he replied without missing a beat, seeming a little amused by Levi’s persistent paranoia.

“Tch...this is a private part of the beach, so now that your conversationalists are leaving--no loitering,” Levi deadpanned, stepping back just enough to let the stranger continue down the beach on his way.  The blond arched an eyebrow at him, took a few steps along the beach, then stopped to turn to face him, apparently deciding to speak his mind instead of continuing onward.

"I hope you make it through whatever it is that's making you act so...drastically.  For one, there is a difference between protective vigilance and harmful paranoia.  Be careful that you don’t stray too far into the latter."

Levi stiffened slightly at the comment, uneasy with how accurate it actually was.  He knew he was being a little paranoid, but with how fresh the recent attack was, he didn’t want to take any chances right now.  And he was aware he was overreacting perhaps in some other areas, like the distance between himself and Y/N--he doubted suddenly withdrawing was helping the situation or her concern or curiosity, but he didn’t know what else to do.  It was how he reacted when something was wrong and he felt like he was the problem--he withdrew.  Especially in this situation, where he was worried she might be getting attached to him for some insane reason when he was the last fucking being in the world she should get attached to, worried she might do something else that would hurt her that she wasn’t aware of its harm.  But if he wasn’t around her as much, she had less of a chance to do something that siphoned more of her life into him.  He’d taken enough.  At this rate, he was going to be afraid to let her touch him, even.  He could touch her, briefly, he knew what was fine, where it wouldn’t be an issue, what he could and couldn’t do.  She didn’t, and he was afraid…

Why the hell was he thinking about this now?  Now was not the time to be getting lost in his goddamn thoughts, he had an unwanted, unnervingly perceptive pest to shoo away from his family.

“This isn’t drastic.  You’re a stranger who was hovering around my…” Levi started to reprimand, before he stumbled over what to call the others.  Speaking about them as family in his head, or every now and then letting it slip around Y/N was one thing.  Referring to them as family around strangers was another, and skipped over the entire complexity of the situation--that this young man had no right to an explanation of.  Why was he even getting tripped up over this, he should just tell him to fucking leave.  “You’ve outstayed your welcome.  Move on.”

The man inclined his head again as if giving a nod of acknowledgement.  “Of course.  They’re beautiful children.  They seem like pure souls.  You two are doing a good job so far.”  Levi’s sharp eyes snapped to him at his phrasing, and the blond man held up his hands in a gesture of peace as calm and gentle as the rest of him.  “It’s just an honest compliment.”

As he dropped his hands, one reached out to give a parting handshake, the hand hovering between them as Levi eyed it both incredulously and suspiciously.  This wasn’t exactly a friendly conversation, so why was he trying to give him a goodbye handshake?  Who did this guy think he was?

Inwardly rolling his eyes and hoping this would get the man out of here faster, Levi studied his hand close enough to make sure it was clean and he wasn’t hiding anything unpleasant between his fingers or in his palm before he reached out to give a firm and brief handshake to hopefully send the man on his way.  However, just short of touching the man’s hand, Levi felt himself freeze, suddenly seized with the feeling that he couldn’t touch him.  He didn’t know why--it wasn’t an alien thing.  It came from inside himself, this sudden, overwhelming sense that he shouldn’t, he wasn’t allowed to, he couldn’t, though he didn’t know why.  And it was a firm sense, not one that he could shake off before he lingered too long and the hesitation was noticeable.  Hell, there was even a slight tremble in his hand as logic told him to just shake the damn man’s hand, but the rest of him stubbornly refused.

The blond in front of him was still smiling pleasantly, a knowing glint suddenly flashing through his gaze before he reached out the rest of the way to take Levi’s hand and give it a surprisingly firm shake for someone so gentle and young looking.  Levi made himself look up at the young man’s blue eyes just in time to catch the tail end of the fleeting look, having to resist staring back at his hand as he experienced something else...strange, something that put him on edge.  There was a sudden sensitivity in his hand, an extra sense of awareness just shy of a pins and needles tingle that flashed through his whole body for a split second before it disappeared entirely.

As the other man released Levi’s hand, the strange feeling disappeared, and was replaced with a weightless sensation in Levi’s hand as it dropped back to his side, Levi having to make a conscious effort not to hide his hand behind his back and give the young man an accusing look.

“I’ll be on my way, then.  Good luck,” the young man said, looking strangely satisfied with himself as he finally turned all the way around to continue along the beach.

Levi didn’t gather the things left behind by Y/N like he told her he would, at least not yet.  For a few long minutes, he simply watched this stranger traverse through the waves further and further down the beach, stopping occasionally to pick up a shell and let the waves wash it off before pocketing it in his satchel, his form growing smaller and smaller the further down the beach he went.

For some reason, Levi kept expecting him to vanish, especially if he looked away.  Yet even when he closed his eyes and counted for a full minute, he could open them to see the slightly further away figure continuing down the beach like any other regular passerby.  It seemed that’s all he was.

But something nagged at Levi, suggesting he wasn’t.

Or maybe that was the paranoia settling in a little too deep.  It was hard to tell right now, which was what made it so much more frustrating.

Next Part---->

(Strikethroughs Couldn’t Be Tagged)

Everything Tags:  @antistellxr​ @mochicheeks-world

Levi Tags:  @clary-quinn​ @babydabi​ @whalerus​ @sunny-flo​ @thirstyforsometea​ @hauntedhousecat​ @peaches-and-clouds​ @chaoticyuna​@wubbawubwub04​ @lollobos @pasteldays @itsmeaudrieee​ @macaronnv​ @tokyo-banana​ @apuci-kis-szornye​ @morgana-olson​ @yellowminb​ @ashikothedog​ @spnwinchestersd​

(Before the First Dream)

*Levi’s POV*

The hellish cuffs on his wrists burned and cut, the cruel metal made to contain even a demon of the highest order.  He couldn't properly walk due to a broken leg that hadn't been given the chance to heal yet, being literally dragged, harshly beaten and bloodied, into the main chamber of the Infernal Court.  Black ichor stained his clothes, a fair share of it his own black blood, some of it the blood of his...not captors. It was more like bounty hunters in this instance.

Despite the heavy injuries he'd sustained in the fight, the cuffs and the broken leg, Levi still struggled against the other demons restraining him, attempting to break free even if he wouldn't get far with that leg of his.

As one of his struggles almost broke him free of their grip, one of the crossroad demons, Zeke, shoved his head forward, forcing him to hunch over and making it easier for the group to drag him further into the room.

"The struggling's pathetic--your just a sex demon.  You'll never match your superiors in strength," Zeke sneered.

That two faced bastard was enjoying this far too much.  Levi knew Zeke skimmed off the top with the demon deals he made for hell, took some of the souls for himself to make himself stronger--not that it was any kind of leverage. The twisted way things worked down here, he'd probably be praised for it, so long as he wasn't withholding too many of the damned souls from Hell.

As Levi was thrown to his knees at the center of the room, Levi was able to raise his head again, giving Zeke a fierce glare, as well as the others that had found, overwhelmed, and dragged him down here.

He wasn't going to admit it, but there was a growing seed of fear in his gut, as well.  Fear of what was going to happen this time, by the way Zeke's eyes seemed to glint in excitement to see this 'trial' go down.

"Levi, Ackerman, as you have requested the last name of your human bearer be applied.  Of the Incubus class of Demon, tasked with the sexual seduction and damnation of human souls, amongst creation since the dark ages, so on and so forth, who gives a damn."  A thick book, the one that was being read from, was slammed shut.  "You've been here enough times we all know the basics."

Levi stayed silent, staring at the red robed figures without faces and echoing voices that filled the room with the scent of death and decay.  The Infernal Court.

"What is it this time?  You're still neglecting your duties, sleeping with humans as you need to extend your life but never the same individual twice, never making any contracts or deals, just one quick hookup to take a few months or years from their life to extend your own and you move on.  You're supposed to be making deals and collecting souls for hell, not drifting around on Earth."

Still no answer, and the voice grew agitated.  "I could bring up the killing of your own kind, but you always have an excuse for that, so I'll keep it in mind but won't bother to ask.  The final straw, most recently, was how you interrupted a group ritual.  Over twenty people, actually doing a summoning ritual correctly in this day and age, and you interrupted it, stopped it from happening.  Not only that, but you destroyed the correct instructions of the summoning ritual in the process so no one could try again later.  That's over twenty souls that were Hell's to take, slipped by without incident thanks to you.  Given your record, I don't even have to ask if it was intentional."

Levi glared up at them in silence, the only sound the faint rustle of his chains as he shifted in place.

"Right.  Let's just get to the important part, shall we?  Death is always too final and simple a punishment for you--I'm starting to think you might even consider it a gift.  Maybe another century or two under Alistair's...care...would finally force you into line, he's gifted with tearing apart the body and mind, but I grow tired of trying to make you bend, so…"

Levi was pulled to his feet, and with a snap of the fingers from one of the robed figures, a gaping hole appeared in the marble floor a few feet from him.

He knew exactly what that was.  The Pit.  The part of Hell not even demons could bear to be inside.  There was an official entrance to The Pit in Hell, but the Infernal Court had the ability to open a secondary entrance for sentencing purposes.

Levi dug in his heels--heel, his other leg wasn't up for it yet--and attempted to get out of the grip of the three demons dragging him over to the entrance filled with a substance that managed to look like tar and smoke at the same time.  He tried to resist, but as Zeke had infuriatingly pointed out moments ago, he was one of the lower demons on the food chain--he really couldn't do much in a situation like this.  And right now, that was terrifying.  He knew what happened to people who went into The Pit, demons included.  Suffering unimaginable, mind, body, soul, emotional and physical, any kind of pain imaginable you felt it, all at once, consistently getting worse and worse, never growing numb or adjusting to it, until you were a mindless husk, reduced to a shadow, carrying out the will of Hell as commanded because there was no you anymore, just an empty vessel to be used at the whims of the other demons.

If you ever made it out of The Pit to begin with, which was rare.

He could beg not to be thrown in, it was an option, and as he was dragged closer and closer to the smoky tar that seemed to reach for him, it was tempting.  But that wasn't how he wanted to spend his last moments as himself if this was really about to happen, and he doubted they cared enough for any begging on his part to change their mind.

Once they got so close, the three restraining him seemed to get worried they would get dragged in as well--it had happened before--and simply threw him forwards towards The Pit and quickly backed out of range.

Levi rolled over, trying to get to a position where he could start backing away despite his hands being chained behind him.  Before he could get too far, the tendrils of smoke curling towards him from The Pit curled around his ankle and latched on like tar, pain instantly radiating wherever it touched him as it started to pull him in, the smoke reaching out to latch on to more and more of his body, the grip too strong to pull away from.  He grit his teeth even as it seemed to burrow under his skin and cut through the bone, one of his arms grabbed by the smoke as the tendril on his leg seemed to bubble and climb up his body like a crawling tendril multiplying to stretch and reach further with every passing second.

He managed to hold back, to keep the sounds of pain to strange, high pitched sounds bursting past his lips until he was halfway covered, at which point he began to let out an ear-piercing screams.  The pain had spread past the physical once it started to crawl across his chest and up his throat, at least sixty percent of him covered in this smoky tar that seeped into his body and sent sharp lances through his mind, pulling out traumas and thoughts he had buried long ago back into screaming focus as if they were still fresh, feeling as if his soul--which he hadn’t known he had one--was being burned slowly out of his body.  He lost sense of where he was and what was happening, breath leaving his body, vision gone and replaced with nothingness, that scent of death and decay overpowering--

It suddenly stopped.  The snap of a finger once more rang out through the chamber, and Levi was back on the cold marble floor, skin and hair drenched in sweat, body trembling as he tried to remember how to breathe, his hoarse wheezes echoing around the room, the pain fading away to echoes that left him shaken and drained in every way possible.

"However...your species is already endangered,” mused the robed judges once the ringing of his screams in his ears faded and he was able to start hearing the world around him again.  “Any loss of an incubus or succubus is significant, even if it's you.  Get him up."

Arms reached out to lift him from under his arms, his head lolling like he was drunk or drugged before he lifted his gaze to the robed figure who’d been speaking this entire time.

“Sire a child with a human woman--one you make a deal with, too, no avoiding that part of your obligations as a demon anymore--or you’ll be thrown into The Pit.  Permanently, this time.”

As odd as the second chance may seem, it made perfect sense that they would give him a task like this.  As they said, his kind had grown few and far between.  During the dark ages--Ironically, the tail end of which he was born at--the religious fanaticism and rash of which hunts, for all the good it did, cut through his kind’s numbers like a scythe, drawing them out in exorcisms and purifications, in demon hunting and a spread of awareness through the people, traps and lures, death in more than one way.  His kind was arguably among the humans the most, back then.  Their already low reproduction rate had plummeted as well, considering women were aware and able to realize when they were impregnated by an unholy being, and most if not all of them terminated the pregnancy or took...drastic actions upon their realization.  So there were not many babies to replace their already scarce number.

Even after the dark ages, when the religious fanaticism started to cool and religious power took a back seat to the state on Earth, it was still...difficult to repopulate.  Which was why they were still endangered today, though it was an age more suited to their needs, with how sex had become less and less taboo and more normalized.

The fact of the matter was, they did need more incubi and succubi--there weren’t nearly as much as there had once been, just a handful, so the command made sense.

Just because it made sense didn’t mean he had to like it, though.  Unease settled inside of him as he thought of how difficult a task it was, and what it would mean for the human or humans he preyed upon.  But, perhaps it wouldn’t have to be that way.  Maybe, as long as they thought he was trying to get someone pregnant, he would be okay to go about his preferred lifestyle--more cautiously this time, of course.

The cuffs were unlocked from behind his back, and the stabbing pain faded, though the burn was still there--complete with burn marks around his wrists when he brought his arms to the front to glance down at the damage and figure out how long it would take to heal.

“Ah, and one more thing.  Your task is time sensitive.  You have three months to impregnate a human being, or you’ll be thrown into The Pit, anyway,” the voice added coolly.

Levi’s eyes widened in shock, then narrowed in barely contained rage, the only thing keeping him from lunging at the robed figures--which would only end in a hole to The Pit opening below him and swallowing him entirely--were the three people restraining him to throw him out of the room, the same three demons who’d prodded him to the pit a few moments ago.

“An impossible task or a fate worse than death?  Those are your options?  You know how rare that is!” Levi seethed, straining against the people trying to drag him out as his eyes burned with hatred at the faceless members of the Infernal Court.

It was.  The chances for an Incubi to impregnate a human being was slim to none, it was why their numbers hadn’t recovered from the dark ages.  If it was easy for them to multiply, there would be little succubi and incubi demons running all over creation.  Clearly, the creators put their nigh sterilization in place as a check to make sure they didn’t run rampant through the world.  But humans didn’t make it any easier, with how often they killed their kind before they were even born.  The high abortion rates made an already nearly impossible reproduction all the harder.  And they wanted him to do what sometimes took decades to occur by a stroke of infernal luck or brutal, continued force, in three months.

What, were they hoping he’d kidnap and repeatedly rape some poor girl until she either died or conceived?  Did they want him to destroy the soul he apparently had--more than anyone else in this forsaken place--in his desperation for survival?

“That’s your problem, not ours,” the head of the court replied indifferently, and he held up a hand.  “Dismissed.”

The courtroom darkened as the robes collapsed all at once as if they had been maid by a gust of hot air that suddenly ceased, and Levi was thrown backwards, feeling weightless for several seconds before landing hard on the cracked pavement of the filthy back alley on Earth he’d been cornered in before getting dragged back to Hell.

Wearily, Levi pushed himself onto his feet, his leg starting to heal, but still giving him shooting pain through his body that he was trying to ignore.

Three months.  He had three months from today to make the impossible happen.  He couldn’t afford to wait to heal or get his bearings.  He needed to start his search for candidates and get to work as soon as possible.

He'd been watching here for a say or two by now.

He didn't want to delay much longer, but he wanted to make sure he had the right person before he committed.  It might be more...efficient to be sleeping with multiple women consistently to try and increase his chances, but if this didn't work, he wanted to hurt as few people as possible.  There was always going to be at least one person he hurt, but it didn't have to be ten or twenty people.

And since he was only going to focus on one person, it was going to have to be someone that fit the ideal of what he needed right now to a T.

Someone young--someone with their whole life ahead of them.  Whether the baby was conceived or not, all the time he was going to spend with her, all the sexual and intimate things they'd do together while he tried to get her to conceive, it was going to do a lot of damage to her lifespan.  Some might consider that a plus for him--every day she lost was one he gained in return. That was just how he lived--his food source, in a way.  That was why he hung around brothels, sex clubs, strip clubs, bars, anywhere sex might be part of the exchange, or even a commodity--hell, sometimes he posed as the product just to see what he could get.  But normally he only took a little bit from one person and moved on to someone else so he didn't do too much damage to anyone.  Now he had to focus on someone, to take years from their life in the process of trying to conceive.  He understood that it lengthened his life in the process, but he couldn't consider it a good thing.  And if this did work, the pregnancy alone…

Well...she needed to have a long life ahead of her if she was going to live through this, so his candidates were young.

Obviously, he needed someone fertile--some one healthy with a good conception and birthing history.  That one required some snooping in her home and then her doctor’s office to get into her medical records, and her parents, and her grandparents, relatives…

Twins actually ran in both sides of her family. That would be one hell of a stroke of infernal luck, but he wasn't going to hold his breath.  Not to mention, he worried what a twin pregnancy might mean for her.

No, he couldn't dwell on that.  She was fertile, with a good medical history regarding conception and births, that was the important part.

He didn't want any other seed tainting his continuous attempts.  The last thing he needed was to think she got pregnant and he was safe just to find out it was a boyfriend's or something.  So it needed to be someone single, which she was.  It would be just him fucking her trying to breed an incubus or succubus with her, no outside interference.

And, finally, the one that really made him feel dirty for considering it...he needed someone mentally vulnerable.  This had to be someone he could slip behind their defenses, lure into a sense of compliance so he could breed her until she conceived.  If she was mentally vulnerable, maybe a little needy, it would make her more open to his suggestions and advances.  Of course, once she let him in, he could just use his little mind influencing trick he had as an incubus on her to keep her complacent and happy.  He wouldn't be able to do it until she let him in, but he could at least use it to assuage any worries and keep her coming, in more ways than one.

He didn't want to influence her mind for this, he was hoping he could keep it as consensual as possible, but if he needed to...mental vulnerability helped.

The second and third day had let him watch her and dig around for her medical records.  This third day was to get in her house to explore, and possibly make the first approach.  He followed her home from work, unseen because he chose not to be revealed to human eyes right now and therefore was invisible to human eyes.  She worked hard at her job, double shifts more common than it probably should have been, her body sore and in pain judging by the way she kept a stock of aches and pains bath salts in her bathroom. Sometimes she had circles under her eyes from lack of sleep, the overall suggestion that she was tired and worn down from her job.

Again, it could lead to some mental vulnerability, which was a good thing for him.  Maybe he'd approach with the "I'm here to treat you good and pamper you," angle.

Everyone wanted something from their sexual encounters, and finding out what was usually how you got them hook, line, and sinker.

Once she stepped inside and Levi slid in behind her unnoticed, he started looking around the house to get a general feel of the person he was going to be approaching tonight.  It was probably smarter not to know what kind of person she was, it would save him some pain in the future, and he was already in for a world of crushing guilt as it was, but he wanted to satiate his curiosity, and he told himself it would help him better approach her.

The first search was the obvious one.  Her electronics.  As she headed into the bathtub to relax after a hard day of work, he got on her computer and phone, checked her search histories, looked at what kind of mobile games she played, if he went into port websites, was there certain phrases already showing up in the search bar to suggest she'd sought out certain stimulations?  Did she have otome games, did she write or read porn stories and if so, what did she gravitate towards?

He saw other things along the way.  Saw a search for rescue shelters--she might have been looking to get a pet, and was choosing to rescue one instead.  Patterns and ideas for homemade gifts.  Cooking recipes.  Well placed reminders about special events for other people.  In the midst of searching for things that would help him approach her properly in the sexual sense, he kept encountering things that gave him more of a taste of her personality.  Like how she'd interacted with the child and his mother at work the first day he watched her.

After the quick internet search, he poked around her bedroom, looking for naughty toys, sexy lingerie, sexy clothes, again, anything that might hint towards preferences so he could tailor his first approach.

She finally entered the bedroom a few hours later, having eaten and cleaned up and finished the rest of her nightly routine.  Levi waited by the window, staring out it so he wouldn't be watching her while she slept, waiting until she was fast asleep to move over to the bed, sitting carefully on the side of the bed and reaching out to gently touch her temple.

Now to do what he did best.  But first, the setting.  Most of his sexual endeavors took place in person these days, but occasionally he came to them in dreams--or what they perceived as dreams.  They were asleep, in this reality, and it was still "their dreams," but it existed in a sort of pocket reality of his creation, so that the dreams were more tangible, more physical, more real.  Had real consequences, like conception.

It was still their dream, but he ascended it to another plane of existence or reality--like heaven was a plane of existence above earth, and hell a plane below.  But this one, no one could enter but him, the one who had made it tangible, and her, the dreamer who gave it substance.

The dream took shape, and Levi locked all ulterior motives and all of his misgivings and everything else away, until all that was on his mind was the first encounter with this woman, of pleasing and fucking her all night long, of fulfilling her fantasies.

Breeding her would be the goal in the back of his mind, but his focus would be her.

And he couldn't forget to strike a deal.  Normally he didn't, but now...it was a requirement.

Besides, the more she consented to, the more power over her he had, and the better of a chance he had to impregnate her, oddly enough.

So began the dreams, his attempts to breed her over and over again, the deals they struck, tying her more and more to him with every yes she gave him, increasing the chances of success.

The night she asked to pleasure him for once had...rattled him.  Keeping it just sex between the two of them let him keep some emotional distance from her, helped him ignore the reality of what he was doing to her as he tried to impregnate her.  Sure, she'd consented to being bred, but he also knew she thought it was a dream, she didn't see it as a real possibility.

But when she'd asked to pleasure him, to focus only on him…

Everyone he'd slept with in the past, it had always been about them and their pleasure.  Even when they sucked him off or did something that gave him pleasure, it was more to fulfill their own satisfaction, or out of some feeling of obligation because of the exchange.  Her wanting to pleasure him, because she wanted him to feel good, was a first for him.  No one had ever wanted that for him, they'd only taken from him (not that he'd ever complained, considering his lifespan was expanded either way so long as an intimate act was being committed, no matter who it focused on).

But the realization that she actually wanted this, she wanted to treat him good, she wanted him to feel good, while it stirred emotions up inside him he hadn't thought a demon capable of, they were quickly crushed by the guilt that came crashing down on his head with everything he suppressed when he was here, mostly because of those damn words she uttered.  That she wanted to do this, that she wanted to treat him and pleasure him, because he was so good to her.

She had no idea what he was doing to her.

Breeding her like...like...like some kind of twisted, willing sex slave.  How every kiss, every intimate touch that brought her a bit more pleasure, also killed her a little more and gave that stolen life to him.

If she knew, she wouldn't be so insistent on sucking his cock, of making him moan and squirm.  She wouldn't want to please him, she'd want to curse him, beat him, hate him.  That's what made the astounding first that could have been heartwarming so goddammit painful.  And though he eventually gave in to her advances, mostly because it was what she wanted to do and she wasn't going to be swayed, because part of him wanted to know what it would be like even with the guilt, because she promised they could still follow through with his 'favorite kink' of breeding her at the end, afterwards, the guilt ate at and clawed him apart from the inside out.  If he wasn't already so deep in, if he wasn't already nearing that third month, he might have bailed, unable to stand the guilt she'd just inspired with such an innocent intention.

But he couldn't afford to find someone else.  Couldn't stomach dragging another person down.  He'd already tied her to him.  He had to keep trying.

So, in an attempt to viciously wall up the guilt and keep it contained, to keep her innocent intentions far from him and his guilt ridden soul, he made sure he gave a hard reminder that their exchange was just sex over the next few days.  Quite a bit of bandage and restraint was involved, though he made sure it was still pleasurable, even if he was a little rough on her.  The first night was the main reminder, though, considering it was freshly after her innocent advance.  He'd answered in kind by, consensually, chaining her hands above her head, gagging her so she couldn't speak, and then fucking her nonstop, the whole night.  Just load after load dumped inside her pussy, more cum than her body could hold.  As an incubus, he had the ability to be hard and pulsing with seed on command, and with his gaze, thanks to how much consent, how much control, she had given him, he could light her libido, her sex drive, on fire and make her need more in body and mind.

Later, she might be tempted to think it was the night she gave him her full attention instead of vice versa that she conceived.  He would be more inclined to believe it was the night he bred her far beyond what she'd been physically capable of retaining, until tears of pleasure streamed from her eyes and her body couldn't stop moving because he kept in in a constant state of euphoria, the rag soaked with drool and the woman he'd chosen losing consciousness more than once because even in the dream world she hadn't been physically capable of handling it.

None of it really helped the guilt, though.  The guilt was still there when he'd leave, knowing the woman who'd shown him a first kindness was going to die young because of him, most likely, and that soon, if he succeeded, she was going to hate and curse him.

The last month of the time he'd been given to impregnate a human woman, he began to grow desperate.  The reality of being thrown in The Pit and suffering a fate worse than death loomed over him, enough so that he already had a plan for how to kill himself before the Infernal Court could get their hands on him so he wouldn't have to suffer that fate the last night if she still failed to conceive.

As for the guilt, well...it was still there, but he didn't have the luxury of taking it into account as his attempts grew desperate.  He didn't just come to her at night anymore.  He could induce a sleep in her--again, one of the powers he had given the hold she'd allowed him to have on her--and would try to quickly get in another attempt to breed her.  He knew it was impacting her, could see the doctor’s appointments she was making, the exhaustion she was suffering, how it was impacting her daily life, but he couldn't afford to stop--months had turned to weeks, and soon it would be days.  Either she conceived, or he was a dead man--and that was the optimistic outcome.

The dreams were a little different this time.  Daydreams were trickier, and they blurred the line between reality.  He had to physically fuck her for those if he wanted to be sure it took.  Which meant that yes, he was in her car during her break--invisible, so no one would see that shady sight.  He was in her bathtub, he was on the couch with her, but those three instances she was kept in a semi-dream like state, mostly so she would continue to believe the ruse she was already starting to doubt.

The exception had been the club.

He was down to days until he was sentenced, and he was loosing hope that he would be successful.  At this point, he was continuing more out of routine, or a last ditch effort.  But he was painfully aware of the impact he'd had on her, how she was on leave from work because she couldn't do it with how far over the edge he'd driven her, how scared she was becoming, desperately trying to find a medical answer.  Realizing he might not succeed and he'd hopefully be dead soon and not in The Pit, he'd approached her to try and make some form of an amend in reality, to ease up on her for her sake.

He had approached her in the bathroom because it was the opportunity he saw.  He'd entered unseen, gave her her privacy by staring at the wall until she was washing her hands, at which point he willed human eyes to see him again just as she was reaching for the towel.

Her scream had been confirmation she was starting to be afraid of him, but he'd hushed her before she could alert her friend, using his hypnosis powers to calm her down, lying blatantly to her face when she'd asked if it was a dream and using a bit of his hypnosis to make her doubt her reality and at least partially accept it.

He fucked her then and there, partially because he had to try every time he saw her, with how little time he had left.  He tried to keep it as basic as possible, because he was painfully aware that sex in reality, not in dreams?  Every touch, every thrust...the time he took from her here was doubled.

As he spoke softly to her and semi-apologized for being so rough, all while thrusting into her for another quick hit, he was facing the mirror.  The one time he'd looked up to meet the gaze in the mirror, he couldn't do it--he felt sick to his stomach.  What he'd done to her, all the years he'd taken from her, and it might be for nothing, anyway.  It wasn't like she would get the years back if he died, those years would still be stolen from her, whether he was dead or in The Pit--and they would keep him alive in The Pit, force feed him if necessary to make sure he endured every ounce for eternity.

He agreed to be more gentle with her, to give her a rest.  And he was.  It could almost be called lovemaking, the slow sex he had with her in her dreams that night, where she just needed to lay back and rest while he fucked her at a pace that allowed her to drift off into sleep undisturbed by what he was doing.  Of course, it was also one of the few times he double dipped, fucking her not only in the dream world but also in reality.

He was desperate, and throwing his morals out the window in a last ditch attempt to avoid the fates looming over his head.

He'd been keeping track of her doctor’s appointments as she tried to figure out what was wrong with her, and the day after he'd apology fucked her twice--maybe three times if you counted both parts of the night fuck separately--was the day he found out if he was going to The Pit or not.  If she wasn't pregnant by now, then it wouldn't matter, because he wouldn't find out if she was in time to stop his sentencing.

Of course, he may have had to...persuade a certain someone to do the test in the first place.  And considering he could only use his hypnosis on someone who let him in...that meant he'd approached Dr. Hallaway in the parking garage when the man was taking a nap between shifts.

Putting on more of a sub personality considering he had a couple hunches about this guy, Levi straddled the man in the driver's seat, watching as he woke up with Levi’s arms around him, the confusion from just waking up from a nap that only lasted a few bare moments giving Levi his way in, Levi immediately playing up the part of a good dream.

"Mm...Doctor...touch me again," he moaned, as if the doctor was falling into a good dream, which was what Levi was projecting onto him.  At the same time, he rolled his eyes at how cringey that just sounded, but he didn’t have anything better off the top of his head right now.  He couldn't use his hypnosis on him yet, but he could draw him in, influence him just enough to lure him like a siren. He just needed the man to take the bait.

"What’s...who are--" the doctor started to become alert, alarm starting to rush in his veins as he realized there was another man straddling him, but Levi quickly moved in to intercept.

"Shh...it's just a dream...you're alright…" he soothed, his voice luring and lilting, smooth and silky, hypnotic, even, as he rocked against the doctor, who grunted at the feel of Levi’s hard cock rubbing against his stomach through the clothes that currently covered them.  

"It's just you...and me...and whatever sinful thing you want me to do to you," Levi told him seductively, slowly crawling down his body as he spoke, fingers tracing along his chest as he slowly settled between his legs, using the levers on the chair to push it back enough to give him the room to settle between the man's legs, and to lean the chair as far back as it would go.  Slowly, Levi started to rub along the man's crotch, feeling the man's cock through his pants as he continued with his show of the pliant younger man he felt might be Hallaway’s type.  Well, at least the type that Levi could fill the role of, as a male.

"Will you let me, Doctor?  Let me in, so I can show you all the things you shouldn't know, when there's no one here to see?" Levi asked, fingers twitching to just take out his cock and get started, but he knew he couldn't rush this.  Besides, this part was important for what he wanted from the man.

Hallaway seemed to be hesitating, so Levi laid it on thicker, complete with a slight whimper in his voice.  "Please...let me in...let me touch you.  I want to show you so many things…"

"Yes, please," Hallaway finally moaned, and Levi smoothly popped open the button on his pants and undid the zipper, pushing aside the fabric of his pants and briefs to let the man's partially hard cock spring free.

With Levi’s centuries of experience with men and women alike, this wouldn't take long.

Lowering his head, Levi took the man’s cock completely into his mouth, starting in on a sinfully vigorous blow job as he sucked and licked and pumped the man’s cock, causing Hallaway to moan loudly and thread his fingers in Levi’s hair, gripping tight as Levi ravaged him at a fast pace, causing Hallaway to arch in his seat, Levi unfazed as he set about his task bringing Hallaway to the edge.

This...this was more of his normal.  Quick hookups with strangers that would never be repeated.  Quick blowjobs and fucks and fantasy fulfillment in private tucked away spots.  Putting on an act to please whoever he was fucking for the moment.  Much different than whatever it was he'd forged with Y/N.

When Hallaway was at the edge, Levi released him, earning a dissatisfied groan from the other man.

"Put your cock in me.  I can take it," Levi insisted in a breathy voice, crawling back up Hallaway's body as he shed his pants and underwear, situating himself on the other man's lap.

This time, Hallaway didn't hesitate.  As he suspected, the pliable young man was what he wanted, and he was eager to see Levi arch and flush and moan.  So he would put on the show for him and do just that with every thrust.

Levi opened up the man's shirt for the coming mess so he could get rid of the evidence more easily at the end, guiding his hand onto his cock as he leaned forward to hold the man's gaze, doing what he came here to do in the first place now that he'd been let in and he had the opportunity.

“You’re patient, Y/N L/N...She’s pregnant, you’re certain of it.  It’s just a hunch, but you’re going to run the test to see if you’re right.  You should believe in your theories more, because you’re so certain of this one you’re going to run the test to confirm she’s pregnant, even if she didn’t ask for that test.”

Levi could feel the idea take root as the doctor’s eyes glazed over for a moment, and, satisfied that he’d set events in motion on the right track, he went back to putting on his show to at least leave Hallaway satisfied before he left.

Hallaway’s fingers dug into his hips as he bucked up into him, and Levi let out a sharp cry, head thrown back and body arched towards him while Hallaway’s fingers pumped up and down Levi’s cock eagerly and a little harshly, as if trying to pull the orgasm from him.

He was inexperienced, hadn’t been with a man yet, Levi got that.  Besides, he’d pretty much trained himself to respond appropriately by now.

“I’m gonna cum...I’m gonna...hng...shit…” Levi gasped as Hallaway suddenly spilled inside him, his own cock twitching and throbbing in Hallaway’s hands before he finally came, cheeks flushed and a soft moan working its way out of his throat as they both worked through their orgasms, Levi’s cum shooting across Hallaway’s exposed chest.

