#This story has negative thematic subtlety lol
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The Witch's Apprentice - Part 7
cw: demon summoning, prolonged isolation, size difference, agoraphobia, depression, more tags will be added as the story continues
male demon x afab reader
Word count: 3k
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7
You woke up alone and felt anything but. The distant buzz of people outside, on the streets, bustling about the hallways of the inn, felt suffocating. It all seemed so loud now, so deafening.
Lucien appeared in front of you, giving you a quiet “Good morning,” and suddenly, it wasn’t loud at all, his voice cutting through the hum that had seemed deafening moments before.
“How’re you doing?” he asked as you blinked up at him from your seat on the bed.
Was his voice quieter than usual? Or maybe that was just how people sounded with the constant buzz of a city in the background.
“I don’t have any stuff,” you said. It was a trivial complaint, you knew that, but you wanted something to hold onto. Anything that was yours, that wasn’t so foreign.
He laughed and it felt cruel. You knew it shouldn't, that he was trying to help, but it felt cruel that he was allowed to do that right now, while you felt like you’d been broken into pieces. “We’ll get you new stuff, don’t worry about that.”
Like it was that simple. Like you could just get new stuff and move on.
It wasn’t his fault. You knew that. He was the reason you were still here. But some part of you; some unsnuffable, horrible little instinct; wanted to blame him. Without him, you would still be home. Without him, nothing would have changed.
“I just…” you began, with no idea how to articulate any of this to him.
And then, with the most distressed expression you’d ever seen from him, he interrupted you and said, “I have to go. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
And that was it. He faded away and you were alone again.
You hated the deafening roar of the city he left you with.
At least when he was here, you could pretend things would be okay.
You didn’t have anything left. Anything but him. At least when he was in front of you, you had something to cling to.
Hours passed before he reappeared in front of you. When he did, you didn’t manage to get a word out before a string of curse words escaped him and he faded out of existence again.
You barely even moved as you waited for him. What would you do anyway? You had nothing to do but wait, so that’s what you did, patiently and quietly, on the bed he’d found for you.
It was a shorter wait this time, under an hour if you had to guess.
“Where do you keep going?” you asked as he solidified in the space in front of you. It was slower without you summoning him, like he had to put real effort into coming to you.
A pained expression flashed across his face, disappearing as quickly as it arrived. “I’m being summoned.”
“So often? You’re a popular demon,” you said it with the cadence of a joke, but neither of you found it particularly funny.
“Summonings go through phases,” he said with a sigh. “Names get discovered or obtain reputations. I was too nice for a while, people got comfortable, so I get called upon a lot these days. I’m rectifying my mistake. Hopefully, my name will start to come with a bad taste in people’s mouths in a few decades.”
“Oh. Good luck with that, I guess.”
“Thank you. It’s been going pretty well. Only one major lapse in my judgment,” he said with a pointed look in your direction.
You couldn’t help but smile a little at that. “I promise to tell everyone you were real mean to me. Very scary, the scariest demon you could imagine.”
A huff of laughter escaped him. “Good. My reputation may survive this little affair yet. Now, what have you been up to?”
Your eyes flicked around as you searched for an answer that wouldn’t sound horribly tragic.
He didn’t wait for you to find one before butting in at your obvious distress. “Come on, you don’t need to wait around for me. You haven’t had the chance to do anything in years, go talk to someone or something.”
You shrugged. “I’m fine where I am.”
He looked you up and down, evaluating you as you shrunk away from him. “What is it? Did something happen?”
“Nothing happened. I’m just fine in here.”
His eyes narrowed and you couldn’t understand why he didn’t believe you. Surely it wasn’t that difficult to understand. Surely anyone would be hesitant to go back out into the world after being stowed safely away for so long.
“Something happened,” he said, no longer a question and entirely incorrect.
“It really didn’t. Actually, as long as we’re talking about it, I was thinking. I probably shouldn’t be here at all. I mean, I’m not doing much here. I could always stay in hell with you. It would be easier that way.”
“No,” he snapped, and you flinched back at his harsh tone. “No,” he said again, softer this time, a quiet correction. “I will not let you just lock yourself away again. I will not be your new Eden.”
“I wasn’t asking you to be,” you lied, unconvincing even to yourself.
“You’ll be fine. Just go, talk to someone, get some fresh air. It’ll get easier.”
He didn’t understand, couldn’t understand, just how impossible it was.
“Yeah, I will. Don’t worry about me.”
He gave you an unmistakably worried look as he said, “Alright, I won’t. I just think that… shit.”
