Vigilant

“What’s it look like? I’m about to do a summoning.” Don didn’t look up from his work, just resumed his odd little art project that upon closer inspection was indeed an elaborate devil’s trap. The cambion was even careful enough to work from the inside and outwards to avoid getting caught in it himself.

Evan swallowed a lump in his throat. dreading the answer to his next question. “Why? I thought you left all this behind.”

The cambion sighed, finishing another sigil. “I’m a witch, and a demon. The product of a merger of two fucked up individuals. Nothing can change that, no matter how hard I try. Besides, someone’s gotta carry on the family business.” He finally lifted his head and turned to stare at Evan behind him, looking him up and down before smirking and turning back to his work on the cement floor. “Obviously I’m not the only one. Must’ve started a trend.”

“I only dipped back into this shit so I could find you,” he fired back, staring at his handiwork in disgust. “What is this even for? Attention? You already got it. You haven’t really been covering your tracks that well, Donnie.”

Don notably twitched at the familiar nickname, setting the bowl down and ceasing his movements before slowly getting back to his feet. He turned to stare up at the single window in the space where a full moon could be seen in the distance, his expression blank and unreadable as Evan observed it in profile. The cambion then pulled out a handkerchief from his jacket pocket to wipe his fingers clean. “Is this because I missed Valentine’s Day? I thought it would be obvious I was too busy to make it,” he commented derisively.

“Shut up.” He hated when his humor grew dark like this, his gun hand shaking a bit from having to hold it up for so long. “Step away from the trap and lets go talk about this, okay?”

Don’s face split into a grin as he chuckled darkly, still unable to face Evan fully, eyes now at the ground by his feet. “I think we both know talking isn’t going to get us anywhere. Hasn’t the past two times, and you finally wised up and came armed.Too bad it won’t help you much, and you’ve already proven that you’re not gonna shoot me.”

“I still might.”

“You won’t,” he said confidently, finally facing Evan as he deliberately stepped closer, until the gun was pointed right at his chest. “So damn obsessed with me that you make the biggest mistakes. You didn’t clear the room, babe. If you had you wouldn’t have hesitated.”

Evan stared back at him in confusion, his trademark scowl only deepening. “What are you talking about?”

Don nodded to a corner of the room behind him, the hunter turning his head only slightly to look with his peripheral vision. What he found were two bodies slumped over each other, and from the way they were dressed he guessed they were hunters too. It looked as though blood had leaked from their orifices, the same way he had found his brother’s body. “Who are they?!” he demanded, voice wavering despite the anger behind it.

“Sacrifices,” Don answered in a bored tone. Then in a flash he bent Evan’s wrist painfully, making the man yelp as he wrestled the gun away from him, taking out the clip and tossing it across the room and doing the same with the gun in a separate corner. “You weren’t the only one who learned a thing or two from your dad,” he pointed out, shoving his hands back into his jacket pockets. 

Evan wasn’t all that upset about being disarmed, he knew it was a longshot from the get-go. He was more angry about the corpses in the corner, grabbing fistfuls of Don’s T-shirt by his collar, shaking him. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Killing Isaac wasn’t enough, you had to go on a goddamn spree?!”

Don just stared up at him with the same listless look on his face, unaffected by Evan’s passionate display. “They got what was coming to them. Same as Isaac. Same as my own family that I wiped out. Anyone who gets in my way, I dispose of.” He stepped closer to his lover, staring him down menacingly though Evan was taller than him by a few inches. “Are you gonna get in my way too, Ev? Or are you finally gonna let me go?”

The hunter’s eyes burned with rage, fists tightening until they shook before releasing the cambion with an angry shove. “Is that why you did it? Did you get cold feet? Was it some kind of demonic way of breaking off an engagement? Why are you doing this to me, Don? I come home from class and I find the body of my visiting teenage brother in our apartment and no sign of you anywhere. I track you down, you keep disappearing on me. I know you were at the funeral, I know you keep popping in and out of my life, I know you better than anyone! You can’t fuckin’ let me go, so don’t give me that bullshit!” he roared. He looked away from him and scrubbed a hand down his face, staring at the bodies with disgust and horror, trying to understand what was going on in Don’s mind. “This isn’t you. Whatever you’re trying to sell me right now, it isn’t you.”

“Isn’t it though?” Don countered, snorting as he started to walk a wide circle around Evan. “I never hid what I was, not to you Ev. You’ve always known what I was capable of, and you kept me close anyway. I was your exotic pet, imprisoning me by keeping my nature a secret from your hunter family. When we left and I decided to branch out on my own a bit what did you do? Throw a hissy fit because I was fucking everyone except you. And once again you chain me to you, this time with a ring. But I’m not housebroken, I’m not tame. I’ve managed to get everyone I’ve ever cared about killed, its only a matter of time before you’re next. So have some goddamn self-preservation and leave me alone already.” “You are so full of shit,” Evan murmured, already trying to think of how they’ll dispose of the bodies so they wouldn’t get traced back to Don in some way. “I didn’t cage you with that ring you dumbass, you could’ve said no. Yeah I threw a fit back then, because I loved you and I knew you loved me too. Even now, after all this, I still love you.” He turned to look at Don with a tortured expression, yet his eyes were still soft with love, stalking towards the cambion, grabbing him by the back of his head and the lapel of Don’s jacket as he tried to back away. “Stop this act. Stop with the self loathing, the self victimization. Just come home so we can talk this out. Please...” he begged, holding Don’s face in his hands as he pressed their foreheads together, eyes closing as a tear escaped. “I miss you. I need you. Please, babe, come home...”

At Evan’s desperate pleas Don’s bravado cracked, the wall he was trying to build crumpling quickly as he failed to pull away from his fiance’s grasp. “I can’t,” he whispered softly, tears streaming from his eyes while still bumping noses with him gently. “I killed your brother, our brother. I didn’t want to but it happened anyway. It’ll happen to you too. It’ll happen to everyone in the end. I can’t, I can’t...” he sobbed, voice cracking. In a moment of weakness he kissed Evan’s lips one last time, reaching up to pull his hands from his face, blue eyes twinkling as he gazed at him with longing and despair. “You should’ve let me go.” Evan shook his head once. “You know I can’t.”

Another sob shook Don as his head dropped, his own head shaking hopelessly, sliding a hand to Evan’s chest and resting it right over his heart. Then an unseen force released from that hand, sending Evan flying backward until he hit a wall, the back of his head cracking against cement and dazing him as he slumped to the floor. The last thing he saw before everything turned black was Don holding himself as sobs shook his body, then pulling out his cell phone to make a call.