Once they were done, Hallaway cleaned up and put back to sleep and under the impression it had just been one hell of a dream with Levi’s hypnosis, Levi went to one of the nearest public bathrooms to clean himself up properly.

“Enjoy the sexual awakening,” Levi murmured as he wiped a bit of leftover cum from the corner of his mouth, even though Hallaway wasn’t anywhere around to hear.  The important thing was that he would test Y/N’s blood to see if she was pregnant, and he would have the most concrete evidence you could get for a pregnancy test.

Levi clutched at the edge of the knock-off-granite sink and let out a slow, shaking breath, water still dripping off his face and into the basin.

Please...please let her be pregnant.

It was his last chance.

“You’re pregnant.”

Levi was standing beside the exam table when Dr. Hallaway gave her the news, both of them staring at the doctor blankly the first time he said it.

Yeah, Levi had told him to test for it, he’d been...praying probably wasn’t the right word considering his status as a demon, more like intensely hoping that she would be pregnant.  That didn’t mean he’d expected her to actually be pregnant.  He’d been bracing himself for a chosen death in a few days, and now, to hear Dr. Hallaway saying she was actually...that he’d actually managed to…

“I’m…I’m sorry?”

“You’re pregnant.  We did a test with the blood we took to test out some of our theories about what you’ve been sick with, and it came back positive…”

Levi tuned out after that, having heard what he needed to as he turned around, sucking in a deep breath and trying to figure out what he was feeling right now.  Maybe he was still in too much shock from the news, because nothing was registering yet.  Was he...relieved?  Maybe, he didn’t have to worry about The Pit or suicide, now.  A bit of elation?  Whether he had been forced into this situation or not, he was still going to be a father.  That same revelation was bringing about all kinds of other emotions.  Stress, fear, doubt, worry, inadequacy, self-consciousness, a bit of excitement...there was also the awe inspiring fact that he’d managed to do something nigh impossible in record time.  Three months.  When some demons had taken decades to get one woman among many pregnant.  How…?

“I’m not pregnant!”

Levi turned back around sharply at the sudden shout, brought back to reality with a harsh bump at Y/N’s reaction, able to see the widened eyes from the fear, the tremble in her hands, the raw panic radiating off her as she vehemently denied what she was being told.

No time for sorting out how he felt about this.  Now came the consequences, the repercussions for his nearly three months with Y/N.  Now came the time for her to hate him.

Levi was paying attention to Dr. Hallaway when he suggested a Dr. Salazar for the doctor she went to regarding the pregnancy, though his gaze kept sliding over to Y/N, who looked like she was mid-downwards spiral.

And to think a month ago she’d looked at him pleadingly, wanting to give back to him for everything he’d done for her.

Levi grit his teeth and looked away, a soft ‘Tch’ sound escaping him as his shoulders hunched and he tried to brutally shove the stray thought back into a dark corner it wouldn’t be allowed to surface from.

Dr. Hallaway left to give Y/N time to process, which meant it was just him in the room with her, even though she didn’t know it.  Her face was buried in her hands, and for the first few moments, she was silent, looking like someone who’d just been told they had a terminal illness as opposed to someone being told they had life growing inside them.

Which made sense to him.  It was impossible to her, and besides that, she wasn’t exactly in a position to be raising a kid by herself.  The panic made sense.  She hadn’t planned this, hadn’t asked for this, he’d done it to her, and now she was facing the reality of having to bear the consequences of his actions, anyway.

He picked up on the sound of hyperventilating breaths, of hysterical sobs starting to break past her lips as she started to breakdown from whatever was going on in her head.  Any elation or positive feeling he’d had moments ago for the pregnancy crumbled in the return of his accumulating guilt watching her start to break down alone in the exam room.

He started to reach out to her on an instinct to try and comfort her, to try and give her some reassurance, but he stopped just shy of his fingers touching her back, just shy of making himself known.

No...no, he did this to her, he was the reason she was breaking down right now.  He was the last person she would want to see right now.

Not to mention, if he appeared to her now, in this exam room, when it was clearly not a dream and nothing would convince her otherwise, there would be a conversation.  A conversation where she demanded to know what he was, what he’d done to her and why, where she would probably end up screaming and yelling and cursing him.  He wasn’t ready to have that conversation with her, didn’t even know how he would begin to come clean about what he’d done.

But what really made him pause was terror at what the stress of him showing up now, at this moment where she was having a complete breakdown, would do to her.  The stress of not only finding out she was pregnant despite the impossibility of it all, but also him appearing out of nowhere and telling her all these terrible things about what he’d done and what it meant for her.  What if she did something...something drastic?  What if she tried to kill herself, what if she tried to abort the baby, one way or another?  It might seem like it was quite the leap, but there was a long and bloody history of that very thing happening more often than not when expectant incubi or succubi mothers found out what happened to them and what they were carrying inside them.  He didn’t dare make himself known and have to reveal all of that to her, out of terror for her life and the baby’s life.  He couldn’t risk it.

So, instead of comforting her like his first instinct was to do, he withdrew into himself and simply endured it, watching silently as she eventually fled the exam room without taking the paper with the information about Dr. Salazar on it, trying to wall himself off from all the emotions trying to break through, namely the guilt and the voice in his head screaming that it was all his fault and to look what he’d done to her, and she hadn’t even found out about the worst part, yet.

After doing a bit of digging, Levi went to investigate this Dr. Salazar for himself before he did anything else.  He now had at least another nine months of time, since Y/N had in fact conceived.  Now, she just needed to make it through to the birth, and he’d be in the clear--for The Pit, of course.  He’d suddenly be in the role of fatherhood, but he was going to cross that bridge when he reached it, not before.  Right now, he had to make sure she made it through the pregnancy, first.

And that started with having a good obstetrician.

The first thing he did was shadow her for a day or two, relying on Y/N’s pregnancy being new and news to not have circulated yet for her safety, taking advantage of these first few days to operate away from her before he’d have to start keeping a vigilant eye on her.

It wasn’t like he’d have to leave to feed any time soon, with all the years he’d taken from her trying to get her to conceive.

He followed Dr. Salazar through a couple days with several appointments, doing his best to ignore the mother’s she interacted with in the name of privacy and instead focusing on Dr. Salazar and how she interacted with the women under her care.  He dug into her record as a doctor as well, the births she’d overseen in the past, any complications and the like.  She was used to dealing with single mothers and unexpected pregnancies, so while Y/N’s situation was...unique, it was along the same vein of what Dr. Salazar was used to seeing.

And from what he could see, she was a good doctor, too.  Maybe having another woman as her doctor would make Y/N a little more comfortable or help her feel a bit more secure, too?

Deciding to at least try it, Levi ended up approaching Dr. Salazar in a quick, kinky dream to get her to let him in.  He wasn’t going to tell her to reach out to Y/N, but he wanted to at least have enough of a hold on the woman he could give little nudges here and there from behind the scenes to make sure that Dr. Salazar helped Y/N as much as possible.

And the first thing he told her?

When Y/N L/N comes in for her appointment, believe her, and do everything you can to help her.

Hopefully, that would be all he needed to say to Dr. Salazar over the course of the pregnancy, but just in case, it was an option for him to plant a few ideas in her mind along the way.

The trick after that was getting Y/N to make an appointment with the woman.  She hadn’t taken the contact information, Levi still had it, and from what he was observing from her, she was trying to go about her life as if nothing had changed, as if she wasn’t pregnant.  It was back to exhausting work and double shifts, to work so tiring that she was almost on a cycle of wake up, work, clean up, sleep, repeat.  She was in a state of denial, with no signs of shaking herself out of it and accepting her reality any time soon.  For a while, he tried to be patient, thought that perhaps she would wake up on her own and seek out Dr. Salazar on her own time, that she would remember the name and do a few quick internet searches to find her.  However, the denial continued, as did her grueling work schedule, until Levi grew worried that she was going to push herself too far and hurt the baby in her insistence to deny what had happened, and he couldn’t stand by and let that happen.

In retrospect, though, he could have gone about giving her a nudge in a much more subtle manner.  Instead, it ended up feeling more like a violent and terrorizing shove.

Taping a note to the bathroom mirror like some kind of bomb threat had not been his best moment, and he’d realized his error as soon as she screamed, but it was too late to take it back at that point.  Then, as he followed her down to the position she ended up in, sobbing on the floor against the wall for a good hour, it was all about damage control, feeling numb as he kneeled down in front of her and used his more advanced hypnosis ability, the suggestions planted right into her mind with a few words whispered into her ear thanks to the hold he had on her, to get her to get off the floor, go back into the bathroom, and make an appointment with Dr. Salazar.

Waiting a full week for the appointment itself was torture, but he endured it, keeping an eye on Y/N from the shadows, making sure she stayed safe in the meantime, trying to suggest in little promptings and nudges planted into the back of her mind that just in case she was pregnant, she take it easy for a little while, just to be safe.

He wasn’t sleeping with anyone in the meantime--he didn’t need to, he was going to be set for a few years after what he’d taken from her during those three months he spent trying to get her to conceive.  He definitely wasn’t coming to her in her dreams anymore.  Not only was that a continuation of the fears he had back in the exam room, that his appearance would only upset her further and might push her into something drastic thanks to the conversation that would inevitably follow his appearance, but it was also because he didn’t want to do any more damage than he’d already done.  She’d lost years to him in those three months, he didn’t even want to think how many.  And now, this pregnancy...this pregnancy was going to do even more damage.  He didn’t dare think of touching her in any way that could seem intimate for fear of taking even another day from her.  It was better he just kept to himself, disappeared entirely and kept an eye on her while he remained invisible to the human eye.  The stress of his appearance could come later, when it wasn’t going to put the baby at risk.  Then she could hate and scream and hit him all she wanted until her strength gave out, and he’d leave so she would never have to see him again, and there wouldn’t be any demon spawn to tie him to her.

Because, especially with how the pregnancy was going so far, he fully expected her to be one of the many, many mothers who, if they didn’t abort the baby, at least abandoned them at birth, unable to look at the demon spawn implanted in them.  Sometimes it wasn’t until they were born did the mother’s finally realize something was wrong, that their baby wasn’t fully human, or that a demon had impregnated them.  Sometimes they needed the intangible proof in their hands.  She was probably going to be one of them--he partially convinced himself of that because he couldn’t bear the thought of her being one of the women who tried to abort the babies.  He hated to say it, but abandonment would be much better than abortion, at least in this case.  And not just because he needed his children to be born if he was going to avoid getting thrown in The Pit.  Abandonment was what demons were used to if the babies survived and the pregnancy came full term and they were born.  It was practically ritual for a demon to be waiting in the wings to scoop up the abandoned child and raise it themselves so they would grow into a full, proper demon with as little human influence as possible.  At least in the case of Levi’s children, despite the fact both of them were forced into this--though Y/N would never know if he had his say--he was going to be the one waiting to take them in.  He was going to take responsibility for his own child, not some random demon whose goal was to turn them into a brainwashed servant of hell and seductive breeding machine.

Every now and then, very, very rarely, the mother did keep the child.  But it never ended well for either of them.

Levi, come here.  It’s time for a story and bed.

But I want to go outside and try to catch crickets!

No, it’s dark out, and you need to sleep.  Come here.  I’ll tell you the story about Beowulf…

Okay, fine…

Come here, you have dirt on your nose.  You want to be clean and shiny to impress any girls in the village, don’t you?

Momma…

Help me make breakfast, Levi?  I’m a little tired today and could use a little help with the eggs.

Momma, it’s time to get up.  Momma, come on, stop sleeping and wake up.  Momma?  Momma...Momma, wake up!  Momma!  Momma!

Yes...abandonment would be better.

Levi shook himself out of the painful and distant memories his train of thought had drug him into as he came back to the present, focusing on Dr. Salazar and Y/N now that they seemed to have finished discussing that yes, she was pregnant, it wasn’t an error, and it seemed that they were about to take an ultrasound.

He was about to know how far along his baby was, and glimpse it for the first time.

As always he stood invisible at your side as Dr. Salazar put the gel on your stomach and started searching with the wand for the baby, Levi watching the nonsensical images on the ultrasound screen for some kind of hint that even he could read that his baby was in there.  Well...he knew his baby was in there, but it was a whole other thing to actually see it.

“There we are–you see that?  I believe…that is a heartbeat,” Dr. Salazar said, and Levi moved closer to the screen, trying to pick out what she was showing them, unconcerned about blocking anyone’s sight since he was invisible to them right now.  “They can be a bit tricky to spot early on, but that would be where you’re…oh.”

Levi’s head whipped around to look at Dr. Salazar, heart in his throat, mind jumping to all kinds of terrible things.  The fetus was in the wrong place, in the tube instead of the womb, there was some kind of birth defect, whatever that thing was when the lining detached prematurely, something!

“Oh, what’s oh?”

“There’s…let me just make sure…oh my…”

“Stop being cryptic, woman, and tell us what you fucking see!” Levi snapped even though no one could hear him, fed up with all the vague comments and just wanting to make sure his baby was all right, that this pregnancy wasn’t doomed to fail from the start.

“Yep, I’m seeing that right.  I’m counting three heartbeats.”

“Three?” Y/N said weakly, echoing the word that had gotten stuck in Levi’s throat as his gaze followed the Doctor’s finger to the monitor.

“Mhm.  Right here…here…and right here.  You’re having triplets.”

Three.

Triplets.

Three babies.

Levi sank shakily into one of the chairs in the office, staring at the screen in shock.  He’d known she had a twin gene in her family, but he hadn’t dared hope for multiple babies, he’d settle for just one.  Three?  He had three children on the way?

His mental image shifted, mind trying to wrap itself around raising three half human half demon babies all by himself, tried to even comprehend what that would entail.

Three.

He was going to be a father to three babies?

A warmth seemed to be spreading through his chest, eyes burning with good tears as he processed this new information, gaze fixed on the screen.

How many were boys and how many were girls?

How far along were they?

Were they healthy?

When would they start to move?  When might he be able to feel them move?

“…Ms. L/N, are you still with me?”

Levi’s attention snapped from the screen to Y/N on the exam table, worried for a heartbeat something was wrong with her, everything inside him screaming that she needed to be okay, for their sake, at the very least.

“I…can you tell how far along I am?”

Her voice was faint, and she looked ghastly pale, but she was still conscious, and she was talking.  Maybe she was just overwhelmed.  He had no idea what was going on in her head, he was a demon, not a mind reader.  But at least she’d asked one of the many questions he had, so he wasn’t going to complain, waiting in anticipation for Dr. Salazar’s answer, ready to do the mental math to figure out when he’d been in the clear.

“Well, judging by the length of the fetus’s, I would wager you’re about six, maybe seven weeks along?”

Six, seven weeks...that was before his big push.  That entire month he spent pushing her, driving her to exhaustion trying to get her pregnant, thinking he was running out of time, she’d already been pregnant?

An entire, unnecessary month he’d spent taking more life from her in his pursuit to have her conceive.

Fuck.

But, at the same time, six or seven weeks, that meant they had 33, 34 more weeks to go.  A lot could happen in that time.  Especially for a situation as volatile as this one.

At that realization, Levi finally tore his eyes from the screen that apparently showed his three babies, looking over at Y/N to finally see her reaction.

She was crying.  Trying to muffle the sounds with her arm over her mouth, full body sobs with agony and pain radiating off her.  A stark contrast to the elation he’d been experiencing seconds ago.

Another harsh yank back into reality, any joy he’d been feeling now destroyed at the reminder of what he had done--was doing--to this poor woman.  And now, seeing her reaction, the reality of just how common it was for women to terminate pregnancies with his kind, with demon spawn, cut through him like a knife.  She hadn’t even realized that was what was growing inside her, yet, as far as he was aware, and this was her reaction to finding out she was pregnant with triplets.

It was like someone was dangling him over the edge of a towering building by the scruff of his shirt and he was watching it slowly rip.

Please...

Levi wasn’t given any tangible hint about what was going to happen.  If there were any warning signs, he missed them, caught up as he was in trying to make sure she got a good therapist to help her through the pregnancy like Dr. Salazar had suggested.  The search took him away from her a couple times, looking into all three women and sitting in on a couple sessions with their patients to see how they handled them.  He was, in fact, the one to pick Dr. Weiss, feeling she might handle the precarious situation the best, and doing his usual routine of coming to her in her dreams so she would let him in, and he could nudge her as necessary.

This time he was much more subtle about his hint to Y/N, simple circling Dr. Weiss’s name on the list by her laptop since that was something she could have easily done and forgotten, and far less obvious than a note that had never been in her possession appearing on her bathroom mirror.

When she started going to the sessions...he didn’t go inside.  That time was for her.  If something went wrong, he would be just outside the door if he needed to protect her, but while she had the sessions, he stayed outside and focused on anything else to keep him from trying to eavesdrop.  He had no right to whatever innermost thoughts she shared with the therapist, to know what she thought and felt, what she struggled with.  No right, after inflicting the pain he had on her.

And the day she started to go through with it...Levi had been a little preoccupied with her therapist.  He’d snuck in to read a couple of the notes the woman had on there, just to make sure she wasn’t going to be committed or anything, and had discovered that there was, indeed, a note saying Y/N might be delusional and that she might want to say something and start having her treated.

That was why, when Y/N was going to the Planned Parenthood clinic, Levi wasn’t there to know that was what was going through her mind.  He was at Dr. Weiss’s office after morning work hours, before her afternoon hours started, using that hypnosis trick of his on her in the middle of some under-the-desk pleasure while she sat in her chair to tell her to believe Y/N enough not to have her committed, to simply help her work through what was happening to her on the assumption it was real, even if she didn’t really believe it.

Don’t send her away, don’t diagnose her as crazy, don’t have her committed.  She isn’t crazy.  She’s not a threat to anyone, so there’s no harm in simply keeping it to therapy.  She just needs somewhere safe to work through her emotions and what’s happening to her.  Let her have that here.

It was why Levi had no idea what was happening until he showed up at her apartment to resume his vigilant watch over her wellbeing to discover how incredibly quiet it was as soon as he stepped through the locked door.  Locks meant nothing to him when he was in this invisible state, it was almost like he’d shifted onto a parallel plane of existence.  He could still see and interact with the world around him even though human eyes couldn’t see him, and he could move through matter he wanted to ignore as if he was a ghost.

After a search through almost every room, he stepped into the locked bathroom, part of him bracing to see her perhaps having another breakdown in the shower, or maybe he was being paranoid and he was just going to walk in on her going about her business.

But it was so quiet.

And when he realized why, his stomach dropped, and his heart leapt into his throat, so fast he thought he would be sick.

She was standing at the sink, a haunted look in her eyes, the bottle of pills sitting directly in the middle.  He knew she wasn’t on any medication, not any that looked like that, anyway.  And the serious look in her eyes, her gradual spiral, the sheer history of this very thing happening…

“What are you doing?” he asked in a hollow voice, even though she couldn’t hear him, couldn’t see him.  It was just her and the pills to her, the same pills she now had in her hand and was trying to open the bottle for.  Panic coursed through his veins, hand outstretched like he would knock them from her grip.  “Wait, don’t--”

The bottle popped open, accompanied by a little sob she might not have realized she made, one that cut him like a knife and had his hand flinching back, hanging weakly between them in the air.

“Please, don’t.  Please,” Levi said, the words coming distorted like he was hearing them underwater, echoing uselessly around him because she couldn’t hear a damn word he said.  He hated that underwater sound, too, because it only made that incoming feeling of drowning all the more realistic.  The sensation of pressure on his chest, an inability to breathe, ears rushing, movements sluggish.

Pills went everywhere with a curse from Y/N, but she had two in her hand, two little pills that could end it all.  Two little motions and he lost all three of his babies.  That’s all it would took.

“Please...I’m begging you, don’t do it.  Please, give them a chance.”

He could try to stop her.  Use his hypnosis, make her flush all the pills down the drain and never consider this again.  But he couldn’t stomach the thought of making her bear these children any more than he already had.  If she kept the babies, it had to be her choice, even if it damned him in the process, even if it took his babies from him, like so many before him.

Levi’s hands were white as they clutched the sides of the sink and he leaned forward with her over the basin, world tilting and spinning, feeling like he would vomit if he kept speaking, yet the words kept falling from his lips like someone had turned on a faucet.  Each sound came from deep in his soul as he begged with a woman who couldn’t hear him, knowing it was entirely out of his hands, fearing that he was about to watch himself lose it all.

“I don’t have any right to tell you how to go about this, after I did this to you without really asking you, but I am begging you, don’t do this.”  Tears slipped from his eyes, voice hoarse and cracked as he watched her stare just as intently at those pills, sobs breaking past her lips.  “Don’t.  Please.  Please, let my babies live.  Please...please...”

Her fist clenched around the pills, and Levi felt his knees go weak as, for a few heart stopping moments, he thought she had steeled her resolve and was about to go through with it.  But she opened her palm, powder and broken shards of the pills in her hands falling into the drain.

Levi groaned softly in relief, legs unable to support him as he sank onto the toilet beside the sink, hand threading deeply into his hair while the other rested on his knees.  He was trying to remember how to breathe again, tears still burning his eyes and slipping down his cheeks at how damn close he just came to losing them.

She was still crying, and the sudden scream and shatter of glass made him flinch, looking up with wide eyes to see her standing their with a bloodied hand, teeth grinding together and anger twisting her features before she fell back into sobs again.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, reaching out to touch her temple and give her the impression she’d already cleaned up the mess, and that she needed to go to a hospital and get her hand fixed.

As she left, Levi stayed in the bathroom, heart heavy as he picked up each pill and each shard of glass by hand, uncaring if he sliced open parts of his hands in the process.  It was far less than he deserved, putting her through this.  The glass hurt far less than every moment he’d sat beside her as she broke under the weight of what was happening to her, never speaking, just silently watching and staying hidden for fear he would only make it worse, trying his best to make sure mother and babies were safe and taken care of at least physically, hoping that the therapist would be enough for the mother’s mental wellbeing, that maybe, somewhere in the web of people, she’d find someone who would support her.

He was a lot more vigilant watching her after that.  No more running off to influence the doctors to do this or that, he stayed by her side at all times, and if he needed to influence one of the doctors to check for this, or say that, he did it on the spot.  For the therapist, considering he didn’t sit in on their sessions even after Y/N almost aborted the babies, Levi would prompt her when she opened the door to try to work this saying or that phrase into their session to give her a bit of comfort for whatever was bothering her most at the time.

After her near abortion, Levi noticed a disturbing trend that gave him reason to worry he might not be the only one watching her.  After she’d decided not to terminate her pregnancy...he’d had to intervene in moments she might have been hurt far more often than he would expect to for just any human.

Giving her a chill down her spine to make her pause before crossing the road as a reckless driver raced by.

Correcting the steering wheel for her when she inexplicably lost control of her car one day so that she stopped safely at the roadside instead of careening into another car, a pole, or a ditch, or rolling the car.

Giving her the prompting to travel home in a different direction when a quick scout ahead let him find some...unsavory characters along her normal route.

He stayed a silent, vigilant guard as she slept and when she went about her day, unseen by her as he kept his eye out for anything and anyone that might hurt Y/N or his babies, inadvertently or on purpose.

Ironically, like a…

No, no, he wasn’t going to make that comparison.  He might hate what he was despite coming to terms with it long ago, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be one of those bastards.

As for Y/N...

She seemed to steady a bit, strangely enough, after she almost aborted the babies.  She wasn’t unwavering, and she still was missing a direction besides ‘I guess I’m going to have these babies,’ but she was tentatively looking into adoption options...though Levi had also seen her staring at a crib set or a baby blanket pattern or a stuffed animal on occasion whenever she went to the store.

After her near abortion, though, he didn’t dare to guess what was going through her head.  Especially because, in his mind, he was banking on her following the trend of history and abandoning or giving up the babies, not keeping them and trying to raise them for herself.

Considering it was triplets, she might not have to make the decisions at all.  If she hadn’t already made it.

Levi shook the thoughts away before it could poison his mind, mood, and the taste of the tea he was allowing himself as he watched Y/N from across the street, taking a brief moment to breathe and have a moment to himself while still keeping an eye on her.

He didn’t need to be thinking about things like that.  It was already complicated and painful enough watching her struggle through what he’d done to her without him adding that little fact to the mix, the dark thought that had lurked in the back of his mind since Dr. Salazar had announced she was going to have triplets.  An eventually unavoidable fact he was going to try and ignore so he could simply focus on protecting her and the babies without having to lug around any more guilt than he was already dealing with.

Across the street, Y/N’s eyes locked on him, and he suddenly remembered he wasn’t hiding himself from human eyes--he’d ordered the damn tea and forgotten to disappear again like a goddamn idiot.

“Shit!”

Her eyes widened, and when she looked away before attempting to cross the street, Levi made himself disappear, at the same time hurriedly getting to his feet and rushing out the door and towards where she stood on the crosswalk, just to be safe considering the ridiculous number of vehicular close calls she’d already had.

She’d already noted his disappearance by the time he reached her, that now familiar expression of ‘Am I going crazy?’ on her face once again as Levi prompted her to get out of the road and back on the sidewalk.

He couldn’t even have a moment for a tea break anymore, it seemed.  Unless he was going to make it without her noticing somehow in her kitchen while she was in the general vicinity.

After a few minutes walking with her, he realized she didn’t really seem to have a direction to where she was going, she was just out and about, walking around town idly with no real goal.  Maybe she just needed some fresh air, or maybe she wasn’t used to not working, considering she was on maternity leave.

Eventually, though, she took a sudden right turn into a large, stone building with stained glass windows and tall spires.  Levi paused at the base of the steps, looking up at the fancy double doors with a judgmental scowl.

“Really?  I doubt you’re going to find any help in here.  They’re all pretty damning about this kind of thing,” Levi said scathingly, though he still followed her inside the building, feeling his skin prickle and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as he walked onto the property, the feeling getting stronger as he stepped inside.  He glared at some of the winged stone statues, but kept his mouth shut, hovering behind her and trying to ignore his own discomfort as she took a seat at one of the back pews.

He supposed, given her situation, it might seem like the only place she could turn to.  Despite what he’d hoped, he’d seen no one really...supporting her about the pregnancy.  A bunch of people telling her to abandon the babies or terminate the pregnancy.  Was that not what she was looking for?  The only opinion he hadn’t heard yet in all of her conversations was someone telling her to keep the babies.  Did she want someone to tell her to keep them?

He highly doubted she was going to find that answer here, considering what the babies were.

Levi wandered away, walking slowly down the main aisle and looking around at the stained glass and the intricate carvings.  It wasn’t up to par with the gothic era religious architecture, but it was still much better than the common churches from when he was young and gullible, when he was on his own, before he started to reach maturity and the demon half of him started to take over, before Kenny found him and knocked sense into him.

His eyes roamed across the scripture stories depicted in the stained glass, the statues, the candles, the confessional off to the side, and to the crucifix in the center, at the way front.

“Benevolent grace and mercy my ass,” Levi said bitterly, turning away in time to see an old woman approaching Y/N where she seemed to be in the middle of a prayer.  He started to walk towards them as the old woman started to speak to her, a bad feeling sinking into his gut as he picked up his pace to get back to where she was, the words they were saying becoming clearer as he got closer to her.

“...carrying evil.  You should stop it before it’s allowed to breathe in this world if you don’t want your soul damned and sin embodied to walk the Earth!”

Anger sparked and quickly grew into a raging inferno as Levi heard what she was saying to Y/N.  Y/N tried to leave, but the old woman grabbed her before she could.

“You can feel what it’s doing to you, can’t it?  You’re already stained beyond cleansing.  It’s very existence pollutes, you should stop it before it pollutes anyone else.”

“Let me go,” she said, pulling free with a twist of her arm as Levi reached her, Y/N making a quick and hasty exit for the double doors she’d come inside.

Levi, however, lingered, turning a harsh gaze of black and gold on her, a snarl on his lips for the things she’d said about Y/N, about his children.  And he let her see him, let her see his true form, for just the barest moment, every last inch of what he actually looked at before his normal appearance returned, the woman already screaming at him and drawing the attention of the few church overseers that were currently in the building.

“Demon!  Devil!  You cannot come in here!” she shrieked as Levi stared her down, the gold still flickering in his eyes.  “Sin!  Foul!  Filth!  BE GONE!”

She suddenly went faint, and Levi hid himself once more as priests appeared, the old woman fainting and falling to the floor.  Maybe she had a heart attack, maybe she just passed out.  He didn’t know, and he didn’t particularly care.  He just left, relieved when he was out the doors and the prickle in his skin ended, hurrying to catch back up to Y/N before she went too far on her own.

He was sitting in her room keeping watch over her as usual when the feeling tickled the back of his neck, and a whisper echoed around him that seemed to come from all directions at once.

Levi.

Sitting up at full attention, Levi looked around, alert and worried about what the sound could mean.  Looking out the window and down towards the street below, he glimpsed a shadowed figure across the street looking back at him intently.

Fuck.

Heading downstairs and out into the street, Levi approached none other than Zeke standing on the other side of the road, Levi’s expression darkening with unveiled hatred as he approached him.

“What the fuck do you want?” Levi sneered.  Zeke was unfazed by the hostility.

“You’re being summoned to go speak to Crowley.  It seems its your turn to stand by for a week in case anyone does any ritual summoning.  I said we should just skip right over you, considering your history of botching deals, but, here we are,” Zeke said with a bitter smile, eyes flickering up towards the house Levi just came from.  “You’re gonna have to leave your little plaything’s side for a while.”

Levi snarled at him, eyes flashing, though Zeke didn’t move, apparently confident in that bullshit from before about Levi being nothing when matched up against a higher ranked demon.  Levi might be small, and he might be a lower class demon, but he could still kick Zeke’s ass one on one any day.

“I’d hurry up.  You’re already not on good terms with anyone down there.  And you’ll want to get back here as soon as possible, I’m sure,” Zeke said coolly.

Levi turned away with a snarl.  “Fucking piece of shit,” he muttered under his breath before he reluctantly shifted down to hell, much like he would shift between being visible to the human eye or not, or he would shift to the dream world.  The world blurred and darkened, and he found himself back in the damp and uncomfortably warm underground tunnels that connected the different parts of Hell.

After figuring out where exactly he was, he started making his way to where most of the crossroad demons and ritual demons hid themselves, since they were both in the same boat with not that many people coming to make deals with them anymore unless by ignorance, some happy accident, or pulling some stunt they hadn’t thought would actually work.

As the earthen path started to smooth out to the obsidian stone of the palace the crossroad and ritual demons called their own, he was intercepted by two larger demons blocking his path, sneering down at him like shit on the bottom of their shoes while he glared up at them.

“What are you doing down here, incubus?” one of them spat.

“Crowley called for me.  Apparently its my turn to do your fucking job for you,” Levi returned sharply.

“No one called for an incubus, especially not you.  Abaddon is handling the rituals this week.”

Levi studied the sneering brute in front of him for a few moments, gleaning the truth of his words before a sour taste filled his mouth, and it took everything in him not to let them see the chink in his armor as he realized he’d been lied to, he wasn’t summoned, and he’d just left Y/N alone and vulnerable.

He turned sharply on his heel and left without another word, keeping his pace brisk until he was out of their sights, at which point he broke out into a run, a sprint, jumping with demonic wings sprouting from his back to carry him further and faster and phasing back through to Earth, racing to get back to the house, to Y/N’s bedroom, before any more time could be lost.

He would have crashed through the window if he wasn’t still in that invisible state, landing on the ground for a heartbeat as he took in the sight before him.

Zeke, standing over Y/N’s sleeping form, his hand pressed into her stomach, phasing through like Levi did the window seconds ago, or locked doors in the past.

He didn’t need to see anything else before a blind rage consumed him and he leapt at Zeke with a roar, shedding his everyday appearance in the process as his true form burst to the surface.  Slender s-shaped black horns that started just behind his ear and stretched towards and then followed the curve of the back of his head before the second turn brought the sharp tips higher above his head.  The black eyes with the golden irises, of course, and the fairly slender tail in a gradient shade of black and blue and grey with the razor sharp tip, the powerful wings that brought him here, open and resembling dragon wings despite the smooth skin in place of a dragon’s scales, the curved black claws at the high tip of the wings and at the bottom end, a sharpening of his canines that almost made them look like fangs.  His body shifting in tone from the human appearance he’d had to a color scheme that matched his tail--black accents such as running down his spine, at the tips of his ears, along the top of his tail, or in strange forks coming up from his ankles like black flames, grey across most of his body such as along his chest and back, deep blue to pale blue along the edges.  And as the rage consumed him, the gold in his eyes burned brighter--molten.  All along his body, glowing golden marks appeared in strategic swirls and lines like an intricate full body tattoo.

That was the creature that tackled Zeke and caused them to phase down through the floor, through the next floor, into and below the earth, down into Hell as Levi caused them to plummet away from Y/N and towards a more worthy battleground.  Zeke’s own human countenance shattered, a demon of browns and blacks with the slightest hint of cream, ram horns and claws, an arrowhead tipped tail with spikes along the end and longer fangs.  Levi was built for pleasure and allure, Zeke brute force, but that wasn’t what mattered here.

Zeke tried to claw at Levi, but any cut across his skin was ignored, black ichor flowing freely as they slammed into the ground, Levi snarling wildly at Zeke as other demons scattered where they landed, backing away to give them room to fight and then quickly encircling them to see what would happen.