“Is it happening again?”
“Just go do something. I’ll be back when I can.”
As you laid down in bed, with no intention to go out and doing anything, you wondered just how often he got summoned. You’d never really considered it before. You knew it happened of course, but you’d never put real thought into it past how frustrating of an experience it must be for him.
What would happen if two people tried to summon him at once? Would it hurt? Rip him in two? You doubted that any of the witches summoning him had considered it either.
And what other things was he being forced to do out there? Surely Eden wasn’t the worst witch he’d ever encountered. What other horrible things weighed on him every day, that he couldn’t help but feel a little responsible for?
As time ticked on, another thought wormed its way into your head. Maybe he wasn’t being summoned at all. He’d never had to leave this often before he’d helped you make your daring escape and now he could barely stay with you for more than a few minutes.
It made sense. He’d done what he wanted to do. He’d freed you from the trap he was forced to lay. His part in this should be over, his guilt assuaged, if it weren’t for the way you clung to him like a lifeline.
The thoughts swam around your head until he appeared once more, looking irritated, eyes distant and cold.
The spark of insecurity in you couldn’t be snuffed out any longer, not even in the face of his bad mood.
“Are you actually being summoned?” you blurted out. “Because if you don’t want to be here, you don’t have to be.” You knew it wasn’t true, that you needed him, but still couldn’t stomach the idea of him forcing himself to be here. “I thought we were friends but maybe that was naive. Is it just guilt? Is that what all of this was?”
He sighed, his hands rising to rub at his temples. “It's not... I don't know. Maybe at the beginning. I wanted you to be bad. I needed you to be. And you weren’t and it was the worst thing you’ve ever done to me.”
“I’m sorry,” you said, your voice quiet and broken and completely genuine.
“You really are, aren’t you? Sorry for what? Sorry for not being awful?”
“Well, not…” You weren’t entirely sure what you were apologizing for. You just knew that you were sorry. “I just meant, sorry for making things worse for you. That’s all.”
“You didn’t make anything worse, not in the long run. I like you. I’m glad you got out of there. It’s just that right at the start I needed you to be a bad person so I didn't feel so fucking guilty. I hate doing this, you know. Being so cruel. Especially to people like you. But if I don’t things get so much worse.”
“You’re not cruel,” you said, knowing it was true and yet somehow, deep down, knowing it was the last thing he wanted to hear.
“I didn’t used to be. That’s the rule. My new rule. No more being nice to the inexperienced ones. Witches like yours don’t give you opportunities to lash out so if you want to establish a reputation, you have to be cruel when you can be. Every single time they give you the chance. When the little witches summoning their first monster give you an opening, you strike. That way the next one thinks twice when they see your name in some summoning book.”
“That sounds awful.”
“Feels awful too. But nothing feels worse than being forced to do even crueler things so you do what you can. Lesser of two evils.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” you said, knowing exactly what crueler things were flashing through his distant eyes.
“Maybe not. Still wouldn’t have happened without me. You weren’t the first, you know. You were the first victim she kept, sure, but not the first one who fell prey to that damn forest. You’ve probably seen what’s left of some of them, some bones and remains of them in various forms. She got plenty of use out of them, I’ll give her that much”
Your heart skipped a beat as he spoke and your mind pulled back to the various bones and bits of gore in jars that you’d tended to and organized for her over the years. You’d never thought about them before, not really. Even trying to remember them, it was like a haze began to form in your mind, a buzzing pain starting to settle in over the distant images.
You started to fall to the side before the feeling of a warm hand on your arm brought you out of your head. “Don’t hurt yourself,” he said, giving your arm a gentle squeeze before pulling back far too soon. “I’m sure she’s tainted most of your memories of anything she didn’t want you to see. It’s probably best to not try and look back.”
Now you had one more thing to mourn, even the memories of your home being ripped away from you. How cruel that you weren’t even allowed to keep those in this strange new place.
“Right. I’ll do my best.”
He nodded. “I know you will. You’ll be fine. You’ve been doing really well.”
It was a kind lie. You appreciated him for trying to tell it.
And then you were alone again.
You did try leaving this place. You swore you did, despite knowing in the back of your head that you couldn’t do it.
You peeked out the window on the tips of your toes down at unfamiliar faces on the street and stood at the door, pretending you knew how to steel yourself for the task ahead.
At the very least it was something to do with yourself when Lucien was away, gone to a summoning or back to hell or just living his life, doing things he refused to speak about with you, always keeping you at arms length.
