#demon!tim

"I never had to put something together," Tim huffs. "Let alone... a damn IKEA crib. You know this furniture was invented by demons, right?"

Lucy laughs, stepping into the room, one hand pressed against her lower back and the other cradling her swollen belly in her palm. Not for the first time, Tim is struck by how fucking beautiful she is. Perfect in every way. And his.

"I know it's gotta be tough... not being able to snap your fingers and have things done for you," Lucy attempts to soothe him, stepping up to his side and pressing her hand against his shoulder. She then drags that palm across the breadth of his back, back and forth.

"Baby, you should sit down. Your back..." Tim says softly.

Lucy waves his concerns off. "I'm fine. I wanted to check on you. See how things were going. Not well, huh?"

"No," Tim sighs. "Asmodeus did a good job when he designed this torture."

She laughs again, a sound Tim cannot and will not get enough of.

"Asmodeus... the one that loves to wear Birkenstocks, right?"

"That's the one."

"I miss him. Hopefully he'll come around some time."

Tim snorts, getting to his feet. He'd been sitting on the floor of the nursery for hours it seemed, surrounded by light gold walls and plush animals, attempting to put the damn crib together. But amongst the mocking stares of the stuffed zoo creatures, Tim had been failing. Horribly.

"I was hoping you'd nap a little longer and I'd have it together when you woke up," Tim scratches at the back of his neck, sheepish, but also pissed for letting the fucking furniture get the best of him.

"I couldn't sleep... your child is doing flips. It's really starting to annoy."

Tim beams, gathering Lucy in his arms. He presses his palm against her stomach, and then he feels it. The little kick. It isn't the first time, but every time may as well be. He's in awe, at peace, damn lucky to be able to have this. To have her. Lucy. To have their child that they would meet any day now.

"Have I told you how happy you make me?" Tim asks, his voice a notch above a whisper. Lucy grins, wide and bright, cutting him at the knees.

"You haven't said anything about happiness in, oh --" Lucy lifts her bare wrist, pretending to check the time on her invisible watch. "-- about ten minutes? I was starting to get worried."

The baby kicks again, as though trying to be a part of the conversation. Tim leans in, pressing his forehead to Lucy's.

"I'm really off my game then, aren't I?"

"Maybe a little," Lucy replies. She pauses, her eyebrows furrowing slightly.

"What's wrong?"

"You don't... you don't regret it?"

"No," Tim answers vehemently. "Not. One. Bit." He cups her face in his hands, fingers teasing at the hairline at the back of her neck, massaging into the sore muscles he knows are there. At this point, her whole body ached and Tim wishes every minute he could do something about it.

Lucy lets out a heavy, relieved breath. "Good. I wouldn't... I wouldn't want you to resent this. Any of it."

"Hey," Tim tips her head slightly, enough so that he could capture her gaze, hold it, so that she might see the sincerity there. "You were always going to be my destiny. Whatever I've been through, I would do again a million times over just to be with you. To end up in this moment right here."

Lucy's gorgeous dark gaze glazes over with tears. She sniffs, and Tim smiles slightly, knowing how annoyed she gets when her emotions run wild.

"I would do what I did again, a million times over, just to be with you," Lucy whispers, purposefully echoing his sentiments. Tim swallows, biting back his own overwhelming emotions. Getting used to hose was still a work in progress.

He kisses her sweetly, softly, and she clings to him just as he clings to her.

Lucy.

His.

"Um..." Tim glances over his shoulder, as though there would be another immortal being standing there.

"Yeah, m'talkin' to you," Lucy whisper-shouts, words slightly slurred. Her eyes were glassy, clearly drunk off the bottom shelf red wine she seemed to love.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Tim asks warily, his hands sliding into the pockets of his tailored suit trousers. He isn't sure what he should do. He has never seen Lucy like this.

"M'just sayin'... I could be a secret immortal, y'know? Like, you've never seen me dead so it's entirely possible."

Tim swallows, feeling his throat constrict around a choked off breath. Where was this coming from? Lucy? Dead? Dying? Fuck no, this drunken tirade isn't funny one bit.

In a snap, he's on the couch next to her, crowding Lucy up against the arm behind her. The shock in her eyes and on her face might have been funny any other time, clearly not expecting him to move so fast, and experiencing that speed whilst drunk.

"Lucy, where the fuck is this coming from?" Tim knows he must look menacing, but he can't find it in himself to care. He snatches the wine bottle from her hand and sets it on the coffee table before returning to her, clutching her head between his large palms. He forces her dazed eyes to look at him, to see him.

"Tim... you're scaring me a little..." Lucy whispers, and he can see that adrenaline and slight fear burning away the alcohol, sobering her up. Good. She needed to be alert to hear this.

"Do not ever refer to you and your death in the same sentence ever again," he growls, fisting one hand in her long, soft, dark tresses.

"Tim..." Lucy says softly again, and she looks less afraid this time. Tim wonders what she is seeing in his eyes, what is written all over his face. He can see some sort of realization being reached in those fathomless, dark depths of her eyes. "... one day, I'm going to die. Nothing is going to stop it. Not even you."

He is trying so very hard to reign in the foreign emotion raging inside of him. His arms are tense, straining. There's something... something he feels in the middle of his chest. It burns. And the fact that he doesn't know what it is only makes the sensation worse.

"Don't..." He stops himself, unclenches his teeth. "Don't say that."

Deep down, he knows what Lucy is saying is true. But it doesn't mean he has to acknowledge it. Not one bit.

Lucy's hands gingerly curl around his wrists, holding fast to him. He's annoyed because that same spark of knowing is still there in her eyes, but he doesn't know, and it chaps his ass that he doesn't know what she does.

"Tim..."

"I can't... I can't think about it, Lucy," Tim lets out a defeated sigh. "I see it every single fucking night. Every night I'm not with you. It's there. You. Dead. Demons shouldn't be able to dream. I shouldn't be able to dream. Yet I do. And it's always horror and bloodshed. And you. Covered in blood, still as stone. There is nothing in your eyes. Not that spark of life that I lo--" Time immediately cuts himself off, nearly making that mistake. Demons can't feel that. He doesn't even know the meaning of the word. "Nothing. You're gone." And it's my fault.

Lucy manages to pry off the hand clutched in her hair. She directs his palm towards her lips, pressing a kiss to the skin. The action soothes him. Only a little. But that foreign sensation burning in his chest doesn't dissipate, it merely dims.

"Okay," she whispers again. "No more talking about my death. Promise."

Tim heaves the biggest breath, and collapses forward, burying his face in Lucy's neck. She adjusts her body, widening her legs so that he could fit into the cradle of her thighs. His arms go around her waist, clutching her tightly, and Lucy's fingers brush through the longer hair on top of his head, and down into the shorter hair.

"It's okay, Tim. Everything's okay," Lucy murmurs against his hair, before dropping a kiss to the crown of his head.