Zeke pushed Levi off him, but Levi regained his footing quickly, turning to avoid the slash of Zeke’s more adorned tail while letting his wing lash out so the claw slashed him across the chest before Levi came in with a punch to the man’s face, followed up with a slash of his razor sharp tail that could now act as a whip.  Zeke tackled him, his fangs sinking into Levi’s throat and causing a furious roar from Levi, before he grabbed him, held him close, and rolled towards a thinner part of the circle which quickly parted for them as they barreled towards them.  Zeke released his fangs from Levi’s neck, holding him at arm’s length and slashing him across the chest with his claws, causing Levi to hiss as black ichor sprayed from his chest and he retreated a step or two towards the circle that had shifted into a silent semicircle to witness the standoff.

Zeke got to his feet with a deep chuckle, a few scratches on his body compared to the gashes bleeding black from Levi.  “What did I say?  Nothing more than a sex demon.  Like you could ever hope to kill someone like me.”

“I’m not trying to kill you,” Levi sneered back venomously, and the smile vanished from Zeke’s face.  Before Zeke could realize his error, Levi reared back and kicked him as hard as he could, sending Zeke flying backwards with a spray of black ichor from his mouth, down…

Into The Pit they had landed feet from when Levi threw them both into Hell.

Levi watched him sinking into The Pit with screams that were quickly swallowed by the tar like smoke, a hand on his chest to cover the still-heavily bleeding claw gashes across his chest as he turned to face all the demons who had watched the brief fight.

“If anyone else dares to touch my bred human woman, I won’t hesitate to do the same to them,” Levi snarled in a crystal clear voice, knowing anyone who witnessed what just happened would pass the message along for him.

The term he used to describe Y/N burned on his tongue, but he said it anyway, because it was a term that would help mark her as untouchable from here on out, at least until she gave birth.  Considering how endangered his kind was, touching a human woman pregnant with incubi and succubi was taboo.  And he was going to make sure not even anyone who thought she made an easy target to get at him would make the mistake of coming after her when he was ready to throw them into The Pit in retaliation.

Maybe he didn’t know why Zeke went after her, maybe he didn’t know what he’d done specifically, if he’d managed to do anything.  He didn’t care.  It was taken care of now, and that was what mattered.

And now that he’d made his little statement, he needed to get back to the surface, back to Y/N and his babies.  He needed to be sure that they were all right.

Levi crouched, letting his wings lift him up off the ground and up into the air, taking the same way out as he had in.  The adrenaline was fading, the pain coming into sharper focus from the bite and claw wounds.  His demonic form was gradually covered by his usual appearance, save for the wings carrying him up to Y/N’s room, though the wounds now looked more garish against his pale skin, still bleeding black ichor to show his true nature as inhuman.

His breathing was ragged as he landed back in Y/N’s room, the woman sleeping just as soundly as if nothing had happened, just like when he’d initially left the room.  But he wasn’t going to risk it.  If something was wrong…

And he wouldn’t know if something was wrong, if he was too late, until she checked.

Using the hand that wasn’t covered in his blood, he reached out to gently touch her forehead, reaching out to her to will her to wake.

Wake up!

She didn’t immediately wake, only stirred, looking like she was trying to stay asleep while a pesky fly buzzed her nose.  Levi pushed harder, trying to get her to get out of bed.

Something’s wrong!  Wake up, now!

Wake up!

She finally woke up with a gasp, looking around in confusion as her hand instinctively dropped to her middle, looking around and right past him, unable to see anything in the room.  Sighing in exhaustion, she went to lay back down, and Levi touched her forehead again, trying to give her his feeling that something was wrong at the same time.

Don’t go back to sleep!  You need to get the babies checked right now!  Something’s wrong with them!

She finally got out of bed at that one, much faster than he would have expected a pregnant woman without any help to do.  Down the stairs and down to her car she went, Levi trailing along and getting into the passenger seat with a low groan, focusing on his breathing.

It would be nice if his healing could just...hurry it up a little, so he didn’t pass out from the blood loss in her car and miss what was going on.

The car ride was silent, though he might have projected his own worry and panic a little too strongly, considering her suddenly nervous disposition was growing.  Levi just stayed slumped in the passenger seat, eyes closed, trying to focus on resting and recovering while they were in a situation where he couldn’t do anything but wait.

When she pulled into the hospital, he was stiff and in pain, his steps staggering as he followed her inside to the emergency room.  He left her alone just long enough to find his way into one of the supply closets to get the supplies to wrap himself up, pressing up against the door and watching her struggle to get someone to listen to her while he wrapped up his torso and his throat, able to see black ichor already soaking through the bandages, but the worst of it stopped from getting everywhere for the time being, or at least until his healing managed to fix it.  They weren’t little scratches, it would take a while to heal.

Leaving the supply closet, Levi started watching the faces that passed him closely, looking for someone, anyone familiar.

He got around quite a bit, there was always a chance.

Finally, he spotted someone he was pretty sure he’d hooked up with in the corner of a club, grabbing the man’s shoulder and using his hypnosis trick to tell him to help the woman asking for someone to check on her babies.

Considering the fact that the man agreed to listen to her when Y/N grabbed him for help, it seemed his hunch about the man being a past hookup was right.

Y/N was brought into an exam room, the ultrasound brought out, and the babies examined by the doctor who didn’t look convinced about the situation but at least, thanks to Levi’s persuasion, was willing to check.

After a few moments, the doctor stilled, wand pausing on Y/N’s belly, and Levi felt his heart skip a beat.

He whispered something to the nurse, but Levi could already see where this was going even as they said they wanted to take more tests to be sure before they said anything.

They wanted to make sure the baby--or babies--were dead before they told the mother.

A strangled whimper left Levi’s lips--unheard by anyone else, as always--and he slid to the floor from the position he’d been in leaning against the wall, a hand over the wound on his chest as he tried to hold back the wave of grief.

He didn’t know that yet, he didn’t know they were dead, it was just a feeling, and maybe it wasn’t all of them.  If he’d gotten there in time to save even one of them, that...that might be…

He couldn’t breathe until he finally had the news from the doctor, and even then, it was only briefly because at least now he /knew/ and he didn’t have to stew in uncertainty.

“One of the baby’s heart seems to have given out.  I’m not sure how long ago, but I’m afraid you’ve lost one of your triplets.”

He felt like he’d been hit in the gut by a train.  He had been too late, then.  One of his babies was...It was his fault.  He should have been there faster, shouldn’t have left them unprotected even for a few moment.  If he would have stopped and thought about it, maybe he would have caught on to what Zeke was doing, maybe he could have…

Shit...Fuck...what did it matter?  It didn’t change the fact that he failed.  Zeke was already starting an eternal punishment in The Pit.  And one of his babies was dead because of him.

All that effort to protect her and the babies, and this...this was how he lost one of them.

Levi tuned out the doctor’s incorrect theory about spontaneous heart failure and vanishing twin syndrome, knowing full well that Zeke had reached inside her and killed one of the triplets--he probably would have killed another one, all of them, if he hadn’t arrived when he did.  That didn’t make the loss of the third any less painful.

Add it to the guilt already pressing him into the ground every day…

She probably wouldn’t have survived a triplet pregnancy anyway, a dark part of him whispered into his mind, but he quickly snuffed it out, vowing never to speak that thought into existence, to even suggest there was the tiniest bit of twisted relief in the loss that now had Levi crying silently on the floor and Y/N making broken cries he hadn’t known was humanly possible.

Even if it was true.

Even if her chances of surviving much longer after the twins were born was still slim.

He still refused to do the math because once he put a number on it, how much in total between attempting to conceive and the pregnancy itself he had taken from her, he didn’t think he could ever look at her again.

After the loss of the baby, both of them were dealing with grief in their own way.  For Levi, that meant he clung to the two he still had, staying stuck to her side like he’d been welded to her.  At night, he would find himself sitting on her bed while she slept with a hand on her belly, just to feel them there, to know they were still alive, and eventually to feel them move and let a reassuring warmth flow through him to soothe even a modicum of the stabbing pain he was in.  To remind himself that something good was going to come out of this entire shit show.  That he wasn’t going to fail the two that remained.

For Y/N, she upped her therapy sessions.  They were longer, and more frequent, and she always came out of there in various stages of upset or distress--or at least the remnants of it.  She was getting a lot off her chest, not that Levi knew what any of it was.  He still stayed outside the door for her therapy sessions, even though now it made him anxious, maybe even a little fearful, terrified another demon with something against him would come and take advantage of the short time she was out of his sight to kill the other two without anyone knowing.

In the middle of their grieving, Levi and Y/N found themselves at a store, doing the usual grocery shopping, Levi making sure she didn’t get any foods that she wasn’t supposed to be eating and was getting the foods she was supposed to be eating because it was rich in the vitamins she needed right now.

After she finished with the grocery shopping, she wandered away from the food aisle, looking around for anything that caught her eye that might make her go, ‘oh, I need that!’  It was a thing she did that he’d grown accustomed to, and for the most part he zoned out, though secretly he would look at the occasional baby thing as he realized he was getting closer to the time he was going to have to swoop in and take the babies for himself when she attempted to put them up for adoption.

He kept looking at strollers for three, and supplies that came in three, before he’d remind himself of the loss, and he’d quietly put whatever he’d had in his hands back with the taste of ash in his mouth.

Today, though, Y/N found herself in the fabrics section of all things, her hands moving slowly over the fabrics on display, feeling how rough or scratchy or soft they all were, hand moving slowly in contemplation before she touched one of the rolls that made her pause, and she picked up the bound cloth bundled around the cardboard, rubbing a small corner of the fabric across her cheek, and then taking a deep inhale like it would smell of home instead of department store.  He was wondering what the hell she was doing until he saw the tears prick in her eyes, and she put the fabric into her cart, a hand running against her belly in a slow circle as she placed a pattern for baby blankets in her cart.

“You’re coming home with me.  I’ll keep you safe.  I promise.”

Levi’s eyes widened, and where he was standing at the other end of the cart, his fingers suddenly curled around the ends so tightly he was surprised the metal didn’t crumble to dust beneath his fingers.

My Little Levi.  I love you, more than anything.

It’s okay, I’m just going to lie down for a bit, I’m just a little tired.  Go on outside and play, I’ll be awake before you come back.

Momma!

His breath hitched, a pained sound escaping him as the memory and Y/N’s words combined to lance through his heart.

God, haven’t I hurt her enough?  Is it some kind of cruel joke that I might have to hurt her more than I already have to save what’s left of her life?  Well, I’m not laughing.

Next Part---->

Levi Tags:  @clary-quinn​ @humanitys-hottestsoldier @whalerus​ @sunny-flo​ @thirstyforsometea​ @hauntedhousecat​ @peaches-and-clouds​​ @queenofcurse​

*Reader’s POV*

A thought had started to settle into your mind.  Maybe it had always been there, but buried under the intense whirlwind that was your dreams of Levi and the mind-altering pleasure that he brought you every night.  The aches and soreness after waking up, and then the bruises a bit more recently from the hickeys--any more physical, tangible evidence started to make you wonder if it really was just a rash of extremely kinky dreams.

Of course, that was impossible...but the idea was there nonetheless, lurking in the back of your mind.  Even though you didn’t believe they were real, it was still something that was there, and apparently it was present enough to influence some decisions of yours.

For example, all these nights he came, he was always focused on you, on giving you pleasure.  But after that unexpected thing with the tail, when you’d seen his control slip in the face of true pleasure, you’d realized you hadn’t really been given the chance to do anything for him in return.  Besides what he had you do in the course of whatever sexy thing you were doing for the night, but it was always aimed towards getting you more riled up, or keeping him hard--or semi-clean and not so sticky at the end.  You never once laid him down, and focused on him for a change--and he never once asked for it.  You didn’t even think it was something on his mind, a thought or a possibility on his radar.  He was so focused on servicing you, but for some reason thought nothing of servicing himself.

Besides that breeding kink of his that came into play with every dream.  Was that some weird way of your subconscious telling you that you wanted kids or something?

Actually, the more you thought about it, whenever he orgasmed, it was always inside you--buried deep inside your pussy.  Not down your throat, not when he was buried up your ass, not pulling out and onto your stomach, it was always buried inside you.

Again, probably part of that breeding kink, or maybe he was also into cockwarming.

Why were you here thinking about the man in your dreams like he was an actual person, he was literally a wet dream fantasy your brain had cooked up recently and wouldn’t stop sending to your sleeping mind.

At least, that was the more rational, reasonable explanation you had, but not one that fit the physical signs of sex in the mornings after.

In fact, it had gotten so bad, you were scheduling a doctor’s appointment to see if you were a rare case of sexsomnia or something--the idea came to you after you saw it on a medical drama playing on TV in the background while you made your dinner.  Something was happening with you, and you figured it was about time to seek medical help in figuring out what was going on.

But that was still a few days away, and there were still several steamy nights with Levi to spend before getting to the bottom of what was medically going on with you to have continuous wet dreams.  For now, the appointment was far from your mind, as this time when you drifted off to sleep and inevitably towards a dream of Levi, you had a goal for the first time.

Your mind was only in darkness for what felt like a few seconds before you felt the weight of a body against yours, the feel of lips along your jaw and a hand running along your stomach and down in between your legs to already start rubbing you through the fabric of your panties.

Someone was impatient, tonight.  Too bad for him--you’d been talking yourself up to this considering the raw sexual energy Levi exuded in your dreams was rather intimidating, and you were not going to let yourself chicken out at the last minute.

“Levi…” you murmured as you were roused from your sleep, eyes fluttering open to stare upwards at the canopy of the black satin bed you were almost always inside.  The sight disappeared as Levi shifted to lean over you, his eyes filling your vision for a few seconds before he kissed you, sparking a heady and almost lethargic sensation inside you as your arms wrapped around his shoulders, feeling his well-sculpted body pressing up against yours, fingers prodding underneath your panties to already start fingering you.

He was really trying to get right to it, tonight, wasn’t he?

It was only through sheer force of will that you managed to pull back from his heady kiss, gasping slightly as if you’d been drowning and blinking as if to disperse a fog as you focused back on the goal you had in mind.

“Wait, wait, wait,” you murmured, and Levi froze, staring warily at you as you tried to regain your bearings.  He went in as if to kiss you again before you could say anything else, before you could regain your thoughts, and even though you came in to kiss him, moaning at the feel of his fingers already delving between your folds as his tongue swept into your mouth, you managed to gasp out your request around your very heated kiss.

“I want...to try something tonight,” you murmured, and you felt some of the tension from a few moments ago melt out of his shoulders at the admission.

“Someone feeling adventurous?” Levi asked in a low voice, pulling his head back just enough to speak before he trapped your lip between his teeth and gave a little pull, one of his fingers sliding inside you and earning a low moan, his thumb drawing dangerously close to your clit.

No, no, you were going to take charge here, you had a purpose, and he was not going to distract you from it in his insistence to always focus on your sexual needs.

It was his turn.

Your hand tangled deep in his hair, clutching at his head as you kissed him fiercely, leaning up into him and attempting to push him over onto his back so you were on top.  It...didn’t work out.  Too much muscle and a surprising amount of strength despite his small structure.  He simply returned the fervor you brought to the table, body pressing tightly against yours, breathing picking up as the kiss grew sloppy, a knee slipping between your legs to spread you open for him…

You didn’t have control of this moment, but you needed it.  As much as you usually sat back and let him please you, that’s not what you were aiming for tonight.  This was a dream, though, right?  Your dream.  So if you wanted something, all you needed to do was picture it...and will it...and…

With a sudden tilt to the world that was honestly disorienting and left you reeling for a few moments, you and Levi were no longer on the bed.  You were on that couch that occasionally made an appearance for certain positions you two tried, and Levi was underneath you, with you straddling his lap and your hands resting on either side of his neck.  He broke away from the kiss almost as soon as the two of you landed in a different position, looking confused and even worried at the sudden change as he stared up at you cautiously.  Maybe even...unsettled.

“How did you--”

“My dream, right?” you answered with a small smile, your nerves making your stomach squirm as you realized your moment of truth was here.  “I want to do something different tonight,” you repeated, much more firmly than before, and a hand sliding down to his chest as a way to tell him to stay there for a second and stop making moves so you could make yours.

He was hot to the touch--not just warm, actually hot beneath your fingers, his skin unrealistically flawless, his features sharp, body chiseled.  But you couldn’t help but wonder if there was something you just couldn’t see, especially after that tail reveal last time.

Something that was missing this time, you noticed.  Or at least at the moment.  Like you only saw it when he wanted you to.  No, when you wanted to--he was a figment of your imagination, right?

Fuck, how did all this work?  None of it made any sense, yet here you were, rolling with it, trying to seduce your fantasy seducer.

Those thoughts were for another time.  All these nights, he had every chance to learn every inch of your body, memorize you inside and out, but you hadn’t had much of a chance to really explore him, to touch him, memorize his lines, make him vocalize in pleasure--beyond those few times when he got caught up in the high of an approaching orgasm, or the time you’d found how much of an erogenous zone his tail was--when you could see it.

Your hands moved slowly down his body, fingers dipping and curving upwards along his abdomen as you felt to about midway, then brought your hands back up as if to rememorize every muscle and curve before your hands glided over his shoulders--something you were already familiar with after all the times you’d clung to them--and started feeling along his arms.

He was holding still for you for the time being, but he was watching you sharply, as if trying to get in your head and figure out what you were doing.  You were just relieved he’d stopped long enough to let you start, considering how fast he normally was, leaving no time to breathe after one high before he tried out the next on your body.

The thought suddenly made you worried, and in an effort to keep him from getting bored by your slow movements, you moved in to kiss him suddenly and firmly, attempting to get your tongue to dominate and slide into his mouth unhindered for a change.  He kissed you back, but there was a surprisingly hesitant and reserved feeling about it, like he wasn’t sure how to react to what you were doing, like he was still thinking out how he was supposed to respond to this.  His arms were wrapping around your lower waist, which you let happen, feeling him pull you closer as his lips started to press harder against yours again, feeling his cock sliding against your abdomen, moving closer to your pussy…

“Mhm,” you hummed, pulling away from the kiss and dropping to his neck, shifting your hips back to avoid letting him thrust inside you.  As much as your body had practically been trained to crave his dick inside you, you needed your wits about you to start--that could come later.

Levi was tensing up again even as your lips kissed along his neck, feeling for his pulse point and attempting to put little hickeys along his skin like he had done to you.  While that was happening, your hands, which had returned to his chest, started to play with his nipples, fingers brushing in bare touches against them, hearing his breathing grow heavier and feeling his skin jump with every touch.

“What are you doing?” he asked, voice gruff.  He wasn’t stopping you yet, which was a good sign, but the fact that he seemed confused that you were turning the tables and giving him attention of your own free will, that he hadn’t figured out that’s what you were doing...was it because he didn’t consider it in the realm of possibility, for someone to give him the kind of sexual attention he gave?  The thought hurt your heart a little, but considering it was an assumption and something you couldn’t ask without ruining the mood, you tabled the concern for the time being.

“Isn’t it obvious?” you asked with the slightest frown, seeing his jaw clench as your fingers started to idly play with his nipples like he’d done to you not too long ago.  “You always treat me so well--I want to make you feel good for once.”

To emphasize your point, you slid back in his lap, bringing your head down to trap one of his nipples with your lips and swirl it around with your tongue, giving it a few hard sucks while your other hand idly played with his other nipple.

He didn’t seem that vocal, not like he had been when you’d played with the base of his tail, but it could have been his distraction with his confusion, or the fact that he just wasn’t very vocal to start.  His breathing was more ragged, which told you this was at least doing something to him.

His hands found their way to your waist, pulling you back towards him and causing you to release his nipples as he pulled you close enough he could have reached out and bitten your lip without any effort on his part, his cock once more pressed against your abdomen.

“We’re not here for me, we’re here for you--your wants, your needs,” he murmured, trying to shift attention from him, his eyes locked on you.

“Fine...but what I want right now, is to give you what you want,” you answered.  This had to be the most the two of you had talked outside of during-sex talk, right?

“I want to pleasure you.  That’s what I’m here for,” Levi returned without missing a beat.  Except, the delivery wasn’t quite believable.  Something about that sentence rang hollow, like it wasn’t the full truth, just a line he said.  And while he gazed at you, you realized you couldn’t look away, you were being pulled into those blue depths, pulled in closer to his lips, body giving in even as your mind clung to your goal.

Your fingers brushed against his lips a moment before he would have sealed you in that strength sapping, hypnotic kiss of his.

“No--not what you can do for me.  Tell me what I can do for you.  It’s still your show, but tonight, I want to focus on you, not me,” you said lowly, eyes searching his willingly, and not just because something kept you drawn to them.  You came closer to him, lips brushing along his cheekbone as you moved closer to his ear, one of your hands moving slowly and lightly down his spine, noting proudly with the other hand that followed behind the first that it made goosebumps break out across that flawless skin of his.

“Let me taste your skin...let me suck on your cock...let me touch your tail and feel it against my skin again...I’ll ride your cock, your face, I’ll even eat out your ass if you ask me.  Tell me what to do to make you cum.  And at the end, just like we always do, you can breed me.  But what I want right now…”  Your hand slipped between the two of you, grasping at his cock and starting to slowly massage his length in your hand.  He grunted, a soft moan escaping him that you almost hadn’t heard.  “...Is to hear that, all night.  I want to hear you feel pleasure because of me tonight, Levi...Please...let me pleasure you.”

As you finished your words in a soft whimper, nibbling slightly on his jaw, you heard his breath hitch, and he went still.  You couldn’t understand why this was such a hard thing for him to grasp, why he hesitated, why this seemed to shake him.  Why would it be so strange for the person he’d pleasured so much to want to return the favor, at least once?  Had you done something wrong?  Had you said something to upset him without realizing it?  Should you just lay back and let him go about his original plans for the night?

And if this was your dream, and he was a man conjured up by your mind, why would he hesitate and resist to do what you wanted like this?  

Trying to coax him into reacting since his silence was making you nervous, you carefully started kissing along his skin, moving lower and lower, feeling his eyes follow you even though he still wasn't moving a muscle.  Your hands moved along his thighs, surprised as you crouched down between his legs to find that the ground beneath your feet had turned soft and supple, more ideal and less punishing for someone on their knees.  Once you were in position, you started kissing along the inside of his thighs, well aware of how close to your face his cock currently was, close enough you’d just have to turn your head to brush up against it.

As you came close to starting in on your offer to really taste him, he finally moved, hand moving out to touch your cheek.  You thought maybe he meant to stop you after seeing the look in your eyes.

“You don’t have to, really,” he said, attempting to stop you once again, but you weren’t budging on this.

“I want to,” you returned in a low voice, and before you two could continue in these ridiculous and ultimately pointless circles, you leaned forward and placed a far-from-chaste kiss at the side of his cock.  You felt the grip of his fingers tighten for a second, heard his breath catch again, and decided just to go for it.

Gently, you let your hand wrap around the base of his cock, letting the shaft brush against your cheek as you pulled back to get into position, letting your lips wrap softly around the very tip.  Your tongue swirled experimentally around the soft skin of his cock's head, getting used to the feel and taste of him in your mouth and trying to predict how difficult it would be to take in more.  Your fingers moved slowly up his cock from the base until you were holding his cock to your mouth like you were taste testing and trying to keep drops of food from escaping with your fingers.

Levi’s hand shifted from your cheek to the back of your head, grabbing at your hair.  For a wild second, you thought he might pull you off him.

But as your lips ventured a little further to take the full head of his cock into your mouth, his fingers--still tangled lightly in your hair--slipped down the back of your neck.  His legs spread a little wider to give you more space to work, and he leaned back in his seat, head tilted upwards and resting on the back of the couch so he could gaze up at…was there a ceiling?  You weren't going to look right now, you were fairly focused, though admittedly distracted for a moment by the conflicted look in his half-closed eyes as he sat back and let you do what you were clearly determined to do.

For a few minutes, the only sounds were the ones you were making.  The wet smack of saliva against skin, your little noises as you took a small portion of his cock into your mouth, keeping your cheeks hollow, the jaw lax, and your tongue active and wild.

Levi moved occasionally, shifting here and there for a more comfortable position, his thumb stroking lightly along the back of your neck while his other arm was slung out along the back of the couch.  You would be worried you were giving a bad blow job and he was bored, if it wasn't for the way his hand gripped at the couch, or the slight flush of pleasure to his skin, or the way his eyes had fallen closed, lips parted and moving faintly in what might have been words around his deep breaths.

Or maybe it was something a lot more lewd that made your legs quake, thinking of that gorgeous sight of him between your legs with his face buried in you…

Foreplay wouldn't keep him satisfied for long, though.  You'd been playing with his cock for a while now--it was time to try and make him arch and moan for once.

Without warning, your tongue lay flat, and you slid more of his cock into your mouth with a low hum.  Levi let out a pleased sigh above you, hips rolling up into the motion and making you stop just so he wouldn't push past where you were ready to take him.  Your saliva slipped down his dick and onto his balls, making his length a little easier to take in as you tried angling your head, tongue sweeping around the dick in your mouth in search of a spot that made him squirm.  All the while, your hand started to lazily pump up and down the shaft, trying to keep him erect and hard despite your hesitant pace as you gingerly felt out the situation and how good you were at this.

Adjusting to having his cock fill your mouth and be on the verge of reaching your throat, you started off slow just to make sure you weren't going to hit the wrong spot so hard and fast you would choke, or worse.  You bobbed your head up and down on Levi's cock, humming and moaning low in your throat the whole time at how surprisingly good it felt, even if it required some concentration and care.

A little pressure on the back of your neck when you took him in, and a slight tug on your hair when you pulled back, made you realize Levi was getting invested, too, his hand on the back of your neck starting to guide how you took him, hopefully helping you find the right spots soon.

Your panties were wet with excitement, but there was nothing you could do about that right now--you were focused, and you were getting somewhere.

"Don't be so timid--if you're so intent on doing this, then do it properly," he chastised you suddenly, his voice gruff, close to a growl, revealing that he wasn't nearly as relaxed as he seemed.  Clearly, he was tired of the slow pace.  At least he was saying something instead of straight up bucking into your mouth and throat without any warning.

He was right, too--even you knew you were going pretty slow right now.  All right, then, if he wanted you to raise the stakes a bit more…

Shifting in place, your other hand ran up his thigh and over his waist, reaching towards his lower back, towards his tailbone.  At the same time, you dipped your head low, taking in as much of his cock as you could before you gave a hard suck and allowed yourself to swallow reflexively.

Gag reflex?  Why would you bother with that in your own dream?  Anything was possible here, and you were going to take full advantage of that right now.

A soft gasp left Levi’s throat, and this time, you didn’t linger or hesitate, pulling back and starting a vigorous bob along his cock, a strange noise you hadn’t realized you were capable of escaping you with every dip of your head, every time his tip almost slipped out of your mouth before you relentlessly sucked him right back in, burying his cock in your mouth, your hand pumping along his length for added stimulation.

Levi’s breathing was heavy, borderline on panting as he watched you suck his cock, his hand now fisted in the hair at the back of your neck, hips rocking into your hand and those sinful lips of yours.  He was almost there, but he wasn’t quite at the point you wanted him to, which meant you had to push him a little further to get what you wanted.

Your free hand had made it around to his tailbone by now, fingers splaying across the place you knew his tail had been last time, feeling along the smooth skin experimentally.  Levi squirmed underneath your light, investigative touch, and you didn’t relent, trying to communicate without halting your enthusiastic tasting of his cock that you wanted him to stop hiding his tail--you wanted to feel it, and you were currently seeking out its base.

"Shit…" Levi gasped softly as your hand moved a little up his spine, as if concerned you might be a little too low to find it, and on the way back down...it was suddenly there.

You shifted closer in anticipation, Levi's grip on your head now holding you close enough to him that you could not pull away.  Greedily, your hand wrapped around the base of his tail, thumb rubbing sensual circles around the base to try and provoke a reaction similar to last time.

Now he moaned, hand holding you tightly in place as his hips bucked forwards into your mouth, cock thrusting into your throat.  At the same time, your hand wrapped around his tail, hand moving slowly out to get a good feel of it and see if Levi's sensitivity expanded beyond just the base. A quick glance to the side revealed it was fairly long, draped loosely across the couch and over the edge, coming to one slender tip that looked sharp as a whip.

No arrow tip, no "forked tongue," no scales--just smooth, hot skin for the slender appendage.  It looked strangely natural, despite the black, blue, grey shades and coloration. And it was surprisingly muscly for a tail.

Well...with what you knew he could do with it, perhaps that part shouldn't seem so surprising.

And it was currently coiling, shuddering under the attention it was receiving, arching in the air as if in anticipation for the incoming touch.  Another moan escaped Levi as his tail arched, and you realized it was also a fairly good indicator for the pleasure he was experiencing.

Bringing your hand back to the base and feeling for those sensitive spots along the thickest part of his tail, he bucked sharply up into your mouth with a low growl.  The scenery changed again, and suddenly he wasn't lying on the couch letting you suck him off--he was standing with his back against the wall, you kneeling in front of him with your mouth still wrapped around his cock and your hand still clutching the base of a tail that now brushed sensually across the exposed skin of your legs an arm, the tip of his tail curling underneath your shirt.

This was no longer a blow job--you were about to get throat fucked.

Levi pushed inside you until your lips were brushing against his balls and your eyes watered, hand shifting to grab his waist as you felt a shred of relief in the fact you'd decided a gag reflex wasn't going to be a problem in this dream.  Otherwise this could have ended badly, though you still found it hard to breathe, and it still took effort to try and get yourself to relax enough to take him in.

Levi let it sit there for a few seconds, his tail sliding up along your chest, pulling your shirt up with it as it came between your breasts and continued to reach, Levi's breathing officially turning into lustful pants as he pulled out and started his deep thrusts into your mouth.  Moans and slight yelps escaped you in the process, and you tried to keep your head angled so he had a smooth entrance deep inside, eyes drawn up to his with the way you were knelt in front of him, only able to feel what his tail was doing, not to see and anticipate.

"That's a good girl, taking my cock like this," he growled, all earlier hesitation forgotten as the orgasmic high started to kick in and take control.  "I knew you were a slut for my cock, but this...you take it so well, me fucking your throat like this.  You look like you just want more."

As he spoke, his pace quickened, dick sliding smoothly all the way in and almost all the way out, your teeth grazing in a bare tickle along his cock and making it twitch, tongue licking and flicking and teasing whenever there was enough room in your mouth to do so.  He shuddered at the sensation, egged on by the way you were pumping and stroking along the erogenous zone of his tail at the same time, and held you close, cock thrusting steadily and quickly into your mouth.  The edge of his tail slipped up through the collar of your shirt, the very tip teasing along your lips and growing slick with saliva in the process, while a little further down it arched and wiggled in a way that it brushed against your nipples, making you whimper.

Now you weren't just excited--you were wet and aching, dying for the attention his tail was now teasing you with.

"You wanted to taste my cock?" Levi growled, his pace picking up and his cock throbbed against your tongue.  "This what you wanted?  To choke on my dick like my personal cockslut?  C'mon, this is what you wanted, right?  Fuck...shit…"

The dirty talk was getting worse, and he was starting to pound relentlessly into your throat, which told you he was close.  Your hand had given up pumping along the shaft of his cock with how rapidly he was throat fucking you, now, and had instead started to massage and tease his balls, hoping the stimulation was about to send him over the edge between the throat fuck, the fondling of his balls, the teasing along the base of his tail, and…

It had stopped rubbing against your nipples, instead sliding down over your abdomen and into your panties, the hot skin easily slipping between your folds rubbing along your entrance and clit.  Your legs shook, and you started to moan and whimper needily, which just made the feeling of his cock sliding into your mouth so much better for him.

"Hah...fuck...shit you're wet...and your throats so fucking tight…and…hnng…"

Levi's pants were ragged, his hips starting to move sporadically as his hand threaded through the hair at the top of your head repeatedly, holding you almost uncomfortably tight to his cock in his approaching climax.  Even you could feel it coming, could anticipate the salty taste that would soon flood your mouth and throat…

The tip of his tail suddenly rolled and curled against your tip so it formed a small round edge instead of that wicked sharp edge, and without warning, it pushed between the folds of your pussy, pushing inside you much as it had into your ass the first time you'd seen it.

You gasped and then choked on Levi's dick at the sensation, and a strangled sound escaped him as he suddenly held you firmly in place, his body shuddering against you and cock twitching madly as his tail pushed further and further inside, stretching and filling you more than his cock could without cumming inside you.  Each flex of the hot muscle inside you made you feel like it would rip you open as it went further than humanly possible, further than anything you would feel in real life, and your mind went blank, body limp for a few moments as you surrendered yourself to being fucked by Levi like this gladly.

Maybe you would cancel that appointment, because if this was the kind of pleasure you were going to experience in these dreams, you didn't want it to ever end.

Neither did he, based on the sound that came out of him.  Wild and feral, Levi bucked into your throat without resistance, the tip of his cock pushing against the back of your throat even as the muscles of your throat flexed and tightened around him with your choking from the raw sensation and his cock buried in your throat.  His face was flushed, sweat dripping down his forehead and cheeks, glistening against his skin as he tried to hold his orgasm in vain.

As you were coming back to your senses, egged on by the feel of your body seeming to stretch and fill from his tail coiling as far inside you as it could reach given the position the two of you were in, you caught the slightest spark of logical realization in his gaze through the haze of his orgasmic high.

"Fuck...your pussy.  I...I only cum inside your...hng...shit!"

Before he could second guess, before he could even finish the thought or pull back, you released his balls so you could grip tightly at his ass with one hand to yank him forwards and shove him as deep down your throat as he could go, your other hand giving a firm tug on his tail that made him throw his head back, arch his back, and let out the wild curse, voice cracking and going hoarse as his control finally shattered, and his cum spilled hot and thick down your throat, tail twitching wildly inside you for a few moments in a way that almost sent you over the edge.