But that was unfair. He was there when he could be during the day, when some other witch didn’t whisk him away against his will to do whatever they pleased.
He never spoke to you about it, about what they asked him to do. Every time you tried he got very quiet and then began to push back, asking you when you’d go outside.
Nothing quieted you faster than that.
At night he was always gone.
At night you were small again.
You hated sleeping, avoided it whenever you could. You were terrified of the dreams that might come. You’d honestly welcome a nightmare at this point. Your biggest fear was you would dream of home. Your biggest fear was waking up again after.
Instead, you just stared at the wall every night, waiting for it to be morning so you could wait for Lucien again.
A thud pulled you from your trance and your head jerked up towards the window just in time to see a bird falling to the ground below after having slammed into the glass it’s little mind couldn't comprehend.
You were moving before you even had time to think. It was for the best, you weren’t sure you could’ve managed it if you’d had to think it through, to force yourself to get up and go check on the poor creature.
You held your breath as you walked out the door of your room, freezing for a moment. You weren’t sure what you expected to happen.
A woman walked by you, turning to the side and slipping by where you were blocking the hallway with a quiet, “Excuse me, love.”
There was a pressure building in your head, behind your eyes, closing your throat. This foreign air felt toxic, a bile rising inside of you.
A gentle hand settled on your back and you practically jumped out of your skin to get away from it.
You bolted at the contact, frightened, flighty. Darted not back inside but through the halls until you found a way outside, running around the perimeter of the building until you found it.
It was a small, unassuming brown bird, crumpled on the ground, an injured wing tucked under itself.
You picked it up as gently as you could, cradling it in the palms of your hands.
Every instinct you had wanted you to run back and hide. Instead, you walked slowly, carefully, trying not to jostle the poor creature too much.
The woman was no longer in the hall, having left at some point after you’d fled from her. Some part of you felt bad, hoped you hadn’t hurt her feelings or left her worried.
Most of your attention was on the bird.
You had no idea how to help it, would have to ask Lucien tomorrow. You were terrified to touch the bent wing, to make it worse than it already was. Even attempting to set it would hurt the poor creature and you couldn’t stomach the thought of it, of inflicting any more pain.
You did what you could, forming a little bed to rest it in for the night, a little nest out of towels and pillows.
It was almost funny in a way. A makeshift nest inside of your makeshift nest. You were no better off than this frightened, wounded little creature.
At least maybe, someday, it could get out of here.
#terato#demon x reader#demon x human#monster bf#monster boyfriend#monster x human#monster x reader#demon#the witch's apprentice#This story has negative thematic subtlety lol#This is a little shorter than I like my chapters to be but sitting on it for weeks wasn’t doing me any good#I’ll get the next one out much faster#Pinky promise
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Every Heart A Doorway Response
I liked Every Heart a Doorway so much I wrote a song about it [UPDATE: now two??? wtf???], which is something I haven't done in like... a year. I love stories about genre fiction protagonists dealing with trauma in a realistic way, and I love the Gothic underworld aesthetic, so realistically there was no way I wasn't going to respond positively to this book. But it was McGuire's prose that sold the deal, for me: it's dense, gorgeous, and balances levity with poetry and horror in a way that mimics a traditional fairy tale, while staying modern and accessible.
One of my favorite parts about EHAD is the nuance with which McGuire handles the portal worlds, and the experiences children have inside them. They can be read as metaphors for trauma, queerness, neurodivergence, et cetera, but there isn't one "correct" reading. The experience of going through a portal, and the marginalized identities of the kids who encounter them, are thematically resonant but not directly analogous. This is a great choice: not only does this avoid the "fantastical racism" problem, but it allows us to examine where the portal worlds function as metaphors and where they break down as metaphors (a sort of "intersectional allegory"). This makes McGuire's treatment of themes like cultural difference, trauma, and queerness WAY more subtle than most texts'.
One example where this subtlety leads to an interesting reading is how the portal worlds relate trauma and identity. In many ways, the portal worlds are traumatizing; focusing on Nancy's in particular, her portal world leaves her with: an unhealthy relationship with food, an aversion to colorful clothing (because she's not "allowed" colors yet), and an uncomfortably dependent relationship with the Lord of the Dead. Nancy explicits rejects the idea that she has an eating disorder and that these apparent negatives are genuinely problematic. However, as is the case with Jack, Nancy's perspective on her experience isn't objective. There's a tension here. On the one hand, these portal worlds are emacipatory and empowering. On the other, they function a lot like an abusive relationship, or grooming, leaving the children warped and unable to survive in the "real" world.
