Chapter Text
Some of the others questioned why you remained on Earth, even after Father’s creations had burnt it in fire and gamma. They had all given up hope that good may remain and therefore given up on all of them.
You knew not all of them were at fault - a single secretary could do nothing in the face of her government’s greed and hubris. She could not be blamed, could not be declared evil for someone else’s crime.
Still, grief was something you had become intricately familiar with. Looking at the ashen remains of all Father and humanity had created, you felt nothing but grief in its rawest, most volatile form.
But you remained. You held onto that hope, because what else were you without it?
Few of your siblings remained on Earth, equally dedicated to protecting and nudging humanity in the right direction. You remained in contact, despite millennia-long arguments on right and wrong.
If you asked yourself back in the 20th century whether you’d find yourself allies and almost friends with Lucifer himself, you wouldn’t have believed it.
But here you were. Constantly tasting the acidic flavour of radiation in the air, watching as humans tore each other apart again and again and tried to undo what they had done each time.
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Purdue had grown into a careful little town in recent years. Before, they had called it West Lafayette, and before then it was Chauncey. But now it was Purdue, named after the title stamped into cracked signs and burnt textbooks.
They still used the old street signs - someone had taken time to repaint the little forest green rectangles and white letters.
Fondy was a bar built in the bottom floor of an apartment building, half of the letters had fallen off with age, the original name lost to time. Some of the apartments now were used as an inn, though not many travellers ended up in Purdue when Lucas Oil and Big State were only a day’s walk south.
And here you were, sitting at the counter as Buddy Holly’s voice buzzed from the little restored radio on the counter. Lukas Striker had recently set up in Big State, and you had provided a generous donation of songs to the bright-eyed boy. What a King was doing starting a radio show in the remnants of Indiana was beyond you, but you were happy to indulge.
You had always liked music, after all.
You were nursing your first drink of the night - whisky, caravanned out of Kentucky. The bitter taste was familiar on your tongue. Nothing compared to the expensive drinks Lucifer would encourage you to indulge in back in the day, alongside corny movies and drunken exchanges of stories.
He had been on a Western kick in 2076 and some of ‘77, particularly fond of one pretty little actor named Cooper Howard. His dark hair carefully slicked back reminded you of a gang you met back in the day, though it took quite a few more drinks to pull that story out of you.
You reckoned, if they ever made a movie about them, put some facial hair and cigarettes on Howard and he was practically the spitting image.
The ice clinked against the stained glass as you thought back to those late nights, drinking and laughing at the humans’ entertainment.
Before the resources grew too few, and the humans’ greed too powerful.
The ramshackle wood doors creaked open, announcing a new customer, but you didn’t look up from the spot you were studying on the counter. It had been built out of old signs and car parts, you could see a Toyota logo.
He sat three stools from you and ordered in a low voice, heavy with a southern accent. Speaking of Westerns, you thought to yourself.
You cast him a brief glance. He had rough skin, most of it covered with a ragged duster and clothes stained brown. His hat was angled to shield his eyes, despite being inside, and you could see the way his hazel eyes studied the room curiously.
You recognised his kind - mortals cursed to immortality. Skin ragged and burnt. Some had their brains melt away with the cartilage and hair, but others held onto their sanity despite.
His gaze met yours - intelligent, calculating, suspicious - and you held it for a moment, sizing each other up.
There was something familiar about him that tugged at your tongue, but you couldn’t puzzle it out just yet. You would keep an eye on him, then - he had a dangerous look about him.
The radio buzzed as the music rolled over to Billie Holiday. You didn’t look away, even as his drink was passed to him.
Finally, he downed the thing in one gulp and slammed the glass on the counter, leaning forward. “Reckon I’ve seen you before.” He mused.
“I thought the same.” You replied evenly, taking a careful sip from your drink.
The two of you fell silent again. You wondered what he was thinking, why he wasn’t ignoring you as you had planned to do to him.
He gestured for another drink, and the bartender hesitated for a moment. The man sighed and retrieved a few coppers, which seemed to appease the bartender for now.
“What brings you to Purdue?” You decided to ask, growing uncomfortable with the tense silence in the nearly empty bar.
He hummed, leaning back in his seat and draping one arm on the counter, tilting his head to look at you.
It clicked, then, who you were looking at. Speak of the devil (haha), the hollowed out ghost of Cooper Howard sat in that torn duster, staring you down with curiosity and bitterness in those chesnut eyes.
“Work.” He replied simply. “You?”
You shrugged. “I travel.”
He paused, tilting his head a little further, and you couldn’t help but compare him to a little labrador puppy studying something new for the first time.
The conversation largely ended there, though both of you did ocassionally hum along to the music playing from the radio. He was much more quiet than you, but the tapping of his fingers and the soft rumble of his voice didn’t escape your attention.
You gave him a friendly smile as you left, though he ignored it.
And you wondered.