You greedily swallowed the hot cum spilling down your throat, fingers digging into his skin, pulling back when the flow started to lessen so some could stay in your mouth, the salty taste filling your mouth, a small strand escaping from the corner of your mouth and causing you to have to pull back and catch it with your tongue, lapping up the last few squirts from his cock before they could fall to the floor.

Just before his tail could stimulate you to an orgasm, though, it had gone still inside you.  You were still filled, and the feeling alone kept you on edge, but his stillness denied you a release, and even walked you back from the edge a few steps.

You took a few moments to clean off his cock, making sure there wasn't a trace left as you listened to his breathing slowly come back to normal, his hand changing from that vice grip to strokes through your hair as you cleaned up his cock like he was petting a kitten.

"Not a single drop wasted, huh?  Good girl...but no more fooling around."  His tail flexed inside you, and you let out a wanton moan, the heat in your cheeks the only hint you had at how flushed and needy you looked to him right now, kneeling in front of him with traces of his cum still making your lips shine.  "You pleasured me--now it's back to you."

His dick was hardening again to stand erect in front of your face, and while you were certain that was humanly impossible, you were rather sure he wasn't really human at this point--plus it was a dream, so if you wanted round two now, he would be ready for round two now.

His tail suddenly trusted deeper inside you, and you arched at the sudden feeling you might tear and burst, ears ringing and vision going fuzzy for a moment before you suddenly found yourself on your back in the bed, staring up at the black silk canopy as the last of his tail slipped out of you, leaving you feeling hollow and cold without that heat filling you.  Levi was hovering over you again, his cock resting momentarily against your stomach as he removed your panties and waited for you to come to your senses.

As your eyes focused on him, he lined himself up, cheeks still flushed from the intense orgasm he'd just had, hair falling in front of his eyes to obscure your vision of the one thing that could give you a hint at his thought process.  His cock started to slip inside you, and you whimpered and moaned at how good it felt to have his hot and hard cock filling the space his tail had left empty, as well as how easy it was for him with how stretched and open you felt right now.

Your hand ran along his chest, but you didn't push him away.  You were just getting his attention.

"Let me ride you?" You asked softly.  Levi looked up to meet your gaze, both of you well aware that this was a continuation of him being the focus, of you treating him--that it wasn't going to end with the blow job and throat fuck.

You didn't want Levi to have to work for it tonight.  That was your job, tonight.  He just needed to lay back, relax, and enjoy.

Your hand slid up his chest and neck, cupping his cheek and jaw in your hand as you reached up to kiss him deeply, surprised when he started to pull away before giving in, his arms wrapping around your body to turn you both over.  Now, he lay on his back, his cock already inside you, you on top of him with legs straddling him, causing his dick to slide deeper inside as you settled on top of him.  You moaned against his lips, tongue slipping inside his mouth before he could take advantage of the sound and beat you to the punch.

Once you were settled in place, his arms wrapped around your back, his tail sliding and curling lazily along your legs, you started to rock against him, whimpering lowly at how good it felt but also the sensitivity leftover from him edging you moments ago.  His cock entered you with ease, buried to the hilt in a few rocks against his hips, like it was where he belonged.  You didn't have to wait for him to adjust this time, hips lifting and then sinking onto his cock again with a wet smack, his fingers clenching in the fabric of the shirt you were still wearing, surprisingly.

It was Levi who pushed you back.  Normally, he was always holding you so close, always in contact, always keeping things so fast and intense.  But he pushed you away from the kiss into more of an upright position, bringing his knees up behind you for something to lean back on as you rode his cock, maybe intending to make it a little easier for you.

His hands slid under your shirt, and you leaned your head back with a low moan, feeling his hands slowly move along your skin, feeling you up even as your hips rocked together to keep his cock buried deep inside you.  You were going to cum from this sensation alone, but you still asked for more.

"Put your tail in me again.  It feels...so good…" you panted, one of your hands covering his as it found its way to your breast, the other staying planted in the bed for stability.

Yes, it did feel good for you, but you also knew just how damn sensitive that tail of his was, and how he’d fallen apart last time he'd double penetrated you with it.  It would be explosive for him, which was what you were aiming for.

Levi didn't hesitate to follow this request, and you felt his tail, still wet and sticky with the buildup from you earlier, slipped past that little ring of muscle and started to push its way inside you.  Your body reacted instinctively, curling backwards over his legs with a guttural moan, one of Levi’s hands lowering to your abdomen to hold you down and keep you on his cock, which he trusted up into you as if to remind you it was still there.

You came without any more warning than a weak cry at his thrust, Levi letting out a pleased sigh at the sensation of your cum coating his cock, moaning when the walls of your ass gripped at his tail tighter even as it pushed further in, and he continued to thrust into your pussy through your orgasm, able to feel the tip of his cock with the hand resting against your abdomen when he trusted inside you with the bend of your body and how deep his cock was.

Even as you orgasmed and weakly attempted to keep riding him, though at this point he might as well have taken over, Levi kept going, layering on more stimulation to drive you even further over the edge.

His hand gripping your breast was already playing with your nipple, and the other hand that was resting on your abdomen and trying to hold you down enough he could keep thrusting into you had reached out with his thumb to seek out and start teasing your clit.  All the while, his tail coiled and trusted into your ass, finding the erogenous spot deep inside and refusing to release it afterwards, the tip of his tail rubbing against it relentlessly while the rest coiled, flexed, and filled your insides.  And he never once pulled his cock out of you, either, continuing to thrust, with you hanging on for dear life, trying to ride him but your mind quickly losing the battle with all the stimulation.  You just felt him, and you could hear him moaning, gasping, and panting beneath you, showcasing that you had been successful in eliciting pleasure from him and letting him be more of the focus tonight.

You just hadn't realized it was going to overwhelm you in the process, going limp as he stimulated and fucked you so thoroughly you lost sense of how many orgasms he pulled from you, the flashes of heat spilling into your gut and the resulting, guttural growls your only sign he was cumming as well.

He didn't stop until you blacked out for a solid...well, it had to be more than a few seconds, even though it felt like you'd slipped back into sleep for that long before you came to, mind hazily focusing on the feel of his arms supporting you instead of his legs, tail gone from upside you and leaving you feeling partially empty, even though his cock was still buried deep inside you, like he'd been worried to pull out while you were unconscious.

"Easy...easy…" he murmured, and hearing his voice again made you realize he hadn't said a word after the throat fuck, up until now.  Carefully, he was laying you back down on the silken bed, his hand gently pushing sweaty strands of hair from your face so it wouldn't block your airways or get tangled around your neck, allowing you to breathe with ease.

Once you were lying on your back, he pulled his other arm out from under you so it would be free, letting it softly fall on your abdomen, where his thumb stroked gentle, random lines against your bare skin.  After giving you a few moments to catch your breath, he pulled out, slowly and carefully, though he didn't stop when you whimpered at the feeling of his cock slipping out of your body now so sensitive it hurt.

"It's okay...just rest now.  It won't be so bad in the morning," he murmured, covering you with the silken sheets except for that hand on your abdomen, still stroking and rubbing the skin absent-mindedly.  It was strange that, even though he was supposed to be comforting you in your exhausted state as part of the aftercare, that was the only touch he gave you.

And that look in his eyes as he stared down at you, one you glimpsed seconds before something pushed you back under into a deep and much needed sleep.

So conflicted.  Trapped between some kind of amazement and crushing guilt, like he was staring at the last of a dying breed.

Next Part---->

Tags:   @humanitys-hottestsoldier @clary-quinn​ @sunny-flo​​ @whalerus​​  @thirstyforsometea​

*Reader’s POV*

After the night that you treated Levi, things were...different, when he came to you in your dreams.  And not necessarily in a good way.  It wasn’t anything bad, per say, but if there had ever been a hint of intimacy, it wasn’t there, now.  The entire exchange was now strictly sex.  There was a distance to him now that hadn’t been there before, like he was holding you at arm’s length emotionally, trying to avoid something like that happening again, like you’d spooked him or something.  Any attempt you made to focus on him once again like you had before was immediately shut down.  You’d eventually learned to stop trying.

Of course, he didn’t disappear entirely.  If anything, you saw him more now.  He was still coming to you in your dreams while you were in bed, and he still made you feel...divine, each time.  The difference was that he came to you now whenever you fell asleep, even if it was a quick nap, or an accidental doze--and you were strangely starting to doze off far more often than you used to.

Were you developing narcolepsy as well, now?  What was going on in your brain?  Did medicine even have an answer for what was happening to you?  You’d seen two or three doctors already, and you still weren’t any closer to finding an answer.

And yet the dreams persisted, intensified, and came far more frequently...

(Two weeks ago)

Your heels ached, shoulders bunched up and tense, making you roll them instinctively and roll your head side to side to try and loosen up the tension as you trudged through your home, leaving a slight trail of clothes as you gathered your me time supplies on your way to the bathroom.  A small pint of your favorite ice cream, a bottle of your favorite drink, wireless earbuds to play music in, and aches and pains bath salts poured into the steaming hot running water.  Your supplies were gathered on a little table you pulled next to the bathtub before climbing inside, sinking into the hot and now scented water with a low moan, sinking into the dangerously full bathtub all the way up to your earlobes, stretching your legs out in front of you and letting the water splash across the afflicted areas.

It had been a rough day at work, and you were taking the time to treat yourself and unwind a bit, especially since you had another shift in about 18 hours.

After taking a few moments to simply enjoy the feeling of the tension leaving your tired muscles, you sat up properly in the tub, leaning back and grabbing your snacks to indulge in your treat to yourself.  Your music was turned down low in your ears, loud enough you could hear it comfortably, but not excessively loud like you sometimes did when you were dancing around or getting in the zone while you did housework.  The ice cream disappeared in what felt like seconds, and you got halfway through your drink before it started to sit forgotten on the nightstand in favor of soaking in the heat of the water again, aware that you were starting to sweat, steam covering up the mirrors, the only sound in the room the occasional ripple of water, which you couldn’t quite hear over the music in your ears.

You leaned your head back to rest on the rim of the tub behind your head, closed your eyes, took a deep breath, sank as far as you could into the water without submerging your headphones…

The water suddenly sloshed in disturbance, splashing over the edge as another leg appeared in the water beside you, your eyes shooting open to see Levi climbing into the tub with you like it was the most normal thing, eyes rising from where he was carefully and strategically climbing into the tub with you, up to your wide-eyed gaze.

His hand reached out to gently remove the earbud before you could, already reaching over for the other one as he started to speak.

“Don’t worry--I’ll make sure you don’t drown falling asleep in the tub,” he said with the slightest twitch upwards in his lips towards a smirk at his dark humor joke, taking the other earbud out of your ear and setting both on the nightstand as he settled closer to you, chest pressing up against yours, waist settling between your legs even though it took some maneuvering, your right leg now dangling out of the tub to spread you wide enough he could settle between your legs in the tight space.  One of his hands reached just behind your head to grip the rim of the bathtub and hold him up, bringing him close enough to your face that he could plant a steamy kiss on your lips, his other hand slipping between the two of you to start rubbing and swirling around your clit and folds in the hot water, the relaxed state you had been in now proving advantageous not only for your unwind time after work, but for Levi’s attempt to loosen your body up for him.

Had you really fallen asleep in the bathtub?  That was a new one for you, especially considering all the horror stories built up in your mind from that one story you heard as a child about a woman drowning in the bathtub after falling asleep.

Levi’s fingers slipped inside of you, stretching you out and making you moan lowly into his lips, water sloshing out of the tub as you both rocked into each other, and you felt his tail slipping around your back to help support you and hold you close to him, the tip curling back around to your front near your chest, floating lazily in the water and occasionally tickling your skin.

“There won’t be much time before you wake up...you don’t mind if I speed things up, do you?” he asked against your lips.  His fingers were working you rather quickly, the speed he was trying to get you loose and ready for him causing a pleasant burn inside you.

“If it’s gonna be quick, at least leave me satisfied,” you murmured in response.  The last thing you wanted was to wake up sexually frustrated having to do it yourself.

His fingers curled tighter around the edge of the bathtub, the hand stretching you open for him in the water disappearing long enough to guide himself to you.  It was harder to do while you were submerged, considering the water would wash away that natural lubricant that made sliding inside you much easier.  It was part of the reason why for once he had to guide himself in, why his hand shifted to your waist for added stability and leverage.  He had to grind and thrust a little harder and more than normal to gradually bury himself inside you, swallowing your gasps and moans with his mouth as he pushed deeper inside you.

It also helped keep you from swallowing any of the water as it splashed out of the tub in torrents with every thrust, soaking most of your hair, splashing across your faces but not interrupting the kiss as he kept firmly locked with your lips.  One of your hands gripped at his thigh to keep him pulled close to you, occasionally sliding a little higher to grip at his ass, while your other hand ran up his neck and twined into his slightly damp hair thanks to the steam and the splashing water, nails scratching lightly against the close shave of his undercut.

Once he was buried deep inside you, he didn’t dare pull out and go through the difficult entry again in the water.  Instead, he ground his hips into yours, rocking his hips in more than a basic up and down motion to let his cock explore your insides, rubbing against your walls and stretching them out, rubbing against the sensitive spots he could reach as his kiss deepened.

The water was noticeably lessened by now with all your movements, and a few times he had to grab at the bathtub rim again as his grip slipped, your back pressed against the side of the tub as his chest pressed harder against yours.

It was a little uncomfortable, given the tight space, the way your leg had to dangle out of the tub, the hard surface of the tub in general, and the way he couldn’t pull out without risking some dry friction, but something about...his taste, or maybe the smell in the air between his natural scent and the relaxing scents of the salts you’d put in the water, or perhaps the way he made his cock hit the same sweet spots over and over once he realized where they were...something about it kept you excited, made the water suddenly feel cool against your flushed skin as he rocked you both towards a climax.

When your climax did hit, it was almost a relief, causing your body to loosen further and relaxation to seep through you from the orgasm flushing through your body.  Levi kept himself buried deep inside you as your climaxes ran their course, his kiss heady and deep, making you feel drowsy, eyelids fluttering…

You accidentally snorted some of the water in the tub as your nose slipped below the water line, and you woke with a start, sputtering and trying to snort the water back out as it burned and made your eyes water, looking around in confusion at your silent bathroom once more.  Your first concern, after realizing Levi was nowhere to be seen, was your headphones, which would have been submerged if you had slipped low enough to inhale water through your nose.

There were no headphones in your ear.  They were resting unharmed and perfectly dry on the little table next to the bathtub, and the water level around you was much lower than it had been when you’d nodded off a few...however long ago.

Still coughing and sputtering, you pulled the plug and climbed out of the water that now felt lukewarm and unpleasant against your skin after that steamy dream.  You wanted nothing more than to find some soft warm clothes and relax.  Well, the relaxing part your time was up for--it was housework and dinner for you now, before you went to bed.

Climbing out of the tub, you almost slipped, discovering water splashed recklessly all over the floor, like half the tub had been emptied onto the floor while you’d fallen asleep.

Still shaky and in a rush to warm up, you didn’t pay it much mind at the time, thinking it was just a mess from your startled awake movements and your hasty exit out of the tub, not realizing it was too much water to have been displaced by those two simple movements.

You were too concerned grumbling under your breath because you had to stop and mop up the water with towels while you were starting to freeze before you could dash off to your bedroom to get fresh pajamas to wander the house in.

You had a thirty minute lunch break.

After finding it difficult to sleep the night before, and feeling groggy and unrested when you did wake up, you were looking forward to a quick nap in your car instead of using it to actually eat.  You were still fairly full after your breakfast this morning, so you were sure you could probably last until dinner if you skipped lunch.  You needed sleep more than food right now, anyway.

Alarm set for twenty minutes, seat leaned back as far as it would go and doors locked, your coat draped over you like a poor excuse for a blanket, you closed your eyes with a weary sigh, feeling slightly giddy at the thought of a few moment’s rest.

You’d just started to feel the falling sensation of nodding off despite the unorthodox bed you’d made yourself when you began to feel it between your legs.  The familiar sensation of fingers prodding, stroking, rubbing.

You should have known--falling asleep these days meant Levi would be there, even if it was for a few moments between shifts at work.

“Levi…” you grumbled, feeling those fingers already working your pants and panties off at the same time, or at least low enough to give him access.  Your eyes were still closed, as if keeping them closed gave you a better chance at slipping into the dreamless sleep that had alluded you since this started.

“I’ll keep it quick,” he promised, his lips and teeth grazing along your thighs and pelvis, making you shudder and moan softly, especially when you felt his breath puffing softly against the entrance of your pussy.  “Is that all right?” he murmured, already starting to part your folds to give his lips and tongue access.

Fuck...

Of course he was going to eat you out, the one sinful act that turned you to putty, that made your insides ache just at the thought.  You’d kill for the sight of him between your legs, and if you just turned your head a little and opened your eyes.

His tongue dipped inside you, and your body trembled, breath catching as you opened your tired eyes to look down at him, the world around you hazy as soon as he locked eyes with you.  You knew he was kneeling down between your legs, mouth locking around your labia as his tongue pushed deeper, making you squirm and moan slightly, hips rocking into his face.  His eyes never left yours, though.  The steel blue and grey burning intensely into you, watching your every move as if making sure you were responding the way he wanted to as the sound of him licking and sucking on his meal reached your ears, making you feel that lighthearted sense of quick arousal.  He released your labia to suddenly wrap his lips around your clit, tongue flicking mercilessly against it the same time he sucked gently on it.  Your breathing grew shallow as he alternated between your clit and your entrance, using his mouth alone to pleasure you, driving you quickly to an edge in what you thought might be record time.

It was like he was on a time limit.  Like he was trying to see how hard and fast he could make you cum.

When you whimpered, your body giving a warning tense and shudder, Levi suddenly pulled away, causing you to groan in disappointment.  You’d thought he’d been going for a quick orgasm, not--

He was crawling over you, hands placed carefully along your seat to avoid pressing down on you as he lined himself up, his hard cock pressing against your entrance and already leaking pre-cum.  Had he been keeping his hands free to get himself ready at the same time?

You didn’t get long to dwell on his methods before he was pushing inside you, your wound up body accepting him gratefully while you moaned, feeling his loosened, unbuttoned jeans rubbing against your thighs with every thrust.  One of his hands lifted your shirt so he could lower his head to your breast, doing something he hadn’t done in a while and letting his lips and hands play with your breasts and nipples while his cock thrusted into you, quickly filling you and causing the wet slap of skin on skin to fill the enclosed space of your car.

His grunts against the skin of your chest were quiet but still there, your body feeling unnaturally hot wherever he touched you, as if stirring you to further sensitivity that made you cum before you could even realize what was happening.

Were you really that easy to please when it came to him?  It was like you were cumming on command at this point, like it was a trained response to his advances.  It was a bit unfair.

Though, it helped that he tended to follow close after, like he was in a similar position.

Levi grunted far more audibly, muffling a low moan by wrapping his lips around one of your nipples while he rode out his own orgasm, hips bucking up deep into you a few times before he slowly pulled out, quietly cleaning himself up and making you both decent once again before you felt yourself slip into sleep for what felt like a few seconds.

You were woken up by your phone alarm going off, informing you that your time was up and you needed to get back to work.

At least he wasn’t ever ambitious in these daydream visits, keeping it to one and done so that you didn’t miss too much of what was happening in reality while you took these small day pleasure trips.

His timing could be a bit better, though.  This was starting to tax your sleep and general feeling of being rested.  If you couldn’t even close your eyes for a few moments without him showing up in an almost lucid dream to fuck you, your energy was about to evaporate.

(One Week Ago)

You just wanted to shut your brain off for a while.  You were a couple doctor visits into trying to figure out what was happening to you, and work was killing you lately.  You had more aches and pains than normal, Levi’s frequent visits were leaving you feeling filled and stretched all the time, as well as tired, even if it was in your dreams--like it was somehow disrupting your rest.  It had been a rough day at work as well, and after all the rushing and trying to keep up with the awful pace of the day, you just wanted to be mindless for a while.

Maybe you should try to take some of your saved up vacation days to try and bounce back.  You were slipping into a state of constant exhaustion, and people were noticing.  Right now you could still function and manage despite it, but before long, you were certain you were going to crash and burn.  Hopefully it would be on a day off, and not on a day you were supposed to work.  You needed those paychecks.

Besides, you had more doctor’s visits coming up--more follow ups, more tests…

You sighed heavily, burying your face in the couch pillow as the sound of the TV turned into white noise.  You weren’t supposed to be thinking right now, just watching mindless television in a semi-fetal position on the couch.  You weren’t even interested in the show, honestly, it was just there, making it hard to focus and starting to build a restless feeling inside you.

As if you’d summoned him, you felt a weight behind you, an arm draping over your middle and slowly moving up the center of your chest in a light rub, legs molding into a half-bent position along yours, pelvis pressed up against your ass, his breath tickling your neck.

Right now, though, you didn’t much mind.  This was more ideal than recently.  Hell, you were the one bored out of your mind and not wanting to think right now.  But there was still that twinge of discomfort at the reminder of just how often he’d been coming to you recently.  You were starting to burn out.

Not yet, but you were getting there

“Do you mind?” he asked in a murmur along the top curve of your ear, causing the hairs on the back of your neck to stand up.

“No,” you mumbled into the pillow, feeling his hand slowly start to slide under your clothes and undress you at the admission.  “But this is starting to get a bit excessive, you know.”

He paused for a moment, your jeans unbuttoned and unzipped, shirt pulled up partially, his hand slipped between your skin and the fabric of your jeans and panties, paused just short of pushing them downwards.

“But right now?” he asked hesitantly, needing a bit of clarification after your comment.

“Go ahead.  I don’t want to think right now.  Could you just...make me forget some things?” you answered, your voice still muffled by the pillow, yet he seemed to understand every word you said.

“I can do that,” he answered in a surprisingly reassuring purr, pushing your pants and panties down to your knees and leaving it up to you to push them further down--which you did, kicking them to the edge of the couch.  Once your legs were free, he grasped one of them and hooked it back behind his leg, spreading your legs open enough for him to have easy access.  His hand slipped back under your shirt after that, fingers stretching wide to stroke across your chest--and not just against your breasts.  His lips lazily trailed along your throat and neck, and his hips rocked against you from behind, causing his cock to rub against your ass and slide slightly between your cheeks, coming closer to your pussy inch by inch.  Unexpectedly, you felt his tail drape over the exposed thigh of the leg he’d draped behind his, coming up to your exposed pussy and starting to rub against your folds with the thicker, more muscly part of his tail while the tip tickled your abdomen and thighs as it flicked between the two.

You moaned quietly, leaning your head back and towards him, inadvertently giving him more access to more of your throat, which he promptly took advantage of, lips and teeth grazing against your skin.  “Just like that…”

His hand slid further up, appearing from beneath your collar and gripping lightly at your throat.  "Are you still mine?" He whispered in your ear, his voice causing you to shudder, and you felt his cock start to rub against your pussy as well, his other hand holding your leg firmly in place hooked around his and out of the way.

"Yes…" you sighed, his thumb stroking along your pulse point in your throat.

"Can I still breed you?"

His cock was perfectly positioned to thrust up into you, and you whimpered at the feel and his words, knowing well what came next.

"Yes, please," you whispered, moaning rather loudly when his tail shifted out of the way and his cock trusted up inside you in one sharp thrust. Not all the way, though.  You were tighter than usually, especially considering the bit of prep he'd given you and how willing you were right now.

Levi grunted, thrusting a little harder to push further in, his other hand pulling your leg further back to open you wide.

"Someone needs a good stretching if they're going to be bred like my good little cockslut," he whispered in your ear.  You hadn't realized how much you were missing the dirty talk until his words went right to your core and poured more heat in your belly.

As soon as he said it, you felt his tail start to slide in beside his cock.  The resulting stretch from the double penetration as more and more of him pushed inside your pussy made you whimper and cry out, even as his tail opened you up and made it easier for his cock to slide in.

While his cock trusted in and out of you in an effortless pace thanks to how wide and wet you were quickly becoming, his tail pushed a little further into the places his cock couldn't reach, coiling inside you and rubbing against your sweet spots.  You were a moaning mess, Levi's hand crawling a little higher to stick his fingers in your mouth, which you obediently began to suck, your pleased sounds now muffled by your efforts.

"You wanted to forget?  I'll make you forget.  You'll be my personal cum factory right now and tonight, and you can feed my hungry cock every sweet drop your pussy has to give.  Deal?" You nodded, moaning against his fingers, which he pulled out with a growled, "I can't hear you!"

"Yes!" You gasped, breath catching as you felt him coax an orgasm from your body seconds after he put his fingers back in your mouth.

He didn't stop thrusting after you came--he continued his merciless pace with the double penetration until he came.  At that point, he flipped you over so you were lying on your stomach, repositioning your legs so he could continue taking you, cumming what should have been impossibly two more times inside you from that position as your body started to struggle to prove him the orgasms from you that he thought.

You certainly forgot, though.  You forgot everything in those moments, except when he turned you over a third time  to take you again, lips locking with yours in that kiss that seemed to pull at your soul, lighting a fire inside your body that seemed to accelerate your recovery and squeeze out a few last orgasms from your drained body, his eyes locked with yours the whole time your body felt aflame, flickering between the steel blue and the black and gold.

With the last orgasm, your mind went white, memory of the whole thing going hazy, and you barely managed to stagger off the couch and to bed before slipping into a deep sleep, where he was waiting for you amid the black silks to continue like he'd promised, where there were no limitations to stop the two of you from going literally all night.

The exhaustion was officially impacting your daily life.  Your friends were the first to notice that you were acting completely drained all the time, asking if you were getting enough sleep.  You’d simply snorted and gave the wry reply of too much sleep and tried to brush it off.

But then your coworkers started noticing.  You were slowing down, you ached and hurt more often and much easier, you made more mistakes.  Then your boss noticed, when it had gotten so bad that they pulled you aside for a discussion about your performance and to ask what was going on.

At that point, you had to come clean that you had some medical issues going on, and that you were seeing some doctors trying to figure out what was wrong and how to fix it.

That was how you ended up with a medical leave while your doctor’s visits continued--though it would only last so long before they would have to let you go.

On one of the nights that you didn’t have a doctor’s appointment, however, some of your friends had scheduled a night off so that all of you could go out.  It was a sweet gesture, an attempt to get your mind off of whatever was happening with you and the doctor’s visits, plus now the threat of possibly losing your job if you couldn’t figure out what was wrong with you and do something to help you work like you used to again.  There were a lot of stressors right now, and the night out was meant to help get your mind off them.  Dinner, a movie, some clubbing if you felt up to it by the end of the night.  Which you did.  Dinner had been great, the movie was good--it wasn’t one that was going to end up on your list of favorites, but it was still good--and you weren’t feeling particularly exhausted at the moment.  You felt rather at ease, and were still up to some fun.

So, you’d all gone to a local nightclub based on majority vote, all of you sticking close together and keeping an eye on one another for safety, moving in pairs, but for the majority, enjoying your night with loud music and each other’s company.

At one point, you decided to duck away to go to the bathroom.  You paired up with one of your friends to go for safety, but upon arriving, it was a single bathroom, so she waited outside while you went about your business inside.

The music was more muted in here, oddly enough, and it was a little more peaceful.  You hummed the lyrics of the song playing in the nightclub to yourself as you washed your hands, keeping your eyes down on the bubbles that lathered across your skin before watching them disappear down the drain, looking up to grab one of the paper towels from the dispenser next to you.

In the mirror, you saw someone standing behind you--no, not just someone, Levi.

Whether he was familiar to you or not, it was still extremely unexpected, considering you were alone in a locked room, and you whipped around with a startled scream that was quickly cut off by his hand over your mouth before it could reach a volume that could be heard outside by your friend.

Deep inside you, there was a twinge of fear as your mind started to race with questions at seeing him tangibly in front of you.  Had you fallen asleep?  No, you couldn't have, there was no moment for you to doze off, this had to be real.  If it was real, how the hell had he gotten inside?  The door was locked, your friend was outside the door, how else--?

What did he intend to do now that he was here?

The terrifying questions swirled up inside you as Levi pushed you back against the wall--firmly, but still gently, with his hand still over your mouth to keep you from crying out.

"Calm down, it's just me," he said soothingly, holding your wide eyed gaze.  "It's okay…"

You felt your body start to relax at his words, the fear suddenly lying draining away as you leaned in towards him, his hand pulling away from your mouth once it was clear you weren't going to scream again.

Of course it was okay.  He'd been  visiting you for how long now? Almost two months? And his visits always consisted of one thing, and it was never intentionally harmful considering the deal between you two had been for him to pleasure you.

Levi picked you up, setting you down on the sink counter with his hands on either side of your waist, watching you and your reactions intently.  You were looking around at the small one person bathroom with a slight frown before turning your attention back to his hypnotic gaze.

"I have to be dreaming, if I'm seeing you...Did I really fall asleep here?" You asked, feeling Levi's fingers grip your chin lightly, thumb brushing against your lips as he held your gaze, appearing to debate his answer.

"Yes," he eventually said.  His other hand removed itself from your side as he pressed closer, standing between your legs and undoing the button and zipper on his pants.  "May I?" He asked in a low murmur, pausing just short of pulling himself out.

You nodded hesitantly, even as a thrill went through you.  You'd always wanted to be daring enough to try public sex at least once.  Though, if you were asleep, did this really count?  You probably should have said no, with the way these escapades were affecting your daily life, but whenever he was standing in front of, his eyes locked with yours, making your body feel hot and needy and pulling you in with just his eyes, turning you to putty in his hands…

You couldn't say no.  Not that you'd tried to.

Besides, this approach was...different.  He seemed a little softer than he had been recently.  Recently it had been fuck after fuck, just pounding and pouring into you, filling you with his seed, draining you of your already low reserves of energy in the process.  Rough sex, quick sex, quick hits in the day to unleash his cock inside you at least once, and rough long nights where he experimented more and tried things out with you to keep things interesting, but the sex went on much, much longer, with more loads dumped in your pussy than you'd thought possible, physically.  But of course, they were dreams.  Levi could cum inside you as much as he wanted in dreams, there were no physical limits.

Now he seemed to be taking his time, his advances careful and thought out, patient and well placed.  He wasn't trying to stimulate you first for once--he'd pulled his cock out of his pants and was now rubbing himself to get himself worked up, gaze roaming over your body as he reached back to pull a small bottle of travel sized like out of his back pocket and add it onto his dick, making his cock glisten and a wet sound start to fill the bathroom.

Wait...had you ever seen him use lube before in your dreams?

You reached out towards his cock, replacing his hand with your own and starting to work him beneath your fingers, Levi moaning softly against your touch and thrusting slowly into your hand as he reached behind you to turn on the water and wash his hand of the lube as best as he could.

It didn't take too much to get him hard and ready to enter you, going from giving him a quick hand job to get him hard to teasing and playing with his cock while you waited for him, watching the precum leaking from his cock wet your fingers as you teased his tip.  Levi was undoing your pants and panties, getting them to shimmy down against the hard sink surface and fall into a bunch at your ankles, considering your shoes were still on.  Once the clothes weren't a problem anymore, he came closer, your hand removed from his cock as it started to press against your entrance experimentally.  You were a little wet, but this was going to burn some if he was going to just press inside you now like this.

As if to assume your concerns, one of his hands dipped between your legs, playing idly with your clit and folds between the rubbing along your entrance that his cock was doing.  At the same time, he leaned it--you thought to kiss you like he sometimes did, but his head angled at the last moment, and he started kissing and nibbling along your neck and jaw.

"I've been rough with you recently, haven't I?" He asked in a low murmur, lips moving against your ear.  "I'll be more gentle tonight, so you can rest," he promised, and with that, he finally pushed inside you, little at a time.  It was still a burning stretch, though the lube made it easier, Levi grunting slightly and letting out lewd little exhales against your skin as he pushed deeper and deeper.  And, once he managed to bury himself all the way inside you, he started his thrusting in and out.

Your arms wrapped around his shoulders, the sensation somehow feeling new and delicious despite the simplicity of what the two of you were doing.  Levi continued to lather your throat with attention, though you noticed he wasn't marking you this time, maybe as part of his promise to be gentler with you tonight.  Levi continued his thrusts inside you, and you arched against him, head thrown back, ass sliding closer to the edge of the counter and him, pushing him deeper inside you as you let out a deep moan.

Why did this feel so good?

"That's a good girl...that's it...cum for me, next. Just one small orgasm.  Come on...we're almost there.  Climax with me," Levi encouraged you, switching to praise for once instead of pure dirty talk and some degradation.  It worked, though, shudders and tingles going through your whole body as you felt yourself pulled to an orgasm, cumming not long before Levi and feeling a bit of a leak along your inner thighs.

Levi started to pull out and away, but you stopped him, gripping to his shirt sleeve before he could pull all the way out.  'Wait, wait--again.  Please."

"I'm trying to be gentle with you," Levi said cautiously after a moment's pause.

"I know, but it...it feels so good...and so different...just one more--I have one more in me," you pleaded, pulling him closer again by the sleeve and feeling his cock slipping back inside you from the proximity.  Levi glanced at the door, then back at your needy expression.

"All right, one more," he relented, wrapping his arms under your ass to pick you up, causing you to slide further onto his cock in the process before he had you squeeze his waist with your knees and thighs--you couldn't wrap your legs around him considering your shoes kept your panties and pants from sliding entirely off.  He pressed your back up against the wall to help support you, sliding you down enough that you were more accessible but you weren't going to slide free and fall to the floor in the middle of sex.

Once he had you in place, chest pressed against yours for some added stability, he started to thrust up into you, your body still sensitive from the last orgasm.  Which meant it wouldn't take long, but it was still going to feel amazing.

