Monstrous Things (Crowley x Reader)

Chapter I - Anachronism

Chapter I - Anachronism
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One Year Earlier...

Your fingers fiddled with the box, looking down at its contents. Your senior photo from high school, graveyard dirt, and a small bone supposedly from a black cat. You hadn't sought out all the materials yourself, choosing to order them online and risk the postman looking at you a little funny, rather than breaking into a cemetery or killing a cat. Breathing deeply, you hoped everything was real before placing the lid overtop.

The area around you was barely worth noting. You had found a backroad, coming to a four-lane intersection made of dirt and a layer of gravel. Trees of pine and aspen towered you on all sides, the ground around the driving path covered in straw and various, prickly shrubs. In Colorado, it was hard not to feel trapped unless you were standing on the edge of a cliff, because if you weren't surrounded by forest you were cut off by mountains. And you weren't much of a hiker.

The sun was just falling beyond the high horizon, casting an orange glow across the sky and lighting the pebbles under your feet. It began to blind you as you placed the box down in a small hole you had dug towards the center of the crossroads. After covering the crate with dirt and rock, you stood.

The world felt as if it was beginning to spin, and a layer of sweat coated your hairline. As you stared down at the freshly covered pit, you considered walking away. You considered forgetting this last resort and returning home. You could live the rest of your life without this, however painfully, or you could spend ten years, loving happily. You couldn't fight the thought of your latter option sounding so much more desirable.

"Daemon," you started, voice shaking as you read out the messily scrawled words on a scrap of notebook paper, "esto subjecto... voluntati meae." A tear slipped from your eye, and you tore the stationary in half. And then another half. And then another half. You couldn't stand to look at it anymore, but the words were burned into your memory.

You heard someone "tsk" over your shoulder and you could only manage a ragged breath in response. You were sure it was a demon. You speculated what they might look like. Moreso, you reflected on what they were capable of. All those things you had read suddenly terrified you, and the drawn depictions of their faces only deepened your fear.

"You're quite young to be playing with demons." You swallowed, shoulders tightening at the masculine voice. "Or is this an old photo?"

You barely turned your head to acknowledge the man, enough for him to notice, but not enough for you to see him. You knew you had to face him at some point, but not then. Not now. "It's old." You cleared your throat, trying to hide your anxiety. "But it's the last one that was taken of me."

"Such a shame for an attractive face. Enlighten me, did you come to ignite your model career?"

'No, no, no. Not my face.' Your fists clenched, raising to your eyes as you tried to calm down. 'Why do they always compliment my face?'

"No," you choked out. "Nothing like that."

Gravel crunched beneath his shoes, and you knew he was moving to stand in front of you. But he danced around your proximity as if one foot would send you running. It probably would. "What might you want then?" he purred, and you felt sick to your stomach.

"What do you want?" your mother inquired, motioning towards the shelves of stuffed animals and plastic figurines. You barely glanced at them, an answer already wetting your tongue.