Putting On A Show

Reconciliation / and Author note

I need to post a few warnings here, for your own good, dear reader.

I try to keep things as light as possible in my smut writing, because hey, smut should be fun. This story, however, is written using my OC's character traits (although from X reader point of view), which includes a pretty tragic backstory. Sorry. Them's the breaks.

So, buckle up and prepare for situations that include potential rape, actual rape, abuse of power by an authority figure, and stalking. There is also suicide, as mentioned in the beginning, because that is how you died.

As long as you can handle those things and some graphic descriptions of what a panic attack and severe depression feel like, please go ahead and read. If you have issues with those things, you might want to skip the next two chapters. :)

That's it for the author note. Now on to the story.

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The night had passed without any further incident, and you had slept surprisingly well. Initially you had been concerned that you would swamped with nightmares, since they tended to follow your anxiety attacks, but sleep had been deep and dreamless for once. Although you couldn't explain how that happened, you weren't complaining. You awoke feeling better physically and mentally clearer than you had in, well, since you had been in hell.

You knew that today was your last day off work for a bit, and you would be going back to work tomorrow noon, so this was going to be the time to finish all that jobs that still needed to be done and to work on that novel, since you hadn't gotten anything done on it in a few days. Glancing at your phone you feel a pang of guilt, knowing that there was also a very important call that you needed to make. Not being one to put off things that were unpleasant, you decide it is better to get this over with now. Might as well get the worst part of the day over with now and then things could only get better from there, right?

Picking up the phone, you called the number that the text message had been sent from, since you hadn't bothered to get a new business card from Angel Dust while you were with them. The phone rang twice and then you heard an extremely cheerful "Well, hello, my dear!" in Alastor's always jovial tone. Weird, you had expected him to be at the very least disappointed in your behavior yesterday, and at the worst he would have been angry. He sounded as if nothing had happened at all and it was simply a charming conversation between good friends. Strange.

"um, hi." was what you managed, mentally facepalming. You were so smooth. You cleared your throat and took a deep breath, time to jump in face first. "I wanted to at least call and apologize for yesterday." There was a momentary silence on the line, followed up with a dark chuckle from Alastor.

"Why don't we discuss that particular event in person, darling?" he said on the other end, causing your stomach to drop and you to hold your breath. "Could you please come to the door?" he continued. The phone was now silent, so you slid it into your pocket and carefully made your way to the door, where you could plainly see the outline of a very tall demon through the frosted glass insert. Your hand was shaking as you unlocked the door and twisted the knob and pulled the door open, revealing both Angel and Alastor standing on the other side, arms full of things in cardboard boxes. Did they seriously bring you breakfast? How did they know you would call this morning? This was too confusing. "May we come in?" questioned Alastor, to which your answer was to gesture with your arm, indicating that they could proceed.

You spent the next minute picking things up around the living room, mostly the afghan that you had wrapped up in yesterday and the water glass from last night. It wasn't as if the room was really dirty, but the small bits of clutter were bugging you. "Just have a seat anywhere you like" you offered to them as you ducked into the kitchen to dispose of the glass.

Once you had returned and settled into the floor, you looked expectantly at the two demons seated opposite you. It would have been nice to be snuggled in between, you thought ruefully, but that really would have been awkward for the conversation at hand. Besides, they might not share your desire to have that closeness right now. You had been pretty damn rude, after all. You cleared your throat lightly, then spoke. "As I said earlier, I do need to apologize for yesterday." They were both looking at you now, their faces seemed to soften and neither of them looked angry, which was, at least, encouraging. "I...have some...issues. I'm sorry I hadn't told you about it sooner, and in looking back to it, I probably should have. It could have saved everyone a bunch of headache, so I'm sorry. It was really rude for me to cut and run yesterday." You couldn't bear the thought of looking at their faces, so you looked at the floor for a moment to breathe and recover. Eight seconds in, hold, eight seconds out. You didn't want to repeat yesterday, for certain. You tried to concentrate on centering and grounding to prevent another attack.

"Oh my stars." Angel said softly "You have an anxiety disorder, don't you, sweetie?" You couldn't manage a vocal response, so you just nodded as you looked at his feet. You still didn't feel strong enough for eye contact at this point. You saw him begin to stand up, which made your ears flatten, but he stopped, giving you a moment to process before he moved any closer. "Relax, doll, he almost whispered, "I'm just moving to be closer, 'kay?" You let out the breath you had been holding, reminding yourself to breathe in and out evenly as you nodded your head slowly. He settled himself behind you, pulling you up and onto his lap. "You okay with me holding you?" he asked gently, not wanting to escalate the situation. Again, you nodded your approval, as he pulled your arms gently from around your torso...you hadn't realized that you were holding yourself tightly until he untangled your arms and put his in their place. You both sat there for a minute, no words spoken as he gently rocked you back and forth, your head tucked under his chin and all of his arms encircling you.

Alastor was watching you, not having moved from the couch. He stood and walked over to where you were both sitting on the floor and settled himself in front, facing you both and pulled you forward to his chest. You all sat there silently for a bit, and you found that you couldn't stop a few stray tears from leaking down your cheeks. You absolutely hated to been seen crying, it just screamed out that you were weak and easily taken advantage of. You slid your hands up to wipe them away before anyone could notice them. If the tears had been noticed, they at least hadn't been mentioned. Alastor broke the silence first. "You don't have to always be so brave, you know." You looked up as he touched your cheek, tracing the tracks of your tears.

"But I do." you insisted, although you didn't mean to be argumentative, it was simply fact and he just didn't understand yet, but you were going to change that. You leaned back into the warmth of Angel's chest and took a ragged breath. "You asked how I ended up in hell, and I feel that you deserve an answer." You chanced a look into his eyes, which were surprisingly soft today, but you still felt that they could see completely through you. "To give you that answer, I have to tell some unpleasant backstory."

You took a breath and decided to just begin at the start, before everything went sour.