Between his grunts and your moans, it was easy to tune out the sound of the club outside the bathroom, your fingers digging into his back as your body shuddered where it was trapped between him and the wall.

"Y/N?  Are you okay in there?  It's been a while…"

Your friend's voice was unexpected, and almost pulled you out of the moment entirely, except for the fact that Levi gave a sharp thrust that made you whimper and any attempt at a reply cut off.

"What's some public sex without a little risk?" He murmured against your ear, and you felt his words go straight to your core, warmth pooling and threatening to spill over with how close you already were.

You'd lost your voice for a moment, and your friend knocked on the door.  Levi kept thrusting though, unbothered, like discovery wasn't going to stop him.

"Are you going to answer her? Before she gets security to unlock the door and catch us?" Levi asked in a challenge, even as he picked up the pace and made it harder for you to answer.

But you had to before she could interrupt further, like he said.

"I'm okay!" You called back quickly as Levi was pulling out, biting down on your moan as he thrust back inside, his teeth nibbling at your collar.  "Just give me...a few minutes," you hurried to say, mouth falling open in a soundless gasp as you leaned your head back, so close to the edge.

"Minutes?  Are you planning on asking for more?" Levi asked.  He had a point, you were seconds away from falling apart under him.

"Keep going," you gasped in response, not about to be left hanging right here.  He chuckled slightly at your curt response, but obeyed, continuing to thrust up into you.  You knew his pace could be much more punishing, which just further confirmed that he was being careful with you.  Though this definitely provided more of a build up with a delicious pay off.

With a few more thrusts, Levi pulled another orgasm from you, a small whimper escaping your lips as you went limp around him and he had to hold you up, your breathing shallow.

"That's enough for now--you still have your evening to enjoy," Levi said before you could ask for one more, carrying you over to the sink and using the water and paper towels to clean you and himself up while you were catching your breath.  Once you were fully clothed again and he'd tucked himself away, he threaded his fingers through your hair on either side, holding your gaze intently.  "Besides...I'll be back tonight," he said in a low voice.

The next thing you knew you were sitting on your knees on the floor with a nasty head rush, vision coming slowly back from a full back, your hand leaning back to catch yourself on the cold floor.  Disorientation and confusion seeped through your whole body, a hand on your head to try and stop the room from spinning, even as you realized that familiar after-sex feeling you had from your dreams felt far more real and tangible than ever before.

What the hell just happened?

(Present)

Yet another doctor’s appointment.

You had more symptoms to give them this time, though you were pretty sure it wasn’t from whatever was afflicting you.  If anything, it was a result of the exhaustion you were dealing with.  Your physical health had started to plummet as well, and you were getting sick more often.  Nothing serious that required hospital stays, but you were waking up with aches and pains beyond what was caused from the sex in your dreams.  You also had headaches, lethargy and no energy, and you were even starting to get nauseous, throwing up and having problems stomaching some food…

Most of it was in the mornings, but it didn’t get much better the further into the day it got.

Not only was your physical health being affected, but at this point, the uncertainty of what was happening was starting to scare you as well as the apparent increase in these sexual dreams, despite Levi’s occasional reassurances.  Obviously it hadn’t scared you right away, especially since it seemed as soon as you started to actually become fearful, the dreams would mellow.  Some of that distance between yourself and Levi would melt away in favor of reassurance, luring you back into a false sense of security before you were back in the hospital, back to discussing what was wrong with you, reminded of the series of visits trying to diagnose your strange condition with no luck.

Until, today, it reached an abrupt and impossible revelation with something they hadn’t even been testing for, to your knowledge.

Everything you thought you’d known, upended.  All the dreams, both night and day, Levi’s visits, your struggle with how real it always seemed despite the fact they were almost always clearly dreams, everything simply...stopped, with two simple words from your most recent doctor.

“You’re pregnant.”

Next Part---->

Levi Tags:   @humanitys-hottestsoldier @clary-quinn​ @sunny-flo​ @whalerus​  @thirstyforsometea​ @peaches-and-clouds

*Reader’s POV*

Levi was unconscious the rest of that day, through the night, and at least into the start of the next day.  Not even the twins starting to cry with whatever need or an overly excited or anxious to be let out Captain yipping his little demands could wake the recovering man up.  However, since he'd almost died, you weren't exactly complaining about it--as long as he was unconscious, he wasn't pushing to move before he was actually ready to be moved, and he was making a fairly swift recovery.  After the antivenom kicked in, the rest of his healing abilities seemed to be acting at a rapid pace to heal the other injuries faster than the venomous bite.  The random scratches, slashes, and other claw marks across his body disappeared first, and by the start of the next day, the slashes across his face had turned to angry red healing scars.  Even now they were making slow progress through the stages of scarring, heading gradually towards a full recovery with no visible marks.

Since the rest seemed to be doing him some good, and Furlan had said he would need it, even if he normally slept through the twins and Captain and everything else going on, you tried to be quiet and avoid disturbing him, letting him rest.  While you waited, you simply cared for everyone's needs, planned the best route to the address Levi gave you, and of course monitored his progress.

The only thing that bothered you, besides the ever growing period of unconsciousness that kept you all in one place when he'd been adamant you needed to move until you reached the safe house, was that mark on his chest.  It was the only thing that seemed to be getting worse while everything else was getting better.  It was more prominent, an angry red, looking like it was burned into his chest recently, even though it had been slowly gaining prominence as time passed without any outwards interference.

What the hell was that?

Probably another demon thing you didn’t understand that Levi wasn’t going to talk about, but you were still curious.  Maybe some google searching.  Maybe there was a book somewhere in Levi’s library that had the symbol.  Then again, who knew how long it was going to be before you could go back to the house.  Perhaps you’d luck out and the next house would have a library as well, and considering it would be his personal library, maybe there would be some answers in there, to something that you didn’t yet know.

Thoughts like that could wait, though.  Right now you were in charge of an unconscious demon and two infants, well aware that something was after you, and that Levi had taken you all to run, and you stopped running halfway to the safehouse.  You’d already almost been at the hotel for a day and had to pay for another night with Levi’s black card, but hopefully he would wake up soon and you wouldn’t have to be here for two full days.  Even you felt an urgency, a need to leave sooner rather than later.  Furlan or Isabel might have been here to keep an eye on you and make sure you were safe if they hadn’t been busy doing who knew what trying to make it safe to head back to the house.

Thankfully, late into the evening that next day, Levi finally stirred, catching your attention after some rather tiring several hours of play with the twins.  You caught the shifting on the bed almost instantly, making sure the space on the floor for the twins to crawl around on was free of anything dangerous and Captain was too preoccupied napping on the other bed before you moved over to Levi’s side.  You sat carefully on the side of the bed as Levi’s head turned, face scrunched up in pain before he started trying to open his eyes, flinching against the light and disorientation.

You waited patiently for him to wake up and come to full awareness, just in case he was simply stirring and wasn’t quite ready to wake up yet.  However, he kept making his little at a time progress, rousing gradually until at long last his eyes focused on you.  He still looked a little bleary, but he was for sure able to see you and focused on you.

You could see gears turning in his head, his mind trying to catch him up to the present and fill in the gaps, a hand running along the basic hotel bedding.  Once he felt that, something about it seemed to tip him off about the current situation, because he took in a sharp breath and tried to sit up with a pained moan.

“Where are we--?” he started to ask before his voice gave way to the moan.  You pushed him gently back down onto the bed, not needing to use much strength to do so given his current state.

“We had to stop somewhere.  Don’t move, you still need rest--” you tried to tell him, but Levi continued to push to try and sit up.

“We can’t be here, we need to be at the house.”  He continued to protest, trying to push you off him, but he was in no shape to do so, and you were determined not to let him hurt himself further.

“Levi, I know.  But you almost died, and would have if I hadn’t stopped and called Isabel and Furlan,” you said firmly, raising your voice enough to talk over him and get his attention.  “And you’re still not well enough to be moved.  When you are, sure, I’ll break all the traffic laws to get us there, but for now, you have to rest.  The twins need their father, Levi, you can’t risk yourself like that.”

He continued to be stubborn, all the way up until the moment you pointed out that the twins needed him.  Something in his eyes shifted, including some guilt, and he finally settled back down, albeit slowly and reluctantly.  Letting out a small sigh of relief, you helped him ease back down into a comfortable position, patting his arm fairly awkwardly in an attempt to show some reassurance.

“Rest,” you stressed, easing over slightly on the bed so you could start setting the alarm clock for the closest time to dawn that you could fathom.  The twins would /not/ be happy at the rude awakening, but you would just have to deal with it when it happened.  “At the rate you’ve been healing, you will probably be good to move around dawn.  If you really can’t wait and we absolutely have to, I suppose we can make late in the night or in the early hours before the sun rises work,” you murmured.

You were about to get up, but you turned back to look at him, expression softening slightly.  “For what it’s worth...thank you for looking out for us.  But next time remember that the twins have to have their father around.  You can’t make gambles you’re almost guaranteed to lose like what you tried to do the other night.  You weren’t going to make it, and someone should have known sooner so you had a better chance than slim to none.  And I’m going to be mad at you about that for a while.”

Levi arched a brow slightly at your statement, but he wasn’t arguing--not at the moment.  You’d certainly made your point with him bringing in the twins to your argument, pointing out that risking himself like that, while noble, was recklessly stupid when he was a necessity for the twins going forward.  He was the one who knew the ins and outs with the currently dormant nature of the twins, the one with all the knowledge on what was happening and would happen, and the one with the ability to protect the twins from these threats that had just become very real to you.

You got up from the bed, moving over to make sure you could see where Ida was army crawling off to, her brother on his hands and knees and wiggling in frustration, stuck in place and not yet figuring out how the crawling thing worked.  “Besides, I don’t think any of us want to be stuck in this motel room much longer.  I’d feel a lot better behind private walls with a lot more space than this,” you murmured, letting the silence linger a few moments longer before you turned to address Levi directly again.  “I know you probably won’t answer, but what’s that mark--”

You cut off halfway through your sentence when, upon turning, you found he’d slipped back into unconsciousness.  You really should have expected that.  He hadn’t been awake this whole time, and he used up so much energy struggling against you as soon as he woke up?  Of course he was going to burn out so fast he’d fall back asleep.

Or he was faking it to avoid answering your question, which was possible, but given the situation, the first option was more likely.

Still...you were rather certain he wouldn’t have answered you anyway.

Slowly, you let out a small breath, leaning down to pick up Ida and spin her around when she got close to the air unit by the window, not wanting her to mess with anything in that area in her infantile curiosity.  Just a little longer, and you could leave to drive this motley crew to the beach house Levi had been trying to take you to in the first place.  You could use the fresh air and the sun, after this fiasco, and you were painfully looking forward to it after the accelerated case of cabin fever the motel room had given you with the current dire situation.

Levi tried to get out of bed late that night, or rather, in the earliest hours of the morning when it was still dark.  However, he couldn’t do it on his own, and he ended up waking you with the sound of him falling ungracefully off the bed and to the floor, startling you awake and almost startling the twins awake.  Thankfully you’d worn them out quite a bit and they were able to stay asleep in their exhausted state.

A rarity with those two.  Normally they woke up at the slightest sound.  Thankfully, since you had the alarm set, you had the foresight to wear them out in the hopes you might be able to shut off the alarm in the morning before it could wake them up with how tired they were, like a reflex as soon as that first beep sounded.

As soon as the sound of Levi falling out of bed woke you, you were on your feet, momentarily concerned one of the twins might have by some fluke gotten out of their pop out cribs and fallen off the bed.  Discovering it wasn’t the twins, but actually Levi that fell off a bed, simultaneously brought you a bit of relief and a bit of distress.  He’d tried to get up and move around, to move enough and prove that you could leave sooner rather than later, before dawn.  Clearly, he hadn’t been able to pull that off.

With a bit of grumbling from Levi, you were able to get him into the bed again without a word, both of you knowing that he would have to rest a little longer and wait until dawn to try again.  There was no point in reinforcing it if you both already knew what this meant.  At least he had the reassurance that you were at least going to make sure you were both out of here by dawn.  Which also meant that you were most likely going to have to all but carry him to the car in the morning so you could all leave.

Well...it was better than nothing.

You went right back to sleep after Levi was back in bed, hoping he was doing the same since you had to get up again in only a couple hours.  It wasn't so much as sleeping as it was a power nap before you woke up, you mind, thankfully, waking you up just before the alarm thanks to a well-embedded hatred of that God-awful beeping noise that apparently was so strong your brain was willing to rouse you from a dead sleep moments before to make sure you wouldn't hear it.  Now awake, you laid in bed for a few moments longer, letting yourself slowly wake up and gathering the will to get out of bed despite the early hour.

When you finally managed to get up, the first thing you did was let Captain out to go about his business and pack what bags you could back into the car, coming back to the room to clean up and go about the condensed version of your morning routine as quickly as possible, pack up what remained, and then start getting the others awake to change, eat in the babies cases, and get in the car.

The twins came first, both of them gently woken up, changed, cleaned up, and got before you situated them in the car seat carriers again with a toy each, waiting on the bed for you to get Levi into the car, first.

You found him not asleep like you'd hoped, but awake and staring at the wall, apparently waiting for you to finish running around so he could get his help and you all could finally leave.  His gaze shifted to you when he approached, started to push himself up with a muttered, “Finally.”

You wound your arms through his and proceeded to lift him up before he could do anything else, not wanting him to push himself too much too soon since you were probably moving him before he was ready--physically, anyway.  Once there you slung his other arm over your shoulders like in the movies and attempted to walk forward with him, the attempt turning out harder to do than you’d anticipated, especially when Levi was still shaky, and apparently a bit heavier than he looked.  He might have been slight, but you knew for a fact he had some muscle mass to him.

Levi grumbled under his breath in a language you didn’t recognize, though considering the tone and the fact he was staring down at his feet made you think he was probably cursing about his lack of mobility.  You didn’t comment on it, letting him mumble to himself in peace whenever he was particularly struggling and simply focusing on getting everyone to the beach house sometime today.  Once there, Levi could hopefully properly rest without much fuss until he was actually recovered.

Getting Levi into the car was surprisingly trickier than getting the twins in, the entire ordeal awkward and involving awkward moments of bumping against each other while you both shifted around.  Eventually, you got Levi in the seat and buckled in, claiming the driver's seat with a relieved huff and glad to finally be back on the road.

It was about as chaotic as last time, but with less near death experiences.  The twins were restless and grouchy, tired of being in a car seat and cramped spaces, Captain wouldn't stop whining and pacing in the back, and Levi was in and out of consciousness, sometimes looking like he was still in pain, albeit a milder form of what it had been.  You still had quite a bit of a trip to make since Levi had lost consciousness fairly quickly on the first try, something he remarked at the first exit he saw that told him where you were in relation to your destination.  Considering the house was on the coast, however, you weren't complaining, you'd expected as much.  Your internal complaint was when the twins got grumpy enough to start cry screaming and kicking, wanting out of the carseats.

It was...a long trip. And needless to say, by the time you reached the address Levi gave you, you were mentally exhausted and ready to call it quits for the day.

Of course, seeing this 'cottage' he'd told you was your destination was a bit of a wake up call.

You'd been driving along the coast in perfect view of the ocean, windows rolled down to give you that fresh ocean breeze and hopefully cool and calm you down before arriving.  You hadn't paid any attention to the houses you were passing besides looking at the numbers next to gates on walls of various materials, not looking up at the houses within as you tried to find the house number that matched the address displayed on the maps in Levi's phone.

When you finally found the house number, 23, you came to a stop at the gate, and Levi tapped your shoulder to get your attention, handing you a set of run-of-the-mill keys, four or five on one ring with different colors.

"Brown is the gate.  Black's the garage.  Red is the front door," Levi told you in a gruff voice that suggested he might have been asleep a few seconds ago.  Or something close, anyway.

You took the keys from him and got out of the car, heading up to the gate to unlock it and let the car through.  As you grabbed onto the wrought-iron bars of the gate and looked up at the house, you were dumbfounded by what you saw.

Hadn't he said this was a cottage, not another damn mansion? At least, it was a mansion by your standards from what you could already see.  A four story adobe house, with what looked like some kind of top floor open balcony deck like space between two parts of the house, like the towers on the Notre Dame, except this was on the same story, and it was just one floor, not multiple.  But the balcony deck space was wedged between the enclosed rooms on the right and the left, the enclosed space on the left appearing slightly larger than the right and suggesting another room or two from what you could see, open pergola covers of white wood over most of the deck space that stood out against the blue sky and the bright sunlight.

The drive itself was grand, far more than the one at the house you’d just come from.  Instead of gravel it looked to be a paved, polished, smooth stone pathway leading all the way up to the grand entrance, and off to the side where there seemed to be a separate, smaller building acting as a garage perpendicular to the side of the house.  Undoubtedly, that was where you were going next, though it was hard to tear your eyes from the four story house and the winding front garden and stone work and trees that seemed to take up the space inside the enclosed fence that wasn’t being used for the three car wide drive up to the house.

As you got in the car, you stopped to stare at Levi, who looked at you in what seemed like mild irritation since you were stopping so close to the finish line.  “What?”

“I thought you said this was a cottage,” you said quietly, easing slightly onto the gas to start the car moving as you turned your head forward again to guide the car within the gate.

“Have you seen the other houses on this beach?  Compared to them, it is.  You’re not going to find any small two bedroom house on the good beaches like this, it’s all going to be huge sprawling estates.  At least this isn’t some ridiculous twelve bedroom nine bathroom house like the one three down.  Seven bedroom four and a half bathroom is still a bit much, but, it turns out we’ll need the space when the twins get older and want their own rooms...and I’m not even using all the rooms in this house.”

“Seven bedrooms?” you echoed, looking up at the four story house with a weak feeling in your knees.

Cottage?

There was no way this place could pass for a cottage.  And he still called the twelve bedroom mansion a house.  So what counted as a mansion for him?  A castle?

You drove the car forward enough to clear the gate, got out to lock it behind you--wondering why he didn’t have the automatic sliding gate if he had so much money and why it was all still manual right down to the locks and opening it up--and then got back into the car to drive up to the garage.  This one there was a fob with the key to open the garage door, allowing you to stay in the car and pull inside.  There was another car in the second parking spot, though it was covered with a sheet so you couldn’t see what it was.  On the far end was a regular door, which you assumed the garage key was to, for you to exit closer to the house once everything was closed up.

You got everything shut down in the car and let out a small sigh, leaning your head back for a second and trying to relax to ease the tension headache you had pulsing through your head with all the screaming the twins had been doing and the yapping from Captain.

“Will you be okay if I leave the twins in here with you until I get the bags inside?” you asked quietly.  “I don’t want to leave them unattended in the house while I’m moving everything in.”

“Sure.”

You opened the door, deciding not to comment on the tired sound since you knew if they got restless and started screaming again, he wouldn’t be sleeping.  However, you stopped when you realized you were missing a few important details.

“Ah...are any rooms set up ahead of time or is it pick of the litter?  Is there a nursery set up, cribs in the rooms, or…?”

“Right...I wasn’t planning on...having the twins here until they were one, at least, so, there’s a nursery.  I can move the cribs up to your room if I need to--”

“Up?  My room’s on a different floor?” You asked uneasily.  As if having to suddenly adjust to them being in another room and not with you wasn't enough, they were on a different floor?

“Yes, but you also have a private staircase directly from your room to their nursery,” Levi said pointedly as he started to try and sit up while describing rooms in the house with accompanying hand gestures.  “And they’re not on the ground level.  There’s four floors:  Ground, which is the floor below the grand staircase entrance, first, second, and third.  You and I are on the top floor, on the left side of the house, and your room is the one on the far left.  Their nursery is right below your room on the second floor.  There’s a spiral staircase running up the center of the house.  And obviously the entrance starts at the first floor.  There’s a separate staircase further  inside that leads to the ground floor, but...tch, there’ll be plenty of time to explore later, you just need the bedrooms,” he finished with a small groan, sinking back into the seat with a slight grimace.

“Our rooms on the top floor on the left, the twins on the second right below.  My room on the left, yours on the right...okay...okay...that’s a lot of stairs.  Do you think you can make it?”

“We’ll worry about that later, just...go,” he admonished, waving you away with a hand as he started some purposeful, shallow breaths that was obviously meant to try and manage the pain somehow.

Right.  The sooner you got everyone out of the car and into the house, the better.

Getting out of the car, you went around to the back and opened it up, letting a relieved Captain out and setting him on the ground since he was still too small to be jumping that distance before you grabbed your bag and Levi’s bag.  You got them into a rolling position to make your life much easier going up four flights of stairs, and left the garage to head for the looming mansion in front of you, feeling intimidated by the sheer size of this house and the possibilities of what could be inside.

For some reason, you doubted you would get to decorate this one.  The first one had felt like yours, this one felt...different.  At least for now.

Captain ran off to go pee on a bush, and you let the puppy run around in the fenced in area, especially since the walls were solid stone, and the spaces between the bars of the gate were thin enough you were fairly confident he wouldn’t be able to wiggle through.  Or at least wouldn’t be interested enough to put in the effort to wiggle through if all his people were heading in the opposite direction.

The grand staircase you had to climb to go up to the large entrance made you feel even smaller, the sheer size of the house now looming over you as you counted the steps up to the next floor, one, two...seven...twelve...seventeen steps until you reached the grand entryway, the porch a large half circle with two columns standing in front of the door to support the half moon outcropping roof over the large double doors.  Two porch lights of a translucent stone looking material in half-cup shapes were currently unlit on either side of the doors, though you were certain they could light up this entire area.  The wheels of the suitcases had clacked all the way up the stone steps, and now rolled loudly along the stone entrance, making your heart pound in your chest as you wondered how much more extravagant this house was going to be.

At this rate, you were starting to wonder if he’d been royalty at one point, or if he’d just been really good at saving money and accruing interest over however many centuries he’d lived.  Surely that added up, but you hadn’t thought it added up to several mansions just lying around waiting to be used.

Then again, look how much money some people could earn in one lifetime?  Who knew how much he had earned throughout several lifetimes?

You were now just standing in front of the double doors staring at them with trepidation, the hands holding the keys shaking slightly as you mentally scolded yourself to just open the damn door.  The twins were restless and wanted out of the car, but you couldn’t do that until you got everyone’s stuff put away, and with four flights of stairs to go up and the layout of a strange new house to take in, it was going to take a little bit already.

Behind you, the clatter of something thin and metal against stone caught your attention, and you looked back to see little Captain struggling up the seventeen steps behind you, the name tag the source of the noise every time it jangled against the stone on the way up.  You sighed as the puppy came close to you, bigger but not nearly as big as he would eventually be, and eager to go inside with one of his people.

You couldn’t delay forever.  You had to go through.  Sooner rather than later, too, since Levi was hurt and probably wanted to lie down and rest, and the twins had already reached their limit of being cramped.  They were all waiting on you.

Trying to brace yourself for whatever opulence awaited you, you held your breath, used the red key to open the lock, and opened one of the double doors to step inside.

Immediately you were met with a grand sight, squinting slightly at the different kind of light that filled this space.  It was gleaming white marble on white walls with a dark reddish brown polished wood railing and top part of the steps.  The front sides were white, and the metal bars connecting railing to stairs were shining brass, making up what you counted as a large spiral staircase that went all the way up.  In this immediate vicinity, though, it was a round room entrance with a curved staircase on the left that led up to a landing on the second--no, the third floor, though if you looked straight up, you could see another curved staircase leading up from above you on the right to what you assumed was another landing on the top floor in what seemed like a perfect circle upwards, like it was climbing a tower instead of heading up through the center of the house.  Down through the center hung a rather simplistic but gorgeous crystal chandelier, hanging just below the second floor.  Straight across from the entrance was a pair of double doors that were open to show a roomy hallway that you thought might have split into two directions.  You could hear water somewhere below echoing through the spacious house, but you restrained your curiosity to investigate for now, knowing you had to climb that staircase to the top floor.

It was strange trying to keep track of floors, when you knew there was one below you, and Levi had called this the second floor.  Surely down below was just the basement, so why wasn’t this the first floor?

You’d figure it out when you got the chance to explore, you supposed.

Not wanting to chip the paint or scratch the wood, you collapsed the rolling handles on both suitcases and picked them up by their fabric handles, lifting one in each hand and starting towards the staircase a few steps from the door.

You took breaks as you climbed, stopping at the landing for a breather so you wouldn’t tire yourself out, also taking a moment to look down each end of the hall without really exploring yet.  At the first landing, what was apparently the second floor, there was the room to your left, firmly shut with a solid dark wooden door to what had to be the nursery, if your room was above theirs on the left of the top floor.  The door was closer to the staircase then you'd thought, and you nervously eyed the open space to the large curved staircase, hoping there were gates somewhere to block it off with your newly minted crawler and soon-to-be crawler.  Down the right side of the hall along the left wall there was a cut out open space along the wall that, with a bit of a lean, you could see housed a simple office space with cabinets and drawers in a long dark wood desk, a single desktop computer and a sleek office chair situated near a printer/scanner/copier, and a shredder as well.  You were sure there was more, but that was all you could see from this angle.

At the far end of the hall there was an open, round top archway instead of a door, with what looked like a mostly sparse and open room with more light than the rest of the house, and the only piece of furniture you could see being part of a long white couch.  Along the right wall were two more doors fairly close together, though you couldn’t see what was beyond those two doors since the doors were shut.

One more set of stairs to go.  At least you were only going up three flights of stairs, though it was still a lot to be carrying these suitcases up.  You weren’t looking forward to trying to carry Levi up these stairs to get him to his bedroom…

You made your way up the final flight of stairs, curious to see that the space narrowed in the hallway slightly up here.  There was one short hallway that these stairs came to one end of, and at the far end opposite you there was a pale grey wooden door to what you assumed was your room.  You moved almost to the end of the open space that was the spiral staircase towards the enclosed hall, and to your immediate left was a pure white door.  You paused, wondering if this was Levi’s room, and opened it just to double check.

Nope.  You’d found...a very opulent master bathroom.  It was all white--white marble, white countertops, white amenities, white towels, white everything.  Whatever was made of metal was shining silver.  Directly across from you was a grand dressing table in a corner, just off to your right at the end of the table was a large white stone drop-in tub that looked like it was deep as well, and on the other side of the stone tub, a second dressing table extended in a straight line towards a murky glass door on the right wall closest to the wall opposite where you were standing.  To your immediate left was a clear, streakless glass door that went into a spacious open stone room that had, from what you could see, a stone bench running along all the edges that wasn’t in the way of the door, and sparkling silver shower heads fixed strategically around the walls.  A shower room--you hadn’t seen one of those before.  To your immediate right, along the wall that shared the doorway you were standing in, was the countertop with a long mirror affixed over it, a deep marble basin was centered in the middle of the countertop, and on the far other side, in the corner, you could see the toilet.

Quite the bathroom, but not what you were looking for.

You shut the door again and moved a little further down the hall, no other doors along the wall you’d found the bathroom at, but one on your right a little less than halfway down the hall.  This was a grey door like the one at the end of the hall, and when you opened it, you assumed you’d at last found Levi’s room.

The room was open and sparsely decorated.  Directly across from you was a lounge chair of light blue with a dark, polished wood side table beside it, and immediately to your left you could see another dark wooden door leading...somewhere.  Likely not a bathroom.  To your right, centered in the middle of the wall, was a king sized bed with a cushioned bench at the foot of the bed, nightstands on either side, the bedding whites and pale, sky blues and the wood of the nightstands the usual dark wood as the rest of the décor.  The floor in here, however, was a polished slate grey hardwood.  There were no dressers or cabinets or anywhere for clothes in here, which you found a little suspicious, but you were distracted by the defining feature of this room.

Leaving the suitcases momentarily sitting by the bedroom door, you walked forward to approach the wall directly across from you, a wall of floor to ceiling glass panes with slender, pale grey metal frames in large sections, allowing for maximized view of the world outside with reinforcement of the glass wall.  There were also heavy curtains that could be pulled over each pane, curtains of the same pale blue as the bedding and the lounge chair.  Half of the wall on your right was also the glass pane style, except instead of solid glass, there was a double glass door that led to what you could see was the stem of a T balcony.  Across from the double glass doors was a similar pair of glass double doors, curtains positioned over both on the inside so privacy could be attained, the handles smooth, slight silver that you could miss if you weren’t looking so that it didn’t detract too much from the view provided by the glass walls.  You could currently peer into the room opposite Levi’s, since none of the curtains were pulled, but it seemed to be a mirror of the room over here, though with a bit more space.

But, again, those weren’t the main attractions.  The mirrored double glass doors led to the stem of the T balcony, small white wicker chairs settled close to the bottom wall between your two rooms with a small white wicker table between them.  Extending out to for the top of the T, running from the far left side of your room and past Levi’s room to what you assumed was the balcony/top floor deck space you’d observed earlier, was a balcony with a glass wall and silver top railing, giving an almost perfectly unobstructed view of the beach below and the ocean stretching farther than your eyes could see out beyond.

If his room had this view, and yours was a mirror of his, that meant your room had this view.  This gorgeous view of the ocean, almost entirely unobstructed by railings for the balcony and the frames for the walls.  You got to wake up to this?

You shook your head slightly, moving Levi’s suitcase closer to the bed before pausing, realizing again that there were no dressers to put the clothes inside in here for some reason.

Curiously, your gaze wandered towards the dark wooden door that had been at your left when you first entered.  Was it perhaps a closet?

Opening the door provided you with the answer that yes, yes it was.  Not just any closet, though, a huge walk-in closet with slants towards the ocean facing wall on either end, and a long base that included two counters with marble tops with a gas lamp style chandelier above--not an actual gas lamp, of course, electricity as always, just styled that way--with drawers and hanging racks galore.  While the walls and ceiling were still white, the wood in here was an inky black, even the wooden flooring.  The side you were standing on had a fair assortment of all kinds of men’s clothes from shockingly revealing and flashy to simple casual wear to sharp business suits.  Oh yes, you’d found the right place, though looking around, you wondered why he even bothered to pack his own suitcase.  Maybe he had some favorites he traveled with, who were you to judge?

The other half of the closet...was bare, save a few clothes that were still in unopened black plastic bags or shoeboxes, things like that.  And, as if to confirm the growing suspicion, there was a similar door to the one you entered on the other side, leading to your room.

Not only conjoined by a balcony, but by a walk in closet?  You might have to say something to Levi when he was feeling up to it.

You left both suitcases in here to be unpacked later, keeping Levi’s suitcase to his side of the walk-in closet and yours to your much more bare side of the closet.  You wanted to explore into your room, maybe through the murky glass door in the bathroom as well, but you needed to finish unpacking the car and get its occupants into the house as well.  Like Levi said, exploring could wait until later.

Heading back down the staircase, you could hear Captain running around on the marble floors and yipping in excitement as he ran around and explored the first floor, a sound that faded as you headed back out the front door to go grab all of the twins' stuff and bring it to the second floor.

You could tell before you even reached the garage that the twins had reached their limits, screaming at the top of their lungs and able to be heard halfway to the garage.  Coming inside, you found Levi awkwardly placed over the console in the front and reaching back trying to sooth them while leaning heavily on the chair he was in, breathing heavily.  You went to admonish him, to tell him to lay back down, but that screaming was unbearable, so you understood why he was still trying.  He knew what you wanted to tell him, too, because one look at you and he scowled.

“Just hurry up,” he muttered, wincing as Ida took a breath for a new shriek of anger, earning more of his attention for the time being.  You grimaced at the noise, grabbed the diaper bags and their suitcase with all their stuff all at once, and even shrugged on the small bag with Captain’s things, overloading yourself at least to the first floor where you would drop off Captain’s things to try and get to letting the twins out sooner and giving Levi a sweet reprieve.

Going back up to the second floor, you got to go through the dark wooden door at the left end of the hall to enter the nursery.  Inside, it looked like the soft black carpet was brand new, and you could barely feel the hard surface beneath with how well cushioned it was--clearly it had been repurposed to be a room for babies, most likely recently.  It was mostly open for now, two cribs nestled close together along the wall opposite the door, taking center stage with changing tables on the left of the leftmost crib and on the right of the rightmost crib.  There were two padded rocking chairs in here, a small bookshelf with children’s books in it and a sliding wooden door to cover the books and keep little hands from getting in there and tearing them up before they were old enough to resist doing that--complete with a child lock to keep them from opening it anyway.  There was a toybox padded ottoman, just to keep some of the hard surfaces and edges away from their room, a large playmat, and plenty of space for potential.  There was plenty of room to make this a room for two children all the way up until they started to diverge in tastes and it was no longer fitting to keep them in the same room anymore.  But at least for a while, it would be able to fit all kinds of things.  Tables, toy boxes, bulky playhouses and stations, bunk beds, all of it.  And while it didn’t have the amazing view your room had above, there was still a bay window facing the ocean, complete with a padded bench seat with two soft throw pillows and no way to open it, thankfully, so it wouldn’t become a safety hazard.

You didn’t have much time to oogle the space, and it didn’t immediately hit you that you hadn’t seen the doorway for the staircase Levi said would lead from your room to theirs.  Instead, you were focused on getting them up here and into the cribs at least until you could get Levi situated in his room and their stuff unpacked.  Then you could let them out to relax and play and finally have ample open space to crawl around in with supervision.

Back down the stairs and out the door again, Captain coming to the grand entrance to run after you and out the door with excited yips at your quick pace before losing interest and chasing a squirrel up a tree instead.  The twins were still screaming away in the garage, though at least you were about to give Levi some relief on that front.

