Chapter Text
Mallory wasn’t quite so sure why the Supreme was so adamant she had to be there to welcome Michael Langdon.
Of course, it was about sisterhood. Seemed a pathetic idea when stood next to the prospect of a very real and very volatile antichrist, but, still — Cordelia had always had the very best of intentions when it came to her girls, and if that would now include said antichrist, she would undoubtedly find a way to make it work.
How were the faces around her so calm? They had been the ones, after all, to make her so afraid.
When she had first been informed of Michael Langdon, two or so months ago, the only initial emotion had been curiosity — a sort of strange awe at what they said he had been capable of. She had never been the type of girl to judge, to assume the worst (even when she undoubtedly should have been), and so she had always been as gentle as she could when bringing his name up in conversation.
Zoe had been the one to correct her after a while. She had never exactly been in the inner circle of the witches, having been at Robichaux for barely a year, but she had been one of the first to be told, without any type of sugarcoating, that he was the one who held the key to the very end of the world.
And now? They were bringing him into their home. They would break bread and drink wine with something less than human, in the hopes that they could make him something he was not.
“He’s late. Wouldn’t you think the Antichrist would have some sort of in-built alarm clock?”
Madison brought her cigarette to her mouth, face fixed in a sour expression as she cast a glance to the door.
It was surprisingly easy for Mallory to imagine the two hitting it off — after all, she had been brought back from the afterlife by his own hand. A little gratitude went a long way, it seemed, and the idea of the she-devil and the literal devil hooking up seemed almost too perfect.
“ Patience, Girls. Please?”
Cordelia’s voice was weaker than normal, yet the precise thing that made them quiet. If anything had brought them together — anything that resembled some semblance of the word sisterhood — it was their mutual respect for Cordelia Goode, the ever-optimistic matriarch of their Coven. She had brought them each a refuge in their own respect, and they loved her for it.
Yet Mallory knew the rumours. She felt the looks from every corner of every room she walked into — scathing, seething, and searching for answers she didn’t know how to provide.
They all believed that she was the next Supreme. It was only Mallory, and, by extension, Cordelia, who knew that she was.
Though she knew the messy history of the early days of the Coven — how they had fought, and, in some cases, died over the very title of Supreme— she had never been one to crave power. Being Supreme meant little more to her than killing, however indirectly, the only mother figure she had ever had.
And there was Michael. An impossible error in an impossible equation. He had claimed himself the Male Supreme — the kinder name crafted to hide his true nature, his true purpose. If he went rogue in two, five or twenty years from now, would Cordelia be there to pick up the pieces? Would Mallory be capable? Or were they doomed, regardless of who waged war against him?
She was brought out of her stupor by the sudden and inescapable feel of a body rushing to her at full speed, accompanied only by the unmistakable sounds of sobbing.
Michael Langdon. Michael Langdon was crying.
Worse than even that, Michael Langdon was hugging her.
She hasn’t even heard the door open, much less seen him rush towards her. The element of surprise made her tense in his arms, and it was only when he calmed that she managed to free herself from his shockingly gentle grip — eyeing the confused faces of each and every witch in the foyer with her own, equal confusion.
When she looked back at him, she found those blue eyes fixed on only her. A million emotions lurked beneath them, but of all of them, she saw recognition. He looked at her as if they had known each other for a lifetime, and though he had never once met this boy before now, she felt as if some small part of her had.
“Mallory?”
She was reminded, from the countless movie marathons at the Coven, of how lovers looked at each other when they were on the brink of tragedy— as if they were trying to memorise each other, to delve deep into a moment as if it were possible to live inside of it forever.
That was the way he looked at her.
Mallory had found herself attracted to some people in her lifetime — men and women, all ordinary and average. She had been content with that, as everybody was, even when they had never seemed all that interested in her. She had never once given it a second thought.
If everybody else was ordinary and average, Michael was something; something that didn’t even make her question how or why he knew her name, but rather study him intently, as if he were something beautiful rather than sinister.
He was young, or, at least, no older than her — short, boyish hair framed his face, and she wondered absentmindedly whether the boy had ever invested in a decent hairdresser. Tears stained flushed cheeks, and though he looked a mess, it was the sort of mess she thought heaven itself could craft and be satisfied with.
Of course, Lucifer had been a fallen angel, and, if the tales were true, the most beautiful. It was only right that his son took after the Seraphim, too.
He reached out a hand to her, desperate in the trembling of his hands, and though Cordelia interjected with a frown of concern, Mallory thought later that she wouldn’t have been able to flinch away, even if she had wanted to.
She stood in complete and utter shock as the Supreme ushered Michael — still turning back to look at her with wide, frightened eyes, as if convincing himself she wasn’t a ghost— up the stairs, whispering words of comfort to him as they disappeared into the room that had been emptied especially for him.
It was Madison who broke the strange, awkward spell that had been placed upon them all; none of them able to explain the “welcome meeting” that had unfolded before their very eyes, least of all Mallory.
“He has got a total hard on for you, Mal.”
If she was stronger, she would have refuted — blamed it on his grief, which she knew, from her own experiences, was a strange and bewildering thing.
Perhaps it was the truth, and he had some strange, satanic-fuelled attraction to her, but intuition told her that couldn’t be right. There was something missing. He had known her, if only for a second.
When the tension had dissipated, she was the interest of the evening. Everybody had asked her something — whether it was questions of concern from the elder witches, or rather excited theories on whether or not he was her ex from some of the younger students, all were interested in the odd first impression of the boy that they had all been told had the capability to kill them with the flick of his finger.
He was nothing like any of them had expected. He was an enigma a million little aspects.
Eventually, fatigue gave in, and she slipped away to her room, all too aware of the fact she was merely three doors away from him. It made the darkness in her room into something eerie — a lingering reminder that he could easily slip in while she was sleeping, and she would never notice.
It was a restless night, as they had almost always been lately, and it was only as the clock struck four that she succumbed and stumbled over to the light switch.
In the harshness of the light, she could see, for the very first time, the finger-shaped marks on her arms, etched onto her skin with the purple-and-blue tones of desperation. He had been desperate for her, grabbing her with such need that he had left a lasting mark. Even then, she somehow knew there had been no malice behind action. He had simply wanted to hold her.
And, as much as Mallory felt a deep and dark revulsion at the idea that he had left an imprint on her body, there was a sense of pride. He had wanted her — the intentions behind it, she had no way of understanding, but it had been her, and nobody else