EHAD refuses to resolve this tension, which I love. This refusal is especially powerful when exaimined in relationship to neurodivergence or queerness. For example, consider the anti-vaccine movement. Parents are afraid that vaccines might "make" their child austistic, so they avoid them. The usual response is to point out that vaccines don't actually cause austism. But, another interesting response I've seen is to play Devil's Advocate. Say vaccines do cause austism in some small percentage of people who are vaccinated as children. Then, the parent is deciding they'd rather risk their child dying from an easily preventible disease than risk their child becoming austistic. At some point, that position starts to look pretty ableist — would you really prefer a dead child to an austisic one? There's a similar point to made about queerness. I don't think that people have experiences that "turn them gay," or anything. But I've seen people make the point that, if some formative experience did somehow make me queer, so what? That's only a tragedy if you believe queer lives are somehow lesser than heteronormative ones.
EHAD's portals are really interesting when considered in this light. One could argue that, yes, these portals did affect the kids in ways that are usually considered negative. Yes, the portals did make them abnormal and unable to intergrate into society "properly". But that's only a tragedy because we live in a society, lol. The construction of certain behaviors as "healthy" or "unhealthy" is political act, one which has been used to justify some really awful things. That's not to say that the standard is completely subjective; I think Jill's whole murdering people thing is about as objectively unhealthy as anything can be. But, it does invite us to consider what sorts of lives and behaviors we think are unacceptable, and why. There's a tension (ugh, a dialetic...) between complete social anarchy and the whole "white supremacist patriachy" thing. It's complicated! EHAD explores the synthesis between different takes on the nature of self-identity, and that nuance makes for a dynamic, rewarding reading experience.
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LOL I have so many Riverdale questions, if that's ok. Are you worried about B*rchie in season 2? What are your favorite parts about Bughead, or them as individuals? What are you hoping to see overall in season 2?
it’s definitely ok! it’s nice to get riverdale questions.
i’m not worried about b*rchie, though i mean, i’ll admit i haven’t been super on the interview patrol like i was in the earlier days of ouat, so there may be some information i don’t have? but from what i have seen, that’s been pretty shut down. narratively it doesn’t make sense for where the show left off, so i wouldn’t stress about that.
for s2, i hope the show explores a lot more of it’s tension with classism. one of my favorite elements of riverdale is the fact that it’s first season really explored the confines/limits of privilege told from the POV of a pretty disadvantaged kid, and the town turning against jughead (ipso facto, the southside) because it was an easy scapegoat.
the original comics were def born from american obsession with isolationist suburban utopia, so i really like seeing the tv show use that as a jumping off point. i think thus far it’s been on/off with subtlety, but i’d like to see it more overtly.
riverdale, i think, functions best when it plays up it’s aesthetic timelessness, so i’m hoping it turns the dial up on that. from what i’ve seen of filming spoilers, we’ll be seeing more of that, so that’s exciting!
i also personally am really curious to see where the serpents storyline goes too. i’m hoping it’s going to be complicated!
as far as bughead, i really like the internal/external presentations of darkness, thematically. but honestly what drew me towards them, beyond being an “opposites attract” trope that explores the way they’re not actually so different, was the conscious decision to have open communication. it’s a really healthy relationship, and one that isn’t often seen, let alone on teen-geared television.
as individuals, i think their family stories are complex and appropriately balanced. and my favorite part of betty is something i’ve spoken to before, so i’ll just repeat:
characters are most compelling when their greatest strength is also their greatest flaw. betty is defined by a sense of justice that is as powerfully motivating as it is inhibiting to her personal life.
the season began with betty consciously deciding to not be a passive figure in her own life. she began questioning and confronting for the first time in her life, and so she’s still fresh to it. she doesn’t always understand when fighting for the greater good has a negative impact on the individual, but i think that’s going to be a large part of her character exploration next season.
x
as far as jughead, i think the search for identity while also grappling with the belief that he has a strong sense of self is really interesting.
this is kind of the same for betty, but it’s more pronounced for jughead, who sees himself a certain way (who will ever forget the weirdo monologue) while also grappling for identity and a place where he feels accepted/relates to others
but his relationship as well as external forces (like going to southside) force him to question that, and i’m excited to see how that comes to fruition.
i’m really curious to see how his desire to be accepted/knee jerk defense that he has no such thing will play out, now that he’s joining the serpents.
anyway i’m cutting myself off because this is getting so long. but thanks for asking, this was fun!
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