He sagged gratefully back into his seat when you finally appeared to take them, unblinking their carseats to carry inside with you and carrying one in each hand, trying to, for the moment, ignore the screaming you couldn't do anything about.

Back up the stairs, back into the nursery, you set both carseats down on the ground and freed Ida, first, since she was the angrier, squirming and pulling in vain to get free while red in the face and snot bubbles coming out of her nose.  You got her free of the carseat, ignoring the little kicks and flailing arms as she continued to voice her displeasure, focused on making sure she didn't need to eat--not that she was in a calm enough mood to eat--and seeing if she needed changed--which she did.

After changing a fussy Ida and putting a bottle of milk in the crib where it would be in reach if she needed it, you deposited her in one of the identically dressed cribs and added a blanket and two toys, one of which she threw out as she continued to throw a fit.  However, she was going to have to deal with it while you got Asa out of his car seat, the little boy seemingly more upset that his sister was making such a fuss than he was about the cramped quarters.

She was pretty loud.

You went through the same routine with Asa as you had with Ida, Asa actually calming down substantially after he was clean, had a bottle, and was in a crib with his toys.  He was still sniffling and occasionally giving a low cry at his sister's noise, though, who was still upset enough to be making snot bubbles--you'd wiped both their noses by now, Ida’s three times counting this final time.

That was all you could do for now, since you still had to get Levi in the house and up to his room.  Hopefully they would calm down a bit by the time you came back into the room.

You were glad that this was the last trip because you were starting to feel absolutely winded with carrying all this stuff and people up three flights of stairs and then going back down. Maybe you needed to follow Levi’s lead and start an exercise routine to get in shape, especially if you were going to be staying in houses this big.  There was an entire beach now, and he'd said himself he wasn't using all the rooms down here. Maybe you could find a good space to exercise inside and outside.

Going back to the garage, all that was left now was to get Levi. Which was probably going to be the hardest part.

You opened the passenger side door to be met with the sight of him slumped over in the seat, glaring at you as if daring you to say something about the state he was currently in while trying to push himself upright.  You quickly composed your expression to be as neutral as you could manage, eyeing him closely from head to toe.

"How do you want to do this?" You asked him, thinking of how far you were about to try carrying him and how much dead weight he’d been earlier simply getting him a short distance to the car.

“I don’t have to be in my room, there’s perfectly functioning guest rooms on the first floor,” Levi muttered, making a point not to mention carrying him and not looking you in the eyes as he sat up a little straighter, mostly pulling it off because he was leaning heavily against the back of the seat.

“You might be on bed rest for a few days, are you sure you don’t want to be in your room?” you asked.

“One day at the most,” he said with a surprisingly strong note of finality that left no room for arguments, though you still doubted that statement’s validity.  “And the first floor has the tea room.”

He did like his tea.  It only took the first couple months living with him to learn that about him.  And since he didn’t have to eat but he liked his tea, it would probably be nice for him to be on the same floor as the tea room.  Plus, his room was on the top floor, and that was one hell of a climb.  It would be easier on him if he was on the first floor, he had a point.

“Okay.  First floor it is, then.  That’ll make this a bit easier,” you murmured, coming in close to get your arms under his again and help get him out of the car.  Somehow, he felt even heavier than last time, and he leaned more on you this time than he had the first as you started carrying him with his arm slung over your shoulders again, hoping he could at least get his feet functioning.  He was dragging, but at least he was moving.

“You know, it’s times like this that the huge houses are really ridiculous.  You can’t even go to your own bedroom because it’s the fourth floor off the ground--that’s ridiculous.”

Levi only grunted in response, acknowledging your complaint but clearly not deigning to give it an answer.  You stopped talking after that anyway, your gaze focused on your goal of the house, knowing the task wasn’t as daunting now, which made it feel easier to accomplish.  Helping him up the steps proved challenging, as you had to lift him any time he was moving upwards so he wasn’t trying to lift his entire bodyweight, something currently outside his capabilities.  Just going up the grand entrance staircase would have been enough to change your mind and give in to the concept that he should stay on the lower floors until he recovered.

It was slow progress, but you made it into the grand entrance with the spiral staircase soon enough, though you got to cross the marble floor and head for the double doors you’d noticed earlier leading into another hall.  Once there, you noted that the hall splitting left moved towards stained glass and dark wood double doors that were unfortunately shut, though you could smell a sweet and also heady fragrance from that direction as opposed to the overall cleaners and fresh breeze clashing scents in the rest of the house.  Undoubtedly, those fancy double doors led to the tea room--you’d have to peek your head in there later to see how much detail Levi gave to a room dedicated to one of his favorite things.  Off to the right, the hall stretched a bit longer, one simple dark wood door at the way end facing the longways of the hall, two on the left wall, and one a bit further down on your right.  To your almost immediate right was an archway entrance that descended into what looked like either U steps or L steps--you couldn’t see what was beyond the curve from up here, obviously, but you could hear that sound of water again much stronger standing here, coming from somewhere down there.

Levi noticed where your attention had wandered and broke your silence.  “Stairs to the ground floor.  We’ll have to put up a gate here--for the stairs alone, but there’s also the start of the pool down there,” Levi remarked.  When you turned to question why there was an indoor pool, or why there was a pool in a beach house at all, he cut you off.  “Questions about style can be asked another time, let’s just...get me to the room.  The one at the end of the hall is fine.”

“Okay,” you muttered, starting forward again.  “And the other doors are…?”

“The one on the right is the bathroom, the one on the far left is another guest room, and the one closer to us on the left is a coat and storage closet.  I didn’t know what else to do with all the extra damn rooms, so I just made a bunch of bedrooms I’ll never use,” Levi grumbled as you continued to lead him down the hall, wondering why he wanted this particular room and not the one slightly closer to the tea room.

Not that you were going to complain.  If this was where he wanted to be during his recovery, then so be it.

When you opened the door at this end of the hall, you were met with a polished, reddish tigerwood floor, a white sheet bed facing the ocean and pushed up against the wall on your right, a fake fireplace on the wall running perpendicular to you on the left with a TV mounted above it, a white couch pushed up against the wall directly across from the entrance, but positioned closer to the ocean facing wall, which had white double wood louvered doors framed by two bay windows on either side, cushioned in white on the bottom so you could sit comfortably in them and overlook the ocean.

Since Levi was currently a sack of potatoes you were carrying, you brought him right to the bed, pulling back the covers before depositing him onto the bed to finally get him off your shoulders and let him do whatever he pleased to get comfortable.

"Okay...now...do you need anything while you're down here?  The doors open for a breeze perhaps, or…?"

"It goes to one of the decks, I don't need it open right now," he answered as he laid on top of the sheets instead of under them, like he really didn't expect to be here long.

"I should probably bring your suitcase down here instead, though--"

"No point.  I won't be down here long enough for that," he grunted.  Your eyes narrowed slightly at that, but you didn't comment on it again.

"Is there anything you do need, before I go back to the twins?"

"No.  I'll be fine, no need to concern yourself with me.  I'm sure they need you more right now," Levi said fairly stiffly, looking uncomfortable with the fretting you were lingering to dole on him.  It was probably best for you to give him a bit of space.  Warming up to him and being cordial with him was one thing, doting and fretting over him was another.  It probably felt a little too alien to him right now with where you two were in your...relationship?  Though you couldn't help it when he'd almost died protecting you and the twins.

You let out a slight sigh, straightening up and turning back to the door.  "Right.  Well.  I need to go...take care of the twins.  If you need anything, just...well...I'm around," you said awkwardly before finally leaving him in peace and getting both of you out of the weird situation, thankfully.

You could have explored a bit, but you didn't know how fed up the twins were at this point.  Captain was still outside, but Levi had trained him to bark once to be let inside, so you just had to be aware that would be coming while you were off with the twins.  Hopefully the screaming had stopped by now, or at least calmed some.

In an odd sort of blessing in disguise, it seemed Ida had screamed and thrown a fit all the way to the point of exhaustion, and was now passed out asleep in a rather odd position in the crib, still semi-sniffling in her sleep and twitching here and there from whatever dreams she was having.  In the crib beside her, Asa had finally calmed as well, sitting up in place and chewing on his teddy bear’s head.  It would be a disturbing yet hilarious sight if you weren’t well aware he was in a fairly aggressive teething stage and you’d neglected to give him a teething toy in your rush to get everyone and everything out of the car.  Ida still chewed on things as well, they were both at an age where you expected them to teethe, but Asa was almost constantly chewing on things, always looking for something to stick in his mouth and chew on, even if he had to use his own fist.

You went over to Ida’s crib first, very gently deciding to tempt fate and live on the edge by rearranging her sleeping position just enough so she wouldn’t wake up sore and cranky, covering her with her blanket for good measure before turning your attention to Asa.  Once you got close enough, he held the teddy bear in his mouth and simply reached out his hands, muffled little grunts of demands coming out of his mouth around the teddy bear head.  You chuckled softly at the sight, glad that at least one of your children seemed to be less hot-headed.

"You just wanted sissy to be quiet, didn't you? Just wanted sissy to be quiet.  Well, she burned all her energy and needs a nap, so why don't you and mommy unpack your room and then go look at the new house while sissy rests, hmm?" you said softly to Asa as you leaned into the crib to pick him up, letting him wrap his little legs around your waist with his upper body turned into your shoulder, holding him to you with one arm that was quite used to this position by now.

“C’mon, let’s find your teething ring so you don’t chew your teddy’s head off--that’s what you do to gummy bears when you get older,” you prattled quietly as you went back to the diaper bags, lifting one onto each changing table and unpacking the supplies within little at a time.  When you got the teething ring, you carefully switched out the ring for the teddy bear, tickling his lips with it until he let go of the teddy bear with his mouth to try and eat the ring, instead, gums locking on with a surprisingly strong grip.  “There you go, that’s better,” you cooed, rubbing your nose against his in your form of ‘kisses’ and making him giggle before you put the poor bear back into the crib--which also reminded you that there were bottles of milk in each crib, both neglected, though there was some from Asa’s partially drank.  Ida had completely ignored hers.

You needed to get those refrigerated before they went bad…

Putting away the rest of the twins things in their tall dresser, the changing tables, and the toybox, you plucked the two bottles out of the cribs once the nursery was unpacked and headed downstairs to find the kitchen and put them--as well as the two backup bottles in the diaper bag now slung over your shoulder carrying four bottles of milk--into the fridge.

Levi had said they were on the ground floor, so you would finally get to peek at where this sound of water was coming from, and take a look at the only floor you hadn’t gotten a glimpse of, yet.

You headed down the staircase with Asa cooing happily in your arm as he gummed away at his teething ring, discovering that the staircase was barely an L staircase, closer to a winder, with the last four steps curving into a narrow hall that went a little further before ending with an open archway carved out of the adobe wall on your right.  You turned, wondering why the elaborate setup for a staircase, until you stepped through and saw what it led to.

It looked like a small medieval cloister atrium, except instead of an open air top with a perfect view of the sky, this one had no wall facing the ocean, with a cool breeze of ocean air wafting into the echoing space.  All around, even the side without a wall, there were the round top adobe archways surrounding the center piece, a little ways away from the walls like where you were standing, creating covered aisles to surround the centermost point in the room.  What the arches were surrounding was a fairly shallow inner square pool, framed by a foot of marble between the arches and the edge of the pool before the floor changed to sandstone everywhere else.  On the opposite side from where you were standing, the side facing the ocean that had no enclosing wall, the pool had a clean cut and much, much shallower river passing under the centermost arch and extending out towards what you could now see was the actual pool behind the house, the sun shining down on what appeared to be a real rock wall and a real rock pool, though you were too far away to see details.  In the open hall space that framed the pool like a U, there was the archway entrance you just walked through that led to the stairs heading up into the rest of the house.  To your left and right was the mirror image of centerpiece double French doors with rectangular, gridded, decorative glass windows along the walls on the left and right, etchings along the edge of each square of simple waves or breeze lines, the windows allowing peeks into the rooms on either side through the currently drawn but not entirely shut curtains.  You could glimpse a sofa through the curtains on your right, and moved to the left to what you assumed was the kitchen, eyeing the square pool with white walls in the middle, making the water bright and clear and almost shimmer like in the natural light that the archways let in from the ocean side.  There were a few large potted plants in the corners of this inner surrounding hall section, making the space feel less empty, though the echo of the water and the soft clack of your feet suggested otherwise as you headed for what you assumed was the kitchen door.

Stepping inside, this kitchen was similarly styled but much bigger than the kitchen back at the other house.  It was a combination of kitchen and dining room, the décor more white marble, and pale grey wood and silver or clear glass fixtures.  The kitchen itself was in a U at the side of the room to your left, with a giant island counter in the center.  The island had a small toaster oven and a microwave in the body of the island, a sink, and a lot of drawer and cabinet space, with triple pendant light fixtures hanging over the island.  Along the U of the kitchen walls there was a large double door fridge, a gas stove with a girdle and continuous grates and an overhead hood, another stove that was electric and worked in with the cabinetry, a door in a corner that led to what you assumed was a pantry, another sink, and even more cabinet space.  All the cabinetry on the lower level was solid wood--grey for the center island, white for the cabinetry along the U.  However, the cabinets on top included glass door cabinets for any cabinets hanging over the countertops.  The floor was a light brownish grey beachwood, and continued past the kitchen area into the dining room.  There was a separation between the two, marked by a white marble bar coming out from the wall opposite where you stood and taking up two thirds the width of the room, complete with more triple pendant fixtures and bar stools of white wood and grey cushions.  Beyond the bar was the dining area, which was framed on all three sides by floor to ceiling awning windows, with a small crescent moon decorative glass window placed above another set of glass French doors that led out to what you could clearly see was the pool area, now.  There were a couple display cabinets along the walls with fine china dinner sets, and there was a centerpiece dining table that took up most of the center space, and a simple branched, silver chandelier above the center of the table.

You looked around the large and open space, bouncing Asa in your arms when he started to get a little antsy.  “Daddy is probably the richest man alive and he just doesn’t know what to do with all that money,” you said to Asa, though it was more for your benefit as you took in the much more opulently styled home around you.  And you thought the other house was fancy.  What did he even do here, have fancy demon parties?

No, he didn’t seem the type.  Not to mention the only friends he seemed to have were Furlan and Isabel.  Judging off this recent attack alone and what you knew about him and what happened with him being ‘judged’ recently, he wasn’t that popular among the demons.  So what in the hell was all the space for?

You put the bottles in the fridge to try and preserve them a little longer, save for the one Asa had started on, which you decided to try and get him to finish while you finished exploring this part of the house.  He didn’t want to let go of the teething ring, and for a moment, you feared he was going to start crying in this rather echoing part of the house, his face scrunched up and a whine building in his chest.  However, when you wiggled the nub of the bottle into his mouth and slowly used it to push out the teething ring, he eventually surrendered it, one of his hands holding to the bottle as he laid his little head on your shoulder contently, sucking away on the bottle while you made your way back to the antechamber with the pool, around to the other side, and entered the living room to see what it looked like.

It also had the double French doors leading out to the pool area, and the awning windows, but the curtains were heavier and meant to block out the light more completely to create a home theatre effect if so desired.  The white theme continued in here with blue accents, white furniture with blue throw pillows, white rug spread out across the center of the seating area while the flooring was a slightly darker beachwood from the kitchen.  There was a large white U shaped sectional around a square coffee table, a large mounted TV finishing the box above a fireplace.  Stretched back a little further was an open area you could see the kids playing in with all the space, and a black grand piano taking up the corner on your right as you walked away from the ocean view and deeper into the room.  To your left, as you came closer to the opposite side, there was a solid dark wood door--and another just behind it that led to a very simple toilet and sink small bathroom--that when you opened it, led you to what you quickly decided was an adult room just by glancing at its main feature.  You were going to have to put a lock on this door, especially when the kids got older and experimental.

It was a lounge, complete with a dark mahogany bar area at the far end back towards the ocean.  The flooring in here was white carpet, with half of the room--the half closer to the door--a seating area with a long grey couch with lounge chair ends facing another large mounted TV, a mahogany coffee table centered in front of it.  At the other end, the windows were now rectangular, long floor to ceiling, fixed, and a collage of a sliding window in the center, awning windows along the bottom in a U, and gridded windows along the top in an upside down U to complete the square.  The double doors for this room, since it apparently stuck out a little further than the living room, were actually at the far end of the wall on your left as you walked deeper inside, and instead of classic French doors they were simple pure glass patio doors with white wood frames.  The bar had shelving from floor to ceiling, again in mahogany, behind the darker marble countertop, an assortment of liquors lining the shelves with fancy lighting against the dark wood, and there was a small open space with a slight step up beside the ocean facing wall to get behind the bar, which curved outwards from corner to corner of the farthest shelving.  Stools were situated around the bar, iron frames with grey cushions.

Asa hiccupped on your arm, and you leaned your head against his without thinking much of it.  The little tyke was probably starting to get sleepy.

“We’re going to have to lock this room up so little fingers don’t get into something they’re not supposed to,” you murmured out loud, heading for the patio doors that led to the pool you wanted to finally get a good look at.

This was pretty.  Unnecessary in your mind since the ocean was right there, but pretty.  The entire area was made of stone in browns and greys and whites, a more polished and smooth stone supplying the patio areas along the house where there was an assortment of white wicker seats and lounge chairs and tables   There was even a small dining table in front of you in the corner space that the difference between the lounge and the living room supplies outside, a round table with a small collection of chairs around it.  There was a grill on the opposite side by the kitchen, a high end fancy silver one from what you could see at this distance.  And, though you hadn’t seen it earlier, tucked out of view of the antechamber without disrupting too much of the patio space at the dining room side of the house, there was a helix staircase leading up past the ground floor, first floor, second floor, all the way up to the balcony beyond Levi’s room on the top floor, giving the two of you direct access to the pool and also the balcony deck space you’d noticed earlier, which you were going to have to take a peek at, now.

The straight edge river you’d noticed connected to the pool in the antechamber earlier got shallow enough there was maybe an inch of water over the smooth white flooring of the unnatural river, enough that you could step across it and wouldn’t get terrible wet.  However, there was a dry option, as the natural stone that made up the large pool went over the top of the river, a cut out, open area below the stone allowing the water to spill into the pool and creating a bridge right next to the pool itself.

The pool was made of a slightly rougher natural rock, and surrounded by it as well.  In an uneven, more natural looking oval, there was a pool that stretched almost the length of the house.  On the end closest to the lounge, there was a hot tub surrounded by the natural rock formation and raised slightly above the pool, with two natural rock steps leading up to it.  The pool itself had a rock formation about six feet high rising above the pool on the side of the ocean, with two artificial waterfalls spilling into the pool from two separate gaps in larger rocks within the formation, spilling over little carved out cubbies in the uneven rock.   That rock formation also had rock steps that led a person around the back of the hot tub and over the top of the formation to a built in and hidden slide that slipped down into the pool itself on the end closer to the dining room, where the pool had a slight curve and a tail.  The body of water was lit up with underwater lights so that the water rippled a clear blue in the pool, and a tantalizing bluish green you thought was only in movies in the hot tub.

Not bad at all.  Surely something the twins would enjoy when they were older and learned to swim.  And you supposed the hot tub was a nice touch, as well as the slide.  Plus, sometimes the ocean was just too cold, though this you bet was temperature controlled and could be enjoyed during all times of the year.  Not to mention no salt water.  It had its uses, and it looked nice.

There was, however, one more thing to note about the back of the house.  Looking over by the lounge edge, you could see the dark brown wooden deck on the first floor that was connected to the guest room Levi was staying in.  Just above it was another, smaller deck of the same wood connected to that open room you’d noticed on the second floor, offset just slightly more to the right than the one below it.  A set of stairs led down from the second floor deck off to the far right and down to the deck on the first floor, connecting to it off to the side so it didn’t take up more of the deck space.  From the first floor deck, another set of stairs brought it down to ground level and turned into a smooth wooden walkway that extended out of sight.  A few steps back over towards the hot tub, and then beyond along a stone path, revealed that the wooden walkway stretched out past the rough sand of the beach and into the smooth white sand, a direct pathway to the best part of the beach, right before the ocean.  There was even a small T intersection where the stone path you were standing on connected to the wooden pathway, connecting the pool to the path that led to the ocean, as well.

Turning back around, you glimpsed sight of a porch swing affixed above the rocks below the first deck, offering a sheltered view of the ocean up ahead in a private, well hidden space.

On your shoulder, Asa almost dropped his now empty cup that he had been sucking on anyway while you perused the ground floor.  Apparently, he was about to fall asleep, which meant you needed to get him back in his crib.

Now would also be a good time to look for that secret stairs to the nursery Levi mentioned.  So, instead of taking the regular path back through the antechamber, up the stairs, up the spiral stairs to the nursery, you went right to the helix staircase that led up to the top floor.

Asa was starting to fade out as you reached the top, glancing off to the unexplored side, the top floor deck with the pergola covers, a few white lounge chairs and white side tables stretched along the long deck before the other part of the house that was on the other side of the top floor.  There was stained glass double doors leading into whatever that other part of the house was, but you weren’t going to look over there, yet.  Right now, you were going past Levi’s room and into yours, which was, in fact, a mirror of Levi’s room with the open glass walls giving a clear view of the ocean, the bed and nightstands similarly decorated, the lounge chair and side table, the curtains to pull over the glass walls to shield sleeping occupants from sunlight, the doors to the hall, walk in closet, and balcony…

Except yours had an extra door.  For a second, you got excited, thinking that was the door to the stairway, and you went over to open the pure white door...simply to discover the mirror image of the master bathroom you’d peeked in earlier, the murky door off to your left evidence to show the two bathrooms were connected.

Disappointed, you shut the white door, and looked with a puzzled expression around the room.  You knew it was here, he said it was here, so where…

Well, he said it was secret, so it wasn’t going to be obvious.  Your gaze scanned the room, looking for something out of place.  As you passed over the sight of the balcony overlooking the ocean, you noticed that the balcony didn’t end at the edge of the glass, it went a little further, about three feet almost.

About the width of a staircase.

Okay, so if you looked along this wall, the one your bed was pressed against...maybe…

You ran a hand along the wall, feeling for some kind of abnormality.  A little ways along the wall to the left of the bed, you found a seam, one you could get your fingernail into that ran about the length of a door.  You allowed yourself a small smile, and then applied a bit of general pressure, trying to see if it gave any specific way.  It did, a thin sheet of what felt like some kind of wood swinging out to reveal a sliding door that you were able to push to the right, revealing a narrow space with a staircase leading down to your right.

There it was.  A little weird, perhaps, in the future when the twins got older, but there were plenty of rooms they could move to when they got older and wanted a different space, rooms that wouldn’t involve this little future privacy infringement, current safety precaution and convenience feature.  Though it worked two ways--if they ever figured out it was here, you could certainly see them using it to sneak into bed with mommy when they were scared or to wake you up at an ungodly hour on Christmas morning.

Cradling Asa in your arms, you used the secret staircase to go down to the nursery, the secret spot hidden the exact same way here, easily sliding and swinging open and allowing you to put Asa carefully in his crib, the little boy now fast asleep and not about to wake up anytime soon.  Once he was all tucked in, you lingered, a small smile on your face as you gazed at him.

“I don’t care what fact checking Daddy tries to do--you’re definitely my little angel.  You’re too sweet to be anything else,” you cooed before going over to Ida’s crib, where the little girl was still fast asleep.  “And you, little miss, are going to be a feisty one.  But I still love you just as much,” you crooned over her as well, before making your way to the secret staircase again, putting the door and cover back in place, and heading out to explore the rest of the house.

There wasn’t terribly much to see.  The tea room you left alone because you felt like, in some way, it was Levi’s special place, a place just for him like his bedroom and bathroom had been.  The rest you explored, though.  On the second floor, the same as the nursery, there was a spacious open room at the end of the hall, floor to ceiling rectangular windows along the ocean side wall, and double patio doors leading out to the upper deck you’d seen from the pool.  The room itself was pretty much bare, just the white couch you’d witnessed earlier, two end tables, and a sofa chair to fill the open white carpet space.  The guest bedrooms, two on the second floor, one more on the first floor, were pretty much decorated the same.  Plain, styles of white and light grey, queen beds on the rightmost walls with one nightstand to match, a dresser of grey colored wood, six rectangular, slender awning windows grouped in two, center, left, and right on the ocean facing wall.  The bathrooms were similar as well, one on the first and second, in colors of sandstone and creamy browns and peaches.  Brown marble top counters, around the long sink counter with the stone basin sink and the long mirror above it, a dividing section that cut into the middle of the room like an overly thick dividing wall, but acted as a small water closet where the toilet was and had a shower on the other side, glass pane connecting from the water closet like room to the far ocean side wall, complete with a glass door to get into the open shower space, a deep corner tub opposite it, and on the other side of the dividing wall, there was a dressing table complete with a well carved chair and a large mirror erected in front of it, lights above to make sure there was great lighting.

You were starting to think Levi bought this place already decorated, with some of the things you’d seen.  Or at the very least mostly decorated.  Or had someone else come in and decorate it without giving much of an explanation besides one word taste responses, like open and clean, maybe contemporary or modern with a touch of old school.  

Lastly, but definitely not the least important, was that room at the other side of the top floor.  The one with the double wood framed stained glass doors.  As soon as you peeked inside and got a glimpse of the interior, you doubled back to go get the baby monitors set up, knowing that you were going to be spending quite a bit of time here, and you wouldn’t be able to hear the twins crying over here.  Once you had the partner to the monitor in the nursery, you went back to the top floor, crossing the deck space and slipping past the double doors with a giddy air.

It was a library.  A large one, too.  Obviously styled different to the one that had been at the other house, but it was still beautiful, this first chamber looking more like a well-designed bookstore.  Three of the four walls were covered with floor to ceiling dark brown bookshelves that had backlights on every shelf to illuminate the books within.  The fourth wall, the one facing the ocean of course, was pure glass, with a slanted sunroof making up half the roof and allowing a stunning amount of light--and you’d bet a gorgeous view during rainstorms, as well.  Opposite the glass wall was a cozy looking couch with accent chairs on either side, a coffee table in the center.  Across from the couch and a little to its right was a round study table with four or five chairs situated around it., and a lone armchair on the opposite side of the study table.

Across from the main entrance was a square archway the size of a double doorway.  That area led to a secondary room that was styled more like a proper office.  As you passed the archway, you noticed that there was a slight gap in the wood, where something slid out to cover this section and separate the two rooms, possibly like the secret compartment to the staircase in your room.  However, you got here first, so you got to see it before it was shut and hidden like Levi might want it.

Probably not a space you should intrude upon if it had the secret sliding door...but the other office library hadn’t been restricted until he was using it, which he wasn’t using right now.  For now, it was safe to assume that the same rules applied, so you didn’t feel like you were intruding, not this time.

This secondary room was definitely an office, though it also had floor to ceiling bookshelves on the same three walls with windowed walls on the side facing the ocean.  However, these windows were not floor to ceiling, more like four rectangular viewing windows next to each other roughly four feet tall and centered in the wall, curtains pulled back but ready to drop down over them to hide the view outside and block the light.  In front of the windows was a brown leather couch, small side tables on either end, and accent chairs beside those, also of brown leather.  Opposite that wall was a large dark mahogany desk with a sleek rolling office chair situated behind it.  Just behind where the desk was, there was a large empty square in the bookshelf walls that instead housed a computer that the chair could roll easily towards.  Clearly the desk was meant for study of the books, not anything on the computer, though the computer was close enough for reference if it was needed.  While the carpet in the other room had been a clean off white, this one was a rich dark brown with gold diamond accents spaced out over the whole rug.  And the ceiling was a dark brown coffered ceiling with recessed lights at each intersection, and four spaced out along the edges of each shorter length wall in the rectangular room.

It was quite the beautiful study room, and the more muted tones and cozy feel in the room was a nice change from the crisp and clean feeling in the rest of the house.  It was also a nice place to spend a little down time away from the bustle of the rest of the house.  Aside from the tearoom, you could already tell where Levi was going to be spending most of his time.

Going back to the other main library room, you decided to do a general browse of what kind of books were in this library, spotting some well-maintained first editions in carefully selected places on their own where they wouldn’t be ruined by withering away squished between other books.  They tended to have their own shelves with other books that needed special care.

The first room was more general stuff, the classics, the highly adored, you even saw some early edition The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings on one of the shelves.  The second room, however, was a...different story.  These books were heavy, thick, some of them old and worn, some only collections of paper found with thin leather strips between sheets of leather, barely held together.  Some of them were old history books judging by the covers, some were biographies of people you hadn’t heard before.  And eventually, you started to realize...some of these had titles relating to demons, hell, heaven, angels.

This...this wasn’t just a study.  It was a bit of a wake up call and reminder to what Levi was, a demon’s study.  There was ancient knowledge in here, some possibly extremely dark knowledge, some not as sinister feeling.  Once you realized what kind of content was in here, though, the entire vibe of the room changed.

Was this a room you wanted to be in?  A place you should be in?  Was this...a peek behind the curtain, if you dared to look?  What kind of knowledge would be in here?

A little scared of what you might find if you looked at the books about demons and hell, and not wanting nightmares to keep you up tonight after the rough night you’d had, you decided to grab one of the books on angels, instead, heading over to the desk to set it down and gingerly flip through the thick and heavy pages.

The book itself was in a language you didn’t understand, eyebrows scrunching together in frustration as you flipped through, seeing diagrams of different kinds of winged figures here and there, but unable to make sense of the writings themselves.  There were, however, carefully slipped in index cards on certain pages in Levi’s handwriting, notes about the contents of the pages.  Things about types of angels like Seraphim, Cherubim, Warriors, Avenging, Guardians, Virtues, Archangels, Fallen.  General wing descriptions--and number of them--though they varied with the individual.  What their roles were, some of which differed from the perceived roles of general religious beliefs, some of which went right along with them.  You were surprised there were angels of virtues, that you hadn’t been aware of.  Angels that embodied the virtues, protected those who embodied them in the mortal realm, safeguarded it’s sanctity, carried out duties on earth, unseen, related to those virtues amongst humankind, and promoted its cultivation amongst humankind.  There was a difference between Warriors and Avenging angels, apparently, with Avenging being the higher and far more powerful of the two, and often mistaken as Angels of Death because of the kind of destruction they were capable of enacting when their true power was tapped into--and not necessarily when it was fully unleashed.  Warriors were usually tasked with fighting back the more dangerous and lethal of demons actively preying upon and greatly harming humankind, the warriors in a forever waging war against demons.  Yet Levi had a note in his index card that he hadn’t seen or heard of one killing a demon in all his years, which made him doubt their existence, or at the very least that they were still doing their job.

In your opinion, maybe he just hadn’t seen one because he wasn’t a target, wasn’t a demon actively killing humans en-mass, and didn’t seem like he was connected to any demons like that, either.  Not to mention, he’d said himself he’d never met an angel that wasn’t fallen, so if he was going off the seeing is believing logic, this kind of thinking could be applied to any angels.

Guardians that protected individuals of great importance from harm, especially from demons trying to harm them.  That was their main role, anyway--they also protected everyday humans when they were around, when they could, when it wouldn’t cause a greater catastrophe to occur in the process.  They were silent watchers, and guardians when they could be, but for the most part were assigned to important people until their work was done--then they would safeguard their passage to the afterlife to make sure no demon tried to interfere while a...Reaper, carried their soul to the afterlife--heaven, if a Guardian Angel was watching over them.

Cherubim had a different role than you’d expected, as well.  Four winged creatures, they were guardians of the lost and unfortunate, those who had strayed from their way.  Redeemers, and contributors to finding justice.  They played a measured role of a mediator and a judge and a redeemer in passing judgement.  There wasn’t much on them besides they were strong in a different sense than Avenging Angels, who were more the fighting and destruction in the name of protection or judgement, the sword.  Cherubim were strong in their brilliance and raw angelic presence, and the divine abilities that came from that status as a powerful angel.  They could rebuke demons with as little as a finger twitch, destroy them if they didn’t flee from their presence fast enough.  Powerful angels could do that, angels like Cherubim, Seraphim, Avenging Angels, and Archangels.

Archangels.  Commanders and leaders of heavens angels.  The power of a high ranking Angel, sent to areas of importance when the specializing angels weren’t enough, usually with an Avenging Angel close behind if the situation was dire enough.  Usually found in the fight against demon kind and hell, but guiding, leading, strategizing, not on the front lines.  When they were on the front lines, there were serious, groundbreaking things happening.  Arguably the most famous and well known of angels, with immense, grand wings.

And then of course the Fallen.  Still powerful, but only shadows of what they’d once been.  Stripped of most of their wings except the bare bones, which were charred and barely holding on at the joint.  No longer connected to heaven and whatever their divine powers were, but still possessing an inhuman strength and speed--usually impaired for a period of time after their fall as they tried to adjust.  Still able to see into the In-Between--the realm of the supernatural that existed in the same space as the mortal realm, unseen by mortals, except with the possibility to travel down to Hell or up to Heaven if the being possessed working wings--and walk in both the mortal plane and the In-Between.  And still retaining the ability to sense a nearby demon that all angels possess.

There was so much here, simply with what you could read of Levi’s notes.  It made you wonder what you could know if you could read the language, could see what these notes were about.  If you got this much information just from notes, how rich were these books with information?

You didn’t know how long you leafed through the book about angels looking for Levi’s index card notes, but eventually, you heard the distinct wailing of one of the twins through the baby monitor.  Your free time was up, then.  At least you had the layout of the house, now...and some surprise information about angels, with plenty of incentive to return to this study at another time and see what else you could learn.

Another time.  Right now, you had twins to attend to.

*Levi’s POV*

By the time Levi was able to get out of bed and get up the stairs to the top floor--his personal general recovery goal, even if it wasn’t much--his chest burned, and not from the exercise--it burned from the binding mark on his chest, telling him he was running out of time to make a deal for this week.  And he still had a hard time getting up the stairs.

Fuck.

That demon sent after them might not have succeeded in killing them or taking the twins, but it still might have succeeded in delaying Levi long enough to keep him from making a deal, which would make it all happen again as an inevitability.  If he couldn’t make a deal by the end of this week, he’d be thrown into The Pit, a demon would come after the twins and likely kill Y/N in the process, the twins would be turned into…

No, he couldn’t let that happen.  He had to find a way, before he ran out of time.  Something that didn’t involve binding some random innocent to Hell...preferably.  He couldn’t justify it even once.  If he justified it once, what was to stop him from justifying it over and over again in the future until it was second nature to him.  He’d been down that path before, he didn’t dare slip down it again.

Not wanting to be in bed a second longer, and feeling like he was wallowing in misery in some pathetically dramatic way every time he did, Levi slowly made his way out of the bed and out the double doors onto the balcony, heading over to the railing and leaning heavily on it as he looked down over the ocean.  It was at a bit of a distance, but he could see Y/N down on the beach with the twins, sitting with them and playing in the sand and trying to keep them from eating the sand in the process.

It was a close call the other night.  He’d almost died, it seemed, and if he’d died...if he’d died…the twins would have no one, and who knew who’s care they’d end up in.  He’d like to think Furlan would try to claim them after Y/N died and before anyone else to make sure they still had a decent caregiver, but there was no guarantee to that.

Levi lowered his head onto his arms, eyes squeezed shut as he let out a long, slow breath.

Y/N was right.  It had been stupid hiding that wound the other night.  He’d known it meant he was poisoned, but he thought he had enough time to at least get them to the beach house.  He hadn’t expected it to spread so damn fast, and once he started feeling it, once he couldn’t endure it’s mounting effects anymore, it took him down too fast for him to do anything about it besides giving the wheel over to Y/N.

Reckless.  Foolish.  Idiot.  His twins did need him, eventually all they would have would be him.  He could make gambles like that.  He needed certainty, contingencies, he needed solid ground underneath him.

He couldn’t keep playing hide and seek with these other demons, moving from one place to another, hoping they wouldn’t get found by another demon.  That was no life for his twins, not one he wanted them to be stuck with, anyway.  And now that he had even more reason to believe the Infernal Court was dealing under the table trying to get him killed...he needed to start doing some offense, get some insurance, some way to keep the other demons at bay even if the Infernal Court was trying to nudge them to attack him, something that would make them think twice about attacking him, something that could protect the others if another demon attacked anyway.

The Court clearly wasn’t going to see these deals as enough, so he had to come up with another way to keep them at bay as long as he could, at least until the twins were old enough not to need a guardian to raise and teach them anymore.  He had to make sure they were going to be safe.

His phone rang, and Levi lifted his head, propping it up in one of his hands with his fingers threading through his hair while his other hand pulled the phone out of his pocket so he could answer it, gaze fixed down at the scene on the beach with Y/N and the twins--what he could see of them at this distance, anyway.

“What?”

“Good--you’re finally conscious.  I was starting to worry it would be a whole week before we could talk, since I’m sure some of this is too important to wait that long.”

"Don't keep me in suspense," Levi said dryly, weight shifting on the railing to ease some building pain in his legs.

"Well, we found who leaked the information of where the house is, and...I'm sorry, Levi, but this is smoke we can't put back in the bottle.  It's out there, now.  We can't just kill everybody that knows, it's too many people."

Levi swore, rubbing his forehead in irritation.  Y/N was not going to like being unable to return to the house she'd made her home, the one she decorated, and the one close to all the things she did to keep her life her own.  And he liked that house as well, had planned on being there for a while.

And if they found this place?  Where would they go next?  Was he going to keep his family running every time they were found?  He couldn't do that to them.

He was so distracted by worry, he didn't even realize despite his attempts to avoid using the word family, he was instinctual doing it again.

"The Infernal Court has to be dealing under the table to try and sabotage and kill me.  This demon I didn't even know, I've never met them in my life.  They had no reason to attack unless they were told to, promised something in return," Levi murmured, hand still slowly rubbing his forehead.

"That's what I was thinking, too.  It's not good news, but...at least we know."

Levi hummed, a deep frown etching its way across his face, about to speak before Furlan beat him to it.

"There's also something you need to know about what happened, something after you lost consciousness."

Levi froze, his shoulders tense at the hesitant and measured tone of Furlan’s voice, making it sound like he was about to say something very...unpleasant.

"What, Furlan?  You know I don't like beating around the bush."

"You were in the final stages from what she described, despite our best efforts.  Seizing, black veins spread all the way to your neck, poison having reached your heart quite some time ago--you were barely holding on.  But when I finally got there with the antidote, there weren't any black veins visible, you were still, breathing okay even though your lungs should have shut down before I got there.  You got better.  Just a little, just enough for me to make it there in time."

There was a long silence, one that stretched for what felt like a frozen eternity, Levi staring down at the beach without really seeing it.  After several minutes of this silence, Furlan spoke again.

"Levi, she bought you time.  Without realizing what she did.  That means--"

"I know what it means, Furlan," Levi interrupted sharply, his voice strained.  Furlan was quiet after that, giving Levi the moments he needed to process what he was being told and then recompose himself.

He didn't hang up but Levi momentarily put the phone back into his pocket so Furlan wouldn't hear anything he might do in the next few seconds.  Gripping onto the railing with all his strength, Levi leaned back with his head bowed low between his arms, body taught and ready to snap, teeth grinding together painfully.

She already had so little time because of him, had already lost a bit more in those first few weeks thanks to circumstance.  The twins adored her, like he'd expected them to. Asa was hard to disengage from his mother when he wasn't asleep, sometimes throwing a fit even when he was passed from her to Levi, wanting his mother over his father.  He still didn't know how he was supposed to explain what happened to their mother if she made it to their eighth birthday, how he was supposed to tell them at that age, but now he was certain eight was off the table.  Seven was the new optimistic idea for how old the twins would be when she died.  Four the worse case scenario.

At least he hoped that was the worse case scenario.  He didn't know how much time she actually had, this was all just rough guesses to give him an idea of how much time she had left with the twins.  And when she was gone...he would be on his own.  He would have to try and explain to five to seven-year-olds why they couldn't see their mother anymore.  The thought was enough to take the breath from his lungs as his head moved slightly so he could press the knuckles of his thumbs into his forehead.

Why, why the fuck had she done it?  To him, of all people?  It didn't matter what gesture of affection she'd given him that had given him a bit more time, she shouldn't have been giving him any affection at all, period.  Never again.  He of all people didn't deserve it, not after what he did to her, how he hurt her.  It wasn't right, not even the little gestures.  He didn't deserve it, and she deserved so much better, a better he'd robbed from her at the very start.  Hadn't he taken enough from her?  Why did there have to be even more now, why did she have to save his worthless life?  How was that a fair trade?

He really was some kind of goddamn parasite, wasn't he, if all he could do was take, take, take, even when he wasn't trying to, even when that was the last thing he wanted to do, even if he'd do anything to give even just a little of what he'd taken from her back.  But he couldn't.  There wasn't any way to do that.  He'd looked, and he'd tried, but it all failed, and he was left with the crushing finality to his every little decision, and the negative impact his very presence made on others.

Why?  Why the fuck did she do it?  Why him, of all people?  He didn't deserve any sympathy, let alone affection, especially from her.  It felt wrong, like he'd somehow taken advantage of her situation again.

Carefully, he pulled the phone back out of his pocket as he straightened up just enough for his head to be above his arms as he stared down at the beach, pressing the phone to his ear and glad to hear Furlan was still on the line and waiting for Levi to return.

"Are you sure?" He asked in a low voice.

"Positive.  She wouldn't lie about the state you were in, Levi, she was scared for you, we could tell."  Furlan paused, allowing Levi to ruminate on how strange it was to hear that Y/N had been scared for him.  Again, it didn't feel right.  He'd be more comfortable with a different kind of fear, the kind that meant not knowing what to do with two demon babies if something happened to him, not genuine concern for his safety.

After a few moments' pause, Furlan spoke again.  "Levi, it's not my business, but if there's something more going on between you two--"

Levi bristled and tensed in place, standing up straight as his hand tightened in an unflinching grip on the rail of the balcony as he responded with a bite.  "Furlan, I drove her to the point of constant exhaustion trying to get her pregnant, gaslighting her off and on throughout the whole three months, then left her alone to deal with nine months of an impossible pregnancy where she had no support, including through the death of a child, and then proceeded to try and take the twins as soon as they were born, telling her they were heartless demons like myself that would never be capable of caring about anyone or anything including her and would one day, certainly, kill her, threatened to kill her myself to take them...all that, and you're really suggesting that there's even a chance that there could ever be anything between us?  That doesn't just go away.  She doesn't even know that what I did gave her a death sentence yet, or that I was there the whole time during her pregnancy and never once made myself known, no matter what happened.  She's never going to forgive me, let alone care for me the way you're suggesting.  Nor would I want her to."

Levi ‘tched’, turning his gaze away from the sight of Y/N and the twins playing on the beach several stories below him.  "Besides...what fucking idiot would fall for a woman he knows is going to die in a few years.  That's just asking for it.  I've got enough on my plate without adding that kind of heartbreak into the mix."

"You could have just said no," Furlan said flatly, earning a slight roll of Levi’s eyes.

"No, the fact you even asked that means you needed an explanation."

Furlan sighed.  “How’s the recovery going?  You’re well enough to answer the phone, I see.”

“Doesn’t matter.  Listen, I know you’ve got a lot on your plate, and I was wondering if you have any other spare names you’re sitting on.  Not necessarily anyone dangerous like on the list you gave me, just someone.”

“Levi, you really shouldn’t be thinking about deals right now.  That poison did a number on you, I don’t think you’ll be in any condition to make any more of your deals for at least another week or two--”

“I don’t have that luxury, Furlan.  I’m not picky this time, any name will do.”

“Levi, no.  It’s not going to kill you not to make a deal for one week--”

“Yes, it will,” Levi ground out, and there was a heavy silence on the other end of the phone.  Suddenly, Levi realized Furlan might have been fishing for this response.  Fuck.  Sneaky bastard.

“What did you do, Levi?”

“Shit,” Levi hissed between his teeth, his hand running through his hair as his head dropped low, staring off somewhere to his side without really seeing anything.

“Levi, I know something happened with the Infernal Court that you haven’t been telling us.  I have my suspicions, but--”

“I made a deal with them,” Levi cut him off bluntly, hand dropping to dangle over the edge of the railing.  “When Gross came to take the twins, I made a deal with the Infernal Court.  They would allow me to claim the twins if I promised to make a binding deal with a new soul every week for the entire time I acted as their guardian.  And if I missed one week--”

“You’d be thrown in The Pit,” Furlan finished darkly before swearing loudly into the phone.  “That’s a shitty deal, Levi, and you know it.”

“Like they were going to offer me anything different?  It didn’t matter, anyway, since they’ve started sending people to kill me and take the twins. Fucking shitbags.”

“Wouldn’t expect anything less from them, considering how much they hate you.  Even if they could get years of weekly deals from you, I think they’d rather throw you in The Pit for some revenge.”

“Obviously,” Levi muttered.  “Will you give me a name or not?  I’m almost out of time to make a deal this week, and I can’t leave to find anyone, I’m not in any condition to.”

Furlan was quiet for a few minutes, and Levi stayed patient with him because he could hear Furlan moving around, probably looking at things, trying to see what he could offer Levi.  After a few minutes, Furlan let out a long sigh.

"Levi...I know you don't want to hear it, and I don't like to say it, but I don't think you have the luxury of choosing who you make a deal with this time.  You don't have the time--or the strength.  I can’t give you one of my names, they’ll tear you up with the state you’re in."

“Furlan, again, I don’t have much choice, I’m going to have to do something, or the twins will end up losing both parents.”

A heavy silence followed that statement, a weight pressing down on Levi’s chest and temporarily preventing him from saying more.  Thankfully, it was Furlan who spoke first yet again.

“What’s your policy about bringing targets over to your home?”

Levi’s eyebrows rose, and he tensed slightly at his thoughts on where Furlan might be going with this.  “Never.  Especially right now, since I’ve got Y/N and the twins at the house.  Especially if they’re dangerous.”

“Well, you might have to make an exception.  Send them out for the night or something,” Furlan mumbled.

“I don’t want whoever it is to be coming back to my house, Furlan, I don’t want to risk it.”

“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.  Can you trust me, just this one week?  Maybe next week depending on how long it takes you to recover.”

Levi muttered a few choice words under his breath in a couple languages, pinching the bridge of his nose.  “Fine.  Don’t make me regret this, Furlan.”

“I’m trying to help you, Levi, don’t be so suspicious and stubborn,” Furlan scoffed.

Levi was quiet for a few moments, making himself slowly relax as he went back to watching the twins and Y/N play on the beach.  It looked like one of the twins was climbing all over Y/N while the other was still entranced by the sand.  If he was taking a guess, he would bet Asa was the one climbing on her, Ida was the one playing in the sand still.  His little family, fragile as it was, and doomed to fracture at some point.  But while it lasted, he wanted to make sure that it was protected, preserved, so it wasn’t shattered prematurely.  Right now, he lacked the ability to do that without getting one hell of a beating--he just wasn’t built like the others, and while he knew how to fight with what he had, they always had their edges on him with their claws, teeth, spikes, other natural weapons.  He needed something more, something to give him an edge to fill the absence of fangs, claws, and barbed tails, all the natural weapons he kept running into that left him bloodied and bedridden.  There were options, but...

“I need something to keep them from coming after us, Furlan.  Something to ward them off, make them think twice about attacking us, so this doesn’t keep happening.”

“You sound like you have something specific in mind.”

“I know most of them have been missing for centuries, and the few that are accounted for are in the hands of people too strong to try taking them from, but...I want you and Isabel to help me find one of the Gladius Occidere Daemonium.”

“Getting fancy on me with the Latin, I see.”

“Well, if I’m going to be looking for one, I better start getting used to the many Latin names for a Sword of Demon Killing.  It’s a good thing this house has my research library.”

Next Chapter---->

(Strikethroughs Couldn’t Be Tagged)

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Levi Tags:  @clary-quinn​ @babydabi​ @whalerus​ @sunny-flo​ @thirstyforsometea​ @hauntedhousecat​ @peaches-and-clouds​ @chaoticyuna​@wubbawubwub04​ @lollobos @pasteldays @itsmeaudrieee​ @macaronnv​ @tokyo-banana​ @apuci-kis-szornye​ @morgana-olson​ @yellowminb​ @ashikothedog​ @spnwinchestersd​

(Four Months Later)

*Reader’s POV*

You could have started small.  There were a thousand ways you could start trying to make things work with Levi.  But the first thing you did was try to force yourself not to hold the children hostage from him.  They were his children, too, and from what you could see, he loved them.  It wasn’t fair to him--cruel, even--that you kept the twins just out of his reach or sight more often than not, or you’d leave the room with them before he could even ask to hold them.

You needed to let him try to be a father.

You still didn't want him in your space, so if he asked to come in to do something, it was an automatic no.  You still needed boundaries, and that was your safe space, and he was going to stay out of it.

But when you left your room, you stayed conscious of natural excuses to let him hold the twins.  Maybe one of them needed changed.  You would ask him to feed one while you fed the other.  He seemed to be strangely pleased if he was asked to give them baths, which at first was just a gentle sponge bath in a special seat.  If your arms got tired or the wrap started to sit uncomfortably, you would pass them off to him to hold for a while.

Once he realized you were giving him opportunities to hold the twins, Levi stopped any and all pushing to be allowed around them, because you were giving him that time.  The most he ever did was offer help if you were struggling and hadn't yet thought to ask him for help.  Most of the time, you felt you had things pretty well handled.  But sometimes you were at the end of your rope and unable to figure out what it was that the twins wanted.  It was in those moments Levi tended to approach, stoically asking if he could try figuring out what they wanted.  Most of the time, they tended to calm down after a few minutes with him.

Which began to convince you that the twins just wanted time with their father.  And you weren't going to deny your twins that if it was what they wanted, as well.

So, gradually, over the first few months, you relaxed your grip, let Levi be with his children, let him wander the house with them, out of your sight.  He would take them both when you sat down to eat so you could have a peaceful dinner, or he would just take them for an hour or so just to be with them, usually reappearing when they were hungry or tired.  If they were tired and were going to do more than nap, he would bring them back to you so you could put them in their cribs in your room.  The cribs in his bedroom were still, at this point, unused.

By now, though, you were starting to trust him with the twins.  You'd seen him change around them, seen a bit of that indifferent exterior crack to reveal a surprisingly soft individual underneath.  You'd seen how gently and carefully he gave them their baths, how patiently he endured it if they were trying to gum his fingers, hair, or clothes--and how he discreetly washed his hands or changed his clothes afterwards, or how quick he was to keep dangerous objects out of their mouths 

Just because you saw how he was with the twins didn't mean everything between the two of you was magically fixed, though.  There was still tension between the two of you, though you were trying not to treat him like he was liable to go on a rampage and hurt you or the twins anymore.

Frankly, you were trying to pin down where that feeling came from in the first place.  Levi was a lot of things, but he'd never raised a hand to you, the twins--you'd never seen him physically threaten anyone.  You didn't want to admit it, but this concept that he was out to hurt you seemed to develop around the time you found out he was a demon.  Which meant it was probably entirely rooted in the fact he was a demon, which made you one hell of a hypocrite since your children were half-demon and would one day be full-demon, yet you held nothing against them and didn't fear any possible innate malice in them.

The duplicity made you hope maybe it was just rooted in how Levi had hurt you in the past in non-physical ways, and a fear with the reveal he was a demon and all those harsh words and suggestions that he didn't give a damn about you meant he might one day escalate to physical violence.

But again, he didn't show any signs.  It was just the fear you harbored in your mind, and he knew the fear was there.  He didn't complain, though.  He seemed to quietly accept and endure it.  He didn't react when you wouldn't let him touch you, or you flinched away if the two of you accidentally came into contact.  He never forced his presence upon you, and for the most part, made himself scarce and let you have your space.  But as much as that made you feel relieved, allowed some of the tension to drain out of your body...it also made you feel alone, in this giant strange house that wasn't yours.

That, oddly enough, was the next thing that you started to work on.  And it was from the stupidest whim, too, that you started to warm up to the house and finally, finally accept Levi’s statement that the house was yours to do with as you wished. 

The floor could be cold on your bare feet when you walked around the house, wood or stone, and one day when you found yourself reluctant to get off the couch because you were warm curled up with your feet on the cushions but the floor below was freezing in comparison, you'd wondered if any of those catalogs Levi kept updated in the bookshelf had rugs in them.

You went through the pile--new catalogs having replaced the ones that had been there when he'd initially showed them to you--and picked out the ones that looked like they might have some nice rugs in them.  You ignored the prices, just to test how far this offer actually went, and simply sought out one you liked best, marking the page and circling the item like Levi had told you to, placing the catalog in the other basket tentatively and then scurrying away.

The next day, you'd realized the catalog was back in the stack.  Not too much longer and the ordered rug was delivered, and after the basic questions had been asked by Levi, it was rolled out and covering the floor in front of and at the base of the sectional couch in the living room.

No complaints, no questioning if that was what you wanted, nor even any passing comments suggesting it didn't match the rest of the room.  Levi bought it and placed it for you without hesitation and the only question being where you wanted it and how it was supposed to lay.

Now that you knew he was actually going to follow through, you picked up a bit more confidence and went to the bookshelf a bit more frequently.  Browsing the catalogs became a pastime, at least for a little while, as you slowly redecorated the downstairs half of the house into something more to your taste.  At first it was just little things--curtains, rugs, a bigger coat and shoe rack by the door, a few plants, little things like that.  After that, you got things like baby clothes--the twins were growing, and from the advice you’d managed to scrounge up, you knew that they would burn through clothes like gasoline in a poor mileage vehicle.  Toys made an appearance, and soon decorations and little knick-knacks that caught your eye that you really didn’t need, it was more of a want.  He didn’t complain about those, but you /swore/ you felt a /look/ on occasion when the two of you happened to be in the living room at the same time when he came by to check the catalogs.  You were even considering trying to liven up the outside of the house as well--the ivy that had grown over the stone could be pretty if the yard was decorated a bit more--that way it would look decorative instead of abandoned.

Of course, you weren’t the best with plants, but it would give you something to do besides take care of the kids and lounge around all day.

That one thing ended up being the topic Levi pushed you on.  Not giving the twins to him to take care of every now and then, not making the place your own, it was getting out of the house that not even his blatant ‘hints’ could put a stop to.  You hadn’t found a part time job, and you’d only browsed a few things you could be doing on whims, never committing to anything, and if something really caught your eye, you ended up finding a way to do that at home.

It wasn’t healthy.  You were probably going to go stir crazy if you didn’t have something to get out of the house soon, but you were afraid to leave.  Maybe you trusted Levi to handle the twins when you were around, but there was something so much more real about leaving them in his care when you left the house.  Any time you thought about leaving with him to take care of them, something in you seized up with panic, and you quickly backed out.

Until, apparently, Levi had enough.

Four months old--he waited until the twins were four months old to give you the chance to get your life back in gear before he took matters into his own hands.

Levi making breakfast had become habit by now, and he was catching on to the things you liked and what you left untouched if he made it.  He still put variety into breakfast, but it was more personalized to your tastes now.  In fact, you had the sneaking suspicion he actually enjoyed this, enjoyed practicing his cooking skills and getting the chance to make at least the first meal of the day, even if he didn’t eat and the twins were still only drinking pumped breast milk.

He waited until you were halfway through your meal before he ambushed you, dropping what at first glance appeared to be a business card and a credit card on the counter beside you.

Holy shit, that was a fabled black card.

You stared at the credit card like it might bite you, brain crashing as you tried to figure out why he would throw something like /that/ at you.  How loaded was he?  Who did he have to kill to have that kind of money?

“Never seen a credit card before?” Levi asked flatly.  You were starting to understand that was just the way he talked, and he didn’t mean anything by his brisk way of speaking--it was just the way he was.  If he was trying to intentionally make a jab at you or piss you off, you would know.

“Not a shiny black one, no.”

Levi gave a soft, irritated sigh and pushed the card out of the way with his fingers, bringing the business card back into focus.  As opposed to the sleek black card, this was simple cream cardstock, with curly, almost cursive letters spelling out what was clearly a business name.  You picked up the card, arching an eyebrow at the name printed across the surface and staring at Levi.

“Rose’s Touch Spa?”

What was that supposed to mean to you?

“Turn it over,” he said with an exasperated sigh that you couldn’t even figure out what it was on your own.  You did, in fact, turn it over, and on the other side was a simple list of appointment information filled out by hand.  The date was written in light pink for today, in about two hours, a Platinum package for one already paid for.

Slightly alarmed, you looked up at him.  “Uh, what is--”

“It’s been four months,” Levi said, cutting you off before you could question or decline, his voice firm and leaving no room for argument.  “You haven’t left since you got here, not even for a jog.  That package is a full treatment, right down to all the amenities.  Take the day.  Relax.  Do whatever else you want, as long as it’s not here.”

“But the twins--”

“Will be fine here with me for one day until you get back.  You're not getting out on your own, so I took some initiative.  It’s not up for debate, you’re going,” Levi said flatly.

“You know I hate it when you make decisions for me,” you said hotly, but Levi didn’t rise to the bait, calmly pouring himself some more tea--the two of you were having breakfast alone while the twins slept after their morning meal, grabbing a rare quiet moment, so it was just the two of you in the room having this conversation.

“I left it to you for four months.  You didn’t do shit.  It’s not healthy, and I’m stepping in,” Levi said bluntly.  You chewed nervously on your bottom lip, mind suddenly buzzing with all kinds of things that could go wrong while you were gone, and that persistent, underlying, general sense of fear that wouldn’t leave you alone when Levi was involved.  “If you’re that worried, you have a phone for a reason,” Levi added at your nervous disposition.  However, he didn’t seem to be anywhere near changing his mind on the subject.  In fact, he was starting to clean up as if everything was already finished.

“They’ll treat you as a VIP, so you won’t have to wait very long once you get there.  You can probably leave thirty minutes before and get there with plenty of time,” he said casually, water running as he started scrubbing at the dishes.

You were quiet for several long moments, the only sound Levi cleaning up what remained of the morning breakfast mess.  “I don’t want to leave the twins,” you eventually said in a soft, barely audible voice.  Levi paused, appearing to consider your words for several long minutes.

“Your life didn’t stop because you had the babies.  If it has, it's of your own doing.  Nothing’s stopping you.  Nothing will happen to them while you’re gone.  They'll still be here when you come back.  I promise."

He didn't look at you while he said it, but there was a sincerity in his words that made you believe you could at least attempt it today.  It would do you some good to get out of the house, and to get a full package at a spa, and then do whatever you wanted with no limit to your spending…

It didn't look like much when it was just two cards on the counter, but he was really pushing to give you a day to yourself, a bit of freedom and fresh air.  Maybe you wanted to see ulterior motives in it and that was what made you scared, but you really needed to stop doing just that.  If you kept looking for problems everywhere, you'd find them, usually of your own making.  And one of his biggest complaints had been you twisting his words.

You were going to give him this chance, and if nothing bad happened...maybe you could stand to trust him a little more.

"Fine…" you murmured softly, taking both cards and tucking them away for later.  "You're not going to be busy today?"

"I don't have to be anywhere until Saturday."

Right.  One upside of being around all the time was that you were becoming quite familiar with Levi’s schedule.  He always went out on Saturday nights like clockwork, and always came back wanting to see the twins.  Every now and then, he didn't walk through the door like a normal person--he'd come from upstairs like he'd been home the whole time, which left you wondering how he got inside in the first place.  Another demon thing, maybe.  Usually when that happened, he was a little worse for wear and kept more covered up than usual, which only made you more suspicious about what was happening when he went out on Saturdays.

Then, of course, there were those hours he spent locked in the tower doing God knew what.  You hadn't snooped around to try and find out, and you'd told yourself you didn't want to know, but with how frequent it was, you were starting to wonder.

Thanks to the twins and their knack for waking you up at odd hours with their crying--and if one started, the other was grunted to join in--you'd also found out Levi didn't seem to sleep much, as you could hear him moving around the house at all hours of the night.  And in the early mornings, when the sun was just starting to rise, he tended to go out for a jog.  And Tuesdays were his cleaning day where he made sure the whole damn house was spotless.

So, you'd asked if it was all right with him because you didn't know if he planned on locking himself in the library again, today.

Well, apparently not, since he'd scheduled this appointment with the intent to get you out of the house all day.  Which meant you had no excuse.  The twins were going to be with their father today, and you were going to get out of the house for the first time in months.

You hadn't realized how much you actually needed this say to yourself, no strings attached, until you were right in the middle of it.  When Levi had said he got you the full package, he hadn't been kidding.  An hour long massage, manicure, pedicure, haircut however you wanted it, facial, the works.  By the time you left, you almost felt like an entirely new person, and you realized you were suddenly faced with an entire town of things you could do.

Food was first, with you going to your favorite restaurant to get whatever you wanted--except alcohol, since you were driving yourself around.  After that, you went to the nearest mall and browsed, ogling the puppies in one of the shop windows and buying yourself a nice sun dress to go with your new makeover.  Strolling around downtown opened a few doors you hadn't been expecting, as you caught sight of one or two advertised classes or workshops that caught your interest, Levi’s suggestion that you pick up a once a week hobby that got you out of the house regularly flashing through your mind.  You finished up your night with a movie, the sun having set long ago by the time you left, and a longing to get back to the twins now firmly rooted in your chest.

You'd decide if you were going to commit to a weekly class later after some online research and contemplation at home.

It was strange having a home with a driveway and a large stone gate, how you had to park and get our of the car to open the gate before you could drive inside, and having to get out again to close it behind you.  You felt like you were driving up to some ancient, off limits castle instead of somewhere you were living.

I really need to liven this place up, you thought as your gaze flickered across the plain front lawn, driving the car up to where it usually stayed when it wasn't being used and putting it in park.  You gathered your things and, mindful that it was an hour that the twins should be asleep, you quietly entered the house.

It was completely silent inside, which put you on edge as much as it helped relax you a bit not to be greeted with chaos.  But Levi didn't appear to see who entered the house or show you the twins were fine, either.

As you set your bags by the door, you were fighting off fearful thoughts, things like Levi making off with the twins while you were gone.  So as soon as you were free from the things you needed to carry inside, you started searching, going straight up to the bedrooms and peeking your head inside to confirm that the twins weren’t in the cribs in either room.  You went up to the library next to see if the door was locked and Levi was inside, but it was empty.  At that point, you were starting to panic, hurrying downstairs in a rush to check the kitchen to see if Levi was feeding them in there--he wasn’t.  You were basically running when you checked the living room, and promptly came to a full halt at the scene inside.

Two bare feet sticking out from behind the couch caused you to hurry forward enough you could see what was on the other side.  The floor blanket playmat thing you’d bought a while back for the babies was spread out and plush on the floor, on top of the carpet for extra cushion.  Both babies were lying on their backs asleep, one of the baby blankets thrown over them to keep them warm and a few baby toys lying on the ground around them, like a rattle or a few stuffed animals.  Beside them, lying on his side with one arm draped protectively over them, was Levi, asleep for once as you’d rarely seen him do.  You weren’t sure he intended to fall asleep here, but he’d definitely planned on being here for a while based on the pillow he had under the elbow of his other arm, which might have been propping up his head before he fell asleep.

Frankly, you were surprised that none of them had woken up with all your running about.  And...you were a little glad, too, because now you got to see this scene.

You lingered, deciding against waking him up for the time being.  They all looked so...peaceful right now.  The scene was soft and warm, Levi’s hair falling gently in front of a face that was suddenly gentle and missing signs of hardness or harsh edges.  He looked perfectly comfortable and at peace lying there beside the twins, and you kind of wished he’d stay like this solely because...well, he seemed more approachable like this, at least to you.  He looked...sweet, lying there with the twins.  Even the twins looked slightly more peaceful than normal when they slept, like they were aware they were being protected while they slept, safe under his arm.

After simply gazing at the scene for several long minutes, you left them alone--at least for now--and retrieved your things by the door to put them away.  Almost all of it went to your room, so it was one quick, quiet trip and then you were coming back downstairs.  Levi and the twins were still asleep in the living room, but now you didn’t have an excuse to delay, and the twins really should have been asleep in their crib.  So, quietly, you knelt down beside Levi, reaching out to gently touch his shoulder to wake him up.

He took a sharp breath in as he stiffened, eyelids opening even though his eyes were foggy and darting around to take in his surroundings, leaning slightly back to look at you.  Once he realized it was you, he started to relax slightly, rolling his shoulders and starting to sit up.

“It’s late.  Let’s get them in their cribs,” you said softly, receiving a grunt from Levi in acknowledgement as he sat up and gently pulled the blanket off of Asa, wrapping Ida up as he gently picked her up, taking care not to wake her in the process.  You picked up Asa in the meantime, freezing for a heartbeat when Asa twitched and you thought he might wake up before, thankfully, he settled back down, and you were able to get to your feet without waking him.

This was one of the few times you would let Levi into your room, just for the few moments it took for him to safely put one of the twins in the crib.  He made sure they were covered and warm, lying on their back without anything in the way before he backed up to the doorway, leaning on the frame just outside your bedroom.

“How was the spa?” he asked you as he watched you situate Asa in his crib, watching the twins for a few moments just to make sure they really were going to fall asleep.

“Very nice,” you said honestly, a little part of you in the back of your mind grateful that the two of you had at least gotten to the point you could have simple conversation.  “I even rescheduled...a month out.”

Levi’s gaze wandered to the sun dress you had laying on the bed.  “And had a shopping spree afterwards?”

You shrugged, stepping away from the cribs and making your way towards the doorway.  Levi stepped out of your way and let you walk by, closing the door behind you before he followed you back down the stairs to the living room.

“Not really.  I browsed a few places, but didn’t buy much.  I had dinner, saw a movie, walked around downtown--just a regular night out,” you said simply, starting to pick up the baby toys on the floor.  Levi helped, especially since he’d contributed to the mess, folding up the blanket and putting the pillows back up on the couch.

“Will you be going out again?  Before next month’s appointment?” Levi asked casually, though you were well aware he was hoping this one day out had inspired you to get out of the house more.

“Maybe.  I’m looking at some things, I’ll let you know,” you murmured, playing idly with the stuffed animal in your hand.  “What about while I was gone?  They weren’t too fussy, were they?”

“They seemed fairly content.  I think they were looking for their mother sometimes, though,” Levi said honestly.  You appreciated the honesty.  As much as it tasted bittersweet that they’d missed you, you also appreciated that he didn’t try to claim they’d been perfectly happy without you, with just him to keep them company.  At least he hadn’t made it sound like they didn’t need you.  “You look different.”

You turned to look at him, stuffed animals in your arms with your hand wrapped around the baby rattle.  “You booked the full package, didn’t you?  It was practically a full makeover.”  You shifted, suddenly a little self-conscious, though you couldn’t for the life of you figure out why.  “Is that a bad thing?”

“Never said it was.”

An awkward silence lingered between the two of you for a few moments, what could have been a nice moment spoiled by the tension of the history between the two of you as you turned away.  “I’ve been running around all day.  I’m going to head to bed...I’ll see you in the morning,” you said softly, already leaving the room before you even finished talking.

You were tired, and you wanted to rest, but you also wanted to get out while the conversation was positive, leave things on a good note before the two of you had the chance to spoil it by accident or bringing up things that didn’t need brought up.

Let this moment stay a good day, a good memory.  Which was exactly what it became when you were able to fall asleep that night without any other incident.

(One Month Later)

You had slowly grown used to the house, made it your own.  There were still a few things that made you reluctant to call it home, namely the continued awkwardness and unease living with Levi, but you were starting to be able to coexist with him, which was the important thing.  You had your spots around the house now, places you liked to be.  There was your room of course, but now there was also the library, where you liked to go up to the balcony floor to read, and outside, where you were working on some yard work to make the place feel more at home.  You were planning on putting outside toys in the back when the twins were old enough--sprinklers on a water hose for the kids to play in, a playhouse, swing sets, that kind of thing.  In the front, you were more worried about plant life--flowers, trees, bushes, the like.  Maybe put in some rock beds.  If you were lucky, maybe you could even convince Levi to let you put in a fountain or two--make the place look nice.  You were determined to put in the flowers, bushes, and at least one tree.  You still needed to talk to Levi to see if remodeling the front and back lawn was part of his ‘make this place yours’ statement, but you were drawing up plans for larger alterations while making the smaller ones like the rock beds, bushes, and flowers.

At the moment, however, you were looking for something a bit less laborious than gardening.  You just wanted some quiet time in the library while the twins were down for a nap, which meant you were heading up to the tower with the baby monitor on your person, hoping that Levi wasn’t currently holed up in there with the door locked, which would have meant your plans were entirely spoiled and you’d have to think of something new.

You paused with your hand hovering over the doorknob, able to hear Levi’s voice once again, faintly, from the other side of the door.

Shit, he was in there, which meant the door was probably locked, and you couldn’t go in.  So much for a bit of reading for your time to yourself.

You started to back away from the door, but paused, that curiosity that you had managed to keep at bay for these past few months cropping up much stronger and more intense than it had been, especially when you knew all you had to do...was press your ear up to the door for a few minutes and listen, just long enough to get context and figure out what might be going on behind that door, combined with what you saw of him afterwards usually--though usually he disappeared to his room or the bathroom directly afterwards unless he was needed.

You really should just walk away.  Part of you was afraid to know what was happening behind that door.  But at the same time, the curiosity was killing you.

Fuck it.  Just get it over with.

Slowly and hesitantly, so you didn’t make any noise that might give you away, you gently pressed your ear against the wood, closing your eyes to focus more on what you heard and not get distracted by the grains in the wood or something.

For a few moments, you didn’t really...hear anything.  Just soft but heavy breathing--well, if you could hear it, it was probably panting.  There was the softest grunt, and you heard him speak again.

“There.  Right there…” Levi said, his voice sounding a little strained and followed by a low moan.

Wait a second…

You strained you ears to try and catch maybe another voice, a different pitch, but all you could hear was Levi, no one else.  Which made you doubt your brief moment of almost realization.

But then you heard a low chuckle that made a tingle go down your spine in an almost conditioned response.  “Faster?  Impatient today, aren’t we?”

Oh yeah, that was definitely what was going on in there.  It would explain why the few times you saw him afterwards he looked disheveled and a little sweaty if he didn’t get a chance to clean up first.  As for the lack of a responding individual...well, either he was rubbing one out for himself, which would suggest a stupidly high sex drive bordering on addiction with how long and often he was up here, or he was performing for an audience that wasn’t necessarily here.

Whichever it was, you really didn’t want to be listening much longer now that you had a hint about what was going on in there.

Also, if there was an audience, it would explain why he wouldn’t want you walking in on that.

You shook your head after pulling away from the door and hurried back down the spiral staircase, trying desperately to erase the image that your mind easily called up with your...extensive experience with Levi what you were now forced to realize was hardly a year ago.  A whole year since the wild three months of regular wild sex that had led to the situation you were in now.

And now that you thought about it...he hadn’t once touched you since that last night.  Not at all.  Only accidental brushes or the occasional assistance with the twins, or when he’d carried you into the house that first night here.

You didn’t think you hated him anymore, after the past five months with him and the twins.  But you still didn’t like him.  Still, you couldn’t help but wonder...what were the two of you?  What were you now, and what were you going to be?  Was there even a name for whatever this arrangement between the two of you?

Maybe you just needed to wait a little longer and find out what would happen next.

But right now, you really didn’t want to be thinking about what he was doing up in that tower.  You’d been right the first time, it would have been better if your curiosity remained in check.  Now you were going to have to try and avoid thinking about what he was doing up there every time he locked himself in the damn library.

Fuck.

(Two Months Later)

*Levi’s POV*

While domestic life was gradually getting easier between Levi and Y/N, especially with her getting out of the house for glass blowing lessons every week--that hadn't been what he expected her to pick up, but he wasn't going to complain so long as she was getting out every now and then--Levi was mostly focused on the twins, who had been growing rather rapidly.  Not abnormally so, just, he hadn't expected them to grow this quickly.  Y/N was practically ordering new clothes for them through the catalogues monthly, though he had a feeling she was also trying to get ahead of the growth spurt, buying clothes for one year and older as well and not just the seven months they were currently at.

With both of them not working, considering they were living off the mass of wealth Levi had stolen and accumulated over the centuries and the money he'd made in more modern times doing sex work, they were both there for many of the firsts with the twins.

Two months in, the now calm coexistence with Y/N had still been rough and more tense than anything.  But that had also been the time when Levi had entered the same room as Y/N when she was walking the twins around for some sight seeing outside the bedroom.  As he rounded the corner and approached, Asa had turned his little head at the sound of Levi's approach and smiled for the first time upon locking eyes with Levi.  It had cut him right to the heart--in a good way, and softened his expression immediately, a faint smile flickering across his face as well with the bright look his son was giving him, and one of his firsts, at that.

The first thing Asa smiled at in this world had been him.

Of course, he'd tried to hide it, simply because at that point he was worried about how Y/N would react knowing Levi got the first smile from the twins.  Thankfully, Ida smiled at her mother a few days later, which made Levi relax a bit once more with the relief of Y/N getting the same first with Ida, at least.  The last thing he'd wanted was her to have another reason to be jealous or upset with him.

Not that he could help it, or would apologize for it.

His son smiled for the first time when he saw him.  How could that make him feel bad, besides when he overthought it on his own time worrying about how Y/N perceived him?

While he dodged a bullet with the first smile thing, since it was split between the two of them, the first laugh was singular to him, and him alone, for both twins.  Thankfully that had been roughly around the four month mark, and Y/N had been far more tolerant and forgiving of him by then--hell, she’d been willing to let him take care of the twins on his own while she went out for a day to herself.  That was progress.

One of the twins he’d made laugh by accident, while the other was definitely on purpose, though he hadn’t known it was their first laugh at the time, so he’d felt a little guilty that he’d accidentally made it so he shared more of the firsts with the twins than she did.

Ida had been the first one he made laugh, and it had been entirely by accident.  Him and Y/N started to get into a bit of an argument over something petty, as usual, something that didn’t matter overall and was mostly fueled by the old wounds between them instead of the matter they were arguing over.  The twins happened to be in the room at the time, and in an effort to get the topic to be dropped so the twins wouldn’t have to be in the room as it escalated into a full-blown fight, Levi had looked away with his signature, dismissive ‘Tch’ sound.

That little sound had made Ida giggle and squirm happily while staring at him with a wide smile, which had effectively shut down any argument they’d been having in favor of the fact one of their twins had laughed for the first time.  More specifically, she’d laughed at the funny noise her father made, but still she’d laughed, and they’d both heard it.

And frankly, if she was around and he made that little noise, she would giggle at it.  It actually made him a little self-conscious of how often he made that noise.

Asa had clearly been the one he’d made laugh on purpose.  It had been while he was playing with the little boy, which right now consisted of simply tickles, silly little games, waving interesting objects in their face, that kind of thing.  Levi had been tickling his tummy and feet to keep Asa entertained while they laid on the floor, Asa on the play mat and Levi stretched out beside it, and as his hand came in for quick little tickles all across the little boy’s tummy and sides.  Asa had let out a squeal, legs lifting momentarily into the air and arms pinwheeling beside him and thumping into the ground at the tickles.

And again, Levi smiled in turn, not at that moment realizing it had been Asa’s first laugh.  That part came later, when he mentioned he’d gotten Asa to squeal-laugh while playing with him and he’d seen the downcast look on Y/N’s face.  That look had told him she’d missed something before she’d told him that was the first time Asa had laughed, and it had been because of Levi again, while she was out for the night at the glass blowing class she’d decided to give a try.

Again, he felt a little bad that he currently had experienced more of the children’s firsts by his own hand than she had, but he wasn’t going to let that taint the memories themselves.  They were still good, precious memories he was going to hold onto.

Like their first baths--actual baths, not the sponge baths they got for the first few weeks after coming home from the hospital.  That had taken some convincing, since that had been when the animosity was still fresh, but with Y/N’s supervision, he’d been able to give them their first baths, which he’d insisted on doing.  The twins hadn’t been sure how to react to the experience, both of them appearing to find it all strange and new, but not yet deciding if it was a good or bad thing.  Ida kept trying to grab everything he used to clean her to inspect them, but he kept it firmly out of her reach and stayed focused on very carefully cleaning every part of them so there wasn’t a trace of filth or stink on them, leaving their skin smooth and soft since he’d been careful they didn’t end up dried out, either.  In his opinion, they seemed a bit more active and squirmy afterwards, like they’d been pleased with the clean feeling afterwards despite the alien experience.

He was definitely there when Y/N started to slowly get them eating food instead of just breastmilk.  That was still new, since it was usually recommended around the six month mark, which they hadn’t passed that long ago.  It was strictly baby food right now, no soft melting finger foods yet, just spoon fed baby food, but it was still a graduation from breast milk, which had Levi excited that his anxiety over Y/N possibly being impatient to pump milk and feeding them straight from the source would finally be over when they graduated completely from breast feeding.  When he was the one feeding them, he was always careful to make sure they were paced no matter how eager to eat they might be, and that they didn’t get too much in their little mouths, so they wouldn’t inhale the food and choke.  And, of course, he was always trying to make it as neat of an experience as possible, to the point he’d gotten pretty good at catching stray baby food with the spoon without leaving any traces behind.

They were also able to sit up by now, in a way.  That one was Y/N’s doing--she’d apparently sat with them on the couch and discovered they could officially sit up as long as they were propped on something, which meant that they could play with some toys to entertain themselves on their own for a little while as they read or watched a movie or whatever it was that they wanted to do.  Y/N liked to prop them up on the crescent shaped pillow with a few baby toys within reach and read books from the library.  Levi, however, was still in a mindset to snatch each and every moment he could, just in case Y/N’s favor towards him turned foul in the future and these moments became scarce.  So when the twins were with him, usually all of his attention was on them.  He, of course, tended to have the lingering feeling like this was time he was being allowed to have and he needed to make the most of it.

Even though he was painfully aware of the fact that he and the twins had an eternity stretched in front of them as long as nothing terrible happened, and Y/N only had a few short years with them.  If anyone should be acting like every moment was a rare allowance, it was her, but she wasn’t aware she was on a clock, and he didn’t like to think about it--not at this early stage.  Let her enjoy these years of firsts and infancy in peace, let the memories be pure.  He’d tell her when they got a bit older.  While she still had a few years left, but after the first couple of innocent years had passed untainted by the knowledge.

They were rolling over now, too, which had Levi a little leery about the house.  He was thinking about officially baby proofing it, and just how gung-ho he wanted to go with it.  Considering they had twins and they were his children, it was probably better to be safe than sorry.

Ridiculous amounts of baby proofing it was.  Until some of them frustrated the hell out of him and he realized the lack of necessity for some of them through trial and error.  But right now, if they were going to be crawling around and exploring soon, all sharp edges and dangerous items and open electrical sockets needed taken care of.  And gates needed to be put up.  Fuck, were there baby gates for grand double staircases?

At the moment, it was a rare moment of familial quiet time in the library, the twins snoozing on the baby mat in front of Y/N piled on top of each other like kittens clutching toys and stuffed animals, Y/N curled up on the couch with a book down below while Levi perused his collection on the second floor looking for something he wouldn’t mind reading again.  A lot of the books here were ones that he’d read before and decided they were worth keeping a copy of because he felt they could be read more than once.

As he was passing by the window, moving from one bookshelf to another, he glanced outside, past the large semi-finished lawn and to the street he could view from this high up at this particular window.  However, his movement was brought to a halt in front of the window, gaze fixed on the same spot with burning intensity as he took a step closer to the window to get a better look.

There was someone standing on the opposite side of the street, looking up at the house with as much attention as Levi was currently looking down on them.  The people walking around on the street didn’t seem to notice he was even there, as if it was just open air.  The tingle on the back of Levi's neck confirmed he was seeing someone currently in between, someone keeping themselves unseen to the human eye.  He didn’t have a name for the person he was gazing at, but there was faint recognition.  He felt like it might have been one of the demons who had initially dragged him back to the Infernal Council trial that had led to Levi having to impregnate Y/N.  A vengeance demon, if he remembered properly, and not at all a friend.  A threat, at the very least.

Their gazes locked, and a dangerous burn entered Levi’s gaze, body tensing as he realized he couldn’t let confirmation of where he and the twins were living get out.

I see you.

Y/N wasn’t paying attention to him at the moment, thankfully, so Levi shifted into the in between himself, wings unfurling as he stepped right through what had been a physical wall, his wings controlling the rapid descent as he made a beeline for the other demon that was turning to make a run for it.  The other demon just had to get the information to someone else.  Levi just had to silence him before he could.

The other demon took off with bat-like wings smaller than Levi’s own draconic ones, trying to zip through small places and outmaneuver him.  Levi, however, wasn’t shaken, following with ease and rapidly gaining speed, coming closer and closer as they flew above the roofs of homes and businesses.  Finally, the vengeance demon made the mistake Levi had been counting on him making, and he tried to plummet down and enter Hell so he could shout the information to the nearest demons and let gossip and natural spread of information do the rest.

However, as soon as he tucked in those wings and started to plummet, Levi tucked in as well, diving with the speed and accuracy of a bird swooping down upon an unsuspecting mouse.  His arms wrapped around the other demon with a snarl, turning them both to the side and keeping them from shifting one more plane down into Hell.  They crashed to the ground, Levi making sure the other demon was taking the brunt of the fall before he jumped back up to his feet two paces away from the other demon.  As the other let out a frustrated growl and his twisted true form burst through, Levi’s eyes narrowed, his own human form bleeding away to reveal his demon form, wings, horns, tail, and all.

This was a slightly more matched fight.  Vengeance demons could be vicious, but they were oddly enough considered a lower class of demon like incubi and succubi.  Though he still had some nasty natural weapons Levi was going to have to be mindful of if he wanted to come out of this fight on top.  Like those claws he was staring at, or the fangs.  Vengeance demons certainly weren’t crafted for allure like incubi were, looking more like the Dracula vampire form in the Hugh Jackman Van Helsing movie.

Thankfully, one good thing about all the deals he’d been making and years he’d been gaining, was that he was pumped full of vitality and strength, more than he normally was.  Clearly the Council hadn’t been thinking about that little side effect when they put him in the position to have to make this damn deal.

The other demon lunged at Levi, who stood his ground and lowered his body into a charging position at the last moment, his horns now perfectly aligned to impale the demon that charged him.  When the other howled, Levi quickly backed up before he left his neck exposed any longer than necessary, moving out of range of those wicked claws that slashed at him.  Black ichor dripped down his horns and onto his skin, gold and black eyes flashing as he braced himself for another attack.  The demon lunged itself at him again, and this time Levi met him head on, hands flashing through the air as the two exchanged blows, Levi deflecting most of the others hits and landing a few solid hits of his own, causing black blood to spatter onto the pavement below.  Some of it, unfortunately, was his own.  Those claws managed to do a bit of damage even when Levi deflected since they were so damn sharp, breaking skin wherever they connected.  Levi ignored the sting, however, and stayed focused on the fight, stepping back and leaning away every now and then to avoid the snapping fangs that tried to savagely rip at any flesh it could come into contact with.

Levi ducked and weaved around the other demon, keeping his attacks quick, his movements agile, doing his best not to let the other demon land any solid hits on him as he methodically tore them apart.  The other demon could probably sense he wasn’t going to win this fight, his attacks turning wild and unrefined, Levi able to dodge almost all of them as he put the demon on the ground, pinning him beneath Levi’s weight as he proceeded to beat them to death.

It was a brutal way to go, but he didn’t have any demonic weapons on hand to finish him off, so it would have to be by his own hands.  Killing demons could be tricky, and this was someone he couldn’t let slip through the cracks and risk telling people where Levi and the twins were.

Mid swing, when the demon below him started to look like a bloody pulp, a sudden surge of strength from the being beneath him caught Levi off guard, and he felt sharp claws sink into his abdomen, slender, bony fingers pushed past--it felt like it went all the way through, at least barely.  Levi choked, pain wracking his body, but determination and fierce protectiveness for the little family he had back at that mansion pushed him through it so he could slam the full weight of his fist into the demon’s temple while its head was pressed against the ground, hearing a sick crack and feeling the hand that had impaled him go limp.  He didn’t remove it, yet, knowing that would only cause the bleeding to worsen and the injury to get worse, which he did not need right now.

A few more hits, and he was certain the vengeance demon wasn’t going to be getting back up.  There was no breath, no heartbeat, and he still did another hit or two--overkill, yes--just to be sure.

He needed to get back home.  He needed to take care of this, before he bled out and died.  This was arguably worse than the wounds Zeke gave him.

Being extremely careful he didn’t cause any more damage than was inevitable, Levi let his wings unfurl again, ready to take flight the moment he was free as he slowly pulled the clawed fingers out of his torso.  The demon beneath him was already turning a matte black and seemed to be crumbling, which confirmed that yes, they were very dead, and no one would be able to retrieve the information of where Levi and the others were located.

Though he really needed to figure out what trail had led the demon there in the first place.  He’d have to ask Furlan to look into that.

Those thoughts could wait for later.

As soon as the fingers were clear, Levi pressed his arm against the holes in his abdomen to try and staunch the flow of black ichor, wings already lifting him into the air with temporarily powerful beats in the air, carrying him as fast as he could manage back home.  By now Y/N would have noticed his sudden disappearance, but she was going to have to deal with his disappearing act a little longer.  He didn’t want her seeing this.

By the time the house appeared within view again, Levi was barely keeping himself in the air, head swimming as he bobbed and weaved almost drunkenly through the sky, breaths labored as he simply aimed for making it to the bathroom in the house.

It was a crash landing, Levi ending up curled up on his side on the cold floor as his demon form slowly bled away and gave way to his human form again and he fazed back to the physical plane, skin clammy and eyes half-open as his gaze roamed his familiar bathroom.  His foot weakly kicked the door shut.  He dragged himself over to the cabinet he kept the towels in, dragging out the black ones to press hard against his wound while his bloody hand reached for his phone to make a call--or rather, text--for help.

Human hands or means he couldn’t die from.  Demons and Angels, supernatural beings, that was another story.  Which was why he couldn’t let himself bleed out here in the bathroom.  He had two children that were going to need him after their mother was gone, and he needed assistance with this injury.

The bastard had actually gotten a good last hit on him, and he hated it.

I need help.  Don’t let Y/N see you, the text read when he sent it.  Now all he had to do was sit and wait and hope he didn’t bleed out before help came.

He was borderline unconscious when Isabel finally showed up, walking through the In Between so Y/N wouldn’t see her and she could just walk through walls instead of worrying about locks and doors.  Her words were far away when she picked him up off the floor and leaned him against the wall, but it didn’t take much to figure out what she was trying to say to him despite his current condition.

“Vengeance demon was watching the house.  Had to take care of him before he told anyone,” Levi murmured as Isabel got a good look at the injury, moving around the bathroom to find the first aid supplies Levi kept, water, more towels, things like that.

“A vengeance demon did this to you?” Isabel asked skeptically.  Levi snorted acerbically.

“Caught me off guard.  Guess I’m a little rusty,” he mumbled.

“It’s fixable, but it’s not going to be pleasant.  Your healing’s done part of the work already, but try not to move or fall asleep for a while.”

“I know the drill...Isabel...I don’t know how he found out about the house, but--”

“I know.  I’ll tell Furlan, see what we can find.  Maybe you guys should go to one of the other safe houses until we find out where the leak is.”

Levi shook his head.  “No...Y/N’s just started to settle in and get a life again.  I don’t want to move her.”

“Tell her it’s a vacation.  Go to that beach cottage you love so much.  Take the kids to see the ocean.  Just for a couple weeks, and then right back after we figure this out.”

“...Maybe.  We’ll see.”

There was a knock on the door, and both of them grew quiet, Levi becoming a bit more alert and trying to sit up as Y/N’s voice sounded from the other side of the door.

“Levi?  Are you in there?”

Levi cleared his throat, taking a moment to make sure there wouldn’t be traces of pain or weakness in his voice as he asked a quick, simple, “What?”

“You disappeared, I just...are you okay?”

“Fine,” he said, his tone almost curt, though he made sure it was soft enough she wouldn’t think he was angry at her.

“Okay, but...I have my class tonight, so you’re going to have to watch the twins in an hour or so.”

Levi cursed in his mind, grinding his teeth together.  “I’ll call Isabel, then.”

There were a few long moments of silence where Isabel stared at him, Levi well aware he just accidentally tipped his hand if Y/N had learned anything about him and how he felt about the twins.  He never gave up a chance to be around them and take care of them, and was always more than willing to have one on one time with them.

The doorknob rattled, the door starting to open since neither Levi nor Isabel had bothered to lock it--or in Levi’s case, hadn't been in a condition to lock it.  Levi quickly leaned over and pushed it shut before she could get it open enough to see what was happening inside, his hand pressed flat against the door and a low groan of pain escaping him at the sudden movement.  He hoped she hadn’t heard that, with how his face was maybe two inches off the floor, the sound quiet and maybe not heard over the click of the door shutting.

“I respect your privacy.  Do the same for me...please,” Levi ground out, tagging on the last part so he wouldn’t come off too harsh.  They were finally getting in a good place, he didn’t want to ruin that because he was hurt and his answers were a bit brisk right now.

There were a few moments of silence again, except this time, Y/N simply walked away.  Isabel was right next to him, a hand pressed against his injury to keep it from bleeding more since he’d just agitated it, helping him to get back in a sitting position.  This time he managed to keep the gasp contained, though the pain was spelled out across his face, surely.

“Babysitting?” he asked Isabel briefly as she got back to work on his injury.

“I’ve got it,” she answered just as quietly.

Damn, he was glad he had at least some friends to help him with all this.  He’d be shit outta luck if he didn’t have Isabel and Furlan.

Levi leaned his head back and let Isabel do her work, simply focusing on enduring the pain and keeping his eyes open as his mind raced with what he should do now.

Predictably, Y/N hadn’t been open to leaving the house for a vacation when she was finally making it home and she had her weekly classes.  She’d been open to the vacation in the future, but right now, she wanted to stay here with the babies, and she had not been open to leaving.  So, Isabel, Furlan, and Levi had to work around that stubbornness to make sure the house remained safe, and Levi had to default to settling for his other, more long term safety measure.

It wasn’t a full solution, but it was a nice start, and it would do more than just add a bit of security to the property.

He had an unannounced day out besides a bit of a warning to Y/N earlier that morning, telling her he didn’t know how long he would be gone, but that he should at least be back in time for dinner.  She didn’t get angry this time--she’d stopped getting angry when he left, since now it was part of normal everyday life and the twins had been home for a few months now.  Not to mention, he rarely went out on days that varied from his usual, except when there was something he needed to do or get for them.

The first three-fourths of his day was spent searching for the perfect fit.  He went to several stores, some out of town, looking for the perfect one, which was a lot more difficult than it might have been for normal people.  The last small part of the day was reserved for supplies, which would be easy once he finally settled on his choice.  He’d done a bit of research two or three days prior, and he knew generally what he was looking for.  Now it was just the matter of finding the right one.

He was looking for a dog.

A puppy, more accurately.  Very young, probably recently started on the transition away from their mother.  He wanted a puppy so that he could start training early, and so that the little one could grow up with the twins and they could form a comfortable bond.  He already knew the breeds he was looking at, he’d narrowed it down to a Doberman pinscher or a German shepherd, and since he knew what age he wanted, it should have been easy, right?

No.  It wasn’t.  Not for a demon.  Dogs could sense the infernal nature in him, and they were not very welcoming whenever he walked into a kennel or a pet store.  Most of them growled or barked or were on edge when he entered.  It might have been another reason he was looking for a puppy.  If he got them that young, they could learn to be comfortable around him and the twins, instead of naturally being hostile.  But it was also making his search a little more difficult.  Not only did he have to find a puppy of one or both of the breeds that fit what he was looking for, he had to find one that took to him fairly well that wasn’t going to be on edge because of his infernal blood.

It didn’t help he could feel some judgmental looks from the caretakers whenever all the dogs responded negatively to him.  He ignored it, though.  If he looked long enough, surely he’d eventually find one that would warm up to him.

His search finally came to an end not at a pet store or a shelter, but at someone’s home.  They’d put up an add that their dogs had puppies and they were selling most of them, and he’d decided to give it a try.  The Doberman father of the puppies had admittedly tried to bite him when he arrived, but the owners had put the dog in another room and brought him into the room they were keeping the puppies in.  The German shepherd mother they had to put on a leash, because she nearly freaked out when Levi was brought into the same room as her puppies, but thankfully the owners were still letting him look.  Patiently, Levi took a seat on the ground instead of the couches, putting himself on the level of the puppies who were old enough to be wandering around and be separated from their mother if they were picked, but young enough they were still being kept around her.

Most of the puppies scattered and hid or went to their mother, but there were two or three brave souls who wanted to check him out and see what this new person that smelled funny to them was.  One left after the mother barked at them when they got too close, and another wouldn’t get close enough for Levi to touch them, but the third…

The puppy was a boy, more Doberman in coloration, but with a German shepherd lean in body structure.  He had little light brown eyebrow and ear markings, a soft light brown underbelly marking and up half of his legs, two light brown, symmetrical patches at the front of its chest, a light brown muzzle, and a little tuft of white/grey fur running in a stripe from nose to between the eyes.  This little guy ignored any warnings from his siblings and mother and went up to Levi, albeit hesitantly, who stayed still and let the puppy sniff him experimentally, occasionally jumping back as if he kept expecting Levi to do something before he would approach again.  When he got comfortable enough to linger around Levi, he carefully extended a hand and let the puppy sniff him, even letting it nibble playfully on his fingers before he very gently and carefully gave the tiny puppy a few gentle pets.  After that, he seemed rather confident, crawling right into Levi’s lap and looking for a comfortable position as he snuggled in.

Finally.  Ironic how it ended up being a mix of the two breeds he’d been looking for.  Or maybe that was part of what made it so perfect.

After that he just had to talk to the owners about price and what the puppy had already been given regarding shots and the like, and if they were already starting house training him or were leaving that for the next owner.  He had the whole discussion with the puppy in his lap, acting as if it was entirely normal that this was happening.  He had twins that happily lolled around in his lap--thankfully they weren’t crawling yet--so a puppy making a happy home in his lap was nothing.

After the discussion with the owner and paying, Levi left with one very tiny nine week old puppy who was already asleep tucked under his arm.  It might not have been the safest, but he let the little guy stay there and drove back to the best store he’d been to one handed, the puppy in his arms waking up at the drastic change in the air after the car came to a stop and Levi stepped inside.  He sat the puppy down in the grass to do his business before picking him back up in his arm and heading inside to get all the dog supplies he needed--with help from one of the store associates, who talked to him about what he’d need for a puppy, and he needed to talk to in order to set up training lessons as well--the basics, at least.  The more advanced guard dog stuff would have to wait until the puppy was older and would probably need a different kind of trainer.

He also let the little guy run around on the floor in the toy aisle to pick some toys while he worried about dog food, bed, leash, collar, food bowls, all that kind of stuff.  The collar ended up being a dark green and gold one, which he got a nameplate for at the kiosk in the store.

Which also meant he needed to come up with a name for the puppy on the spot.

He watched the little guy after filling out address and phone number for if he got lost, the name the only thing still needed as he watched the puppy bounding around, currently entertained with a canvas toy he was absolutely enamored by, tail wagging furiously as he gnawed on the toy.

Hmm...a guard dog...but he didn’t want it terribly cliché, so nothing like Cerberus, Spike, Fang, or anything like that.  Maybe something the twins might eventually be able to say with ease--in a way.

Levi cocked his head to the side, giving it a few more minutes of thought before he finally keyed in CAPTAIN in big letters to have engraved onto the golden name plate.

Once he had everything, Levi and Captain headed back to the car, all of the stuff loaded into the back and Captain getting a seat of honor in his lap where Levi could make sure that the puppy was safe during the drive--after he was let out into the grass again, just to make sure he didn’t need to relieve himself again before they got in the car.

Normally, he probably should have brought this up to Y/N first, but after the encounter with the vengeance demon, Levi wanted some kind of layer of protection for the family he now had to take care of.  He couldn’t ask Isabel and Furlan to constantly keep an eye on the house, and no security system in the world, no matter how state of the art, was going to be able to protect against a demon walking through the In Between plane.

But a dog, a dog could see--a bit--creatures that walked in the In Between.  Cats could, too--animals in general had always been sensitive about that kind of thing.  But a dog he could train to alert them when there was something in the In Between lurking around the property.  It could help if Levi wasn’t around, or if Levi wasn’t somewhere he could see with a glance out the window.  It was another layer of protection, even if it was slight, and it would help Levi have a bit of peace of mind that they would be a little safer on the grounds.  It would take a lot of hard work and training when the dog was older, training him to growl or bark a certain way when there was a demon in the In Between lurking around, but not to bark or growl at Levi or Furlan when they were walking around in the In Between.

He’d figure it out when the puppy was older.  Right now, it was all about integration into the house...and convincing Y/N to let the fact he’d done this without asking her slide.  And convincing her it was a good idea.

When he came home, he once again let the puppy in the grass to do its business, having been told by the store owner that the puppy was going to go all the time in this early stage and he’d have to be vigilant and patient, and that messes inside were inevitable until the puppy was old enough to be properly potty trained, and he eventually was trained successfully.

Twins and a puppy...he really was taking on a lot at once, but...he needed this extra layer of protection for the twins, and he needed the puppy to be young so he could get them used to demons, for his and the twins sakes.  He couldn’t exactly wait, either, considering the threat was real now, even if he wasn’t planning on making it known to Y/N.  Not yet, anyway.

Once Captain had done his business once more, Levi scooped him up and headed inside, leaving the supplies and toys in the car for now.

As soon as the door closed behind them, he heard Y/N moving from the living room, coming over to the foyer with Asa in hand and then freezing when she saw the tiny excited thing wiggling in Levi’s arms wanting to run over and check out the new person and the new surroundings.

“What the hell?” Y/N asked, sounding for the moment too stunned to be angry.

Levi kept a firm hold on Captain, unaware where Ida was and wanting to be safe for the time being.  He planned on Captain getting used to the twins scents and adjusting to being around himself and Y/N before he did an actual first meeting, so he was keeping a tight hold on the puppy for the moment.

“I know I didn’t give you any warning, but this...is Captain.  He’s going to be our new guard dog...eventually,” he said, scratching Captain behind the ear and watching as the puppy turned to investigate, nibbling at his fingers again.

“You got a puppy,” Y/N said blankly, still staring, though Levi didn’t miss how she held Asa a little tighter.

“A puppy can adjust to being around three demons.  And he can grow up with the twins, too, so they’re used to each other,” Levi explained.

“And you didn’t think to ask me first?” she asked pointedly, and Levi grimaced inwardly.  The question that he couldn’t get around.

“I did,” he said honestly.

“But you didn’t ask me.”

“Because it was something I was going to do regardless,” Levi said, giving the puppy little strokes along its head as it licked at the hand holding it.

“You should have asked me.”

“Yes,” he agreed.  “But it still doesn’t change anything.  We need a guard dog, and the best way to go about it is get a young puppy to raise with the twins and get used to being around demons.”

“We need one?” she asked incredulously.

“Yes.  A guard dog can do what a security system can’t for us,” Levi said calmly.  “I won’t be pushing any more responsibilities off on you--I’ll be training and taking care of him, you won’t have to worry about him, usually.  Except the few times I’m not home and he needs let out.”

“Are you sure having a puppy around the twins is a good idea?  What if they don’t get along?” she asked in concern.

“I’m not going to throw them together right away.  I’m going to have him get used to their scent and make sure he associates good things with them first.  And I specifically got a breed that’s good with children and families.”

“Families?”

Levi glanced up at her, realizing for the first time the connotations he was bringing to light whenever he referred to or thought of them as a family.  A dysfunctional one, for sure, unique and with strange relationships...but they were, weren’t they?  Children, mother, father, even if mother and father weren’t together and had a strained relationship.  Now they even had a family dog.

“Is Ida in the other room?” he asked, instead of saying anything about his use of family.

“Yeah, she’s napping on the floor, Asa wore her out.”

Levi nodded.  “If it’s all right with you, I’m going to get a few things from your bedroom with the twins scent on them for him to start getting used to the smells before meeting the three of you.  I’ll keep it out of destructive reach and put him in my room while I bring his things in,” Levi explained, waiting for her express permission before he moved.

Hesitantly, Y/N nodded, still looking a little upset and unsure about the whole thing before Levi headed upstairs to start getting Captain settled into his new home.

Next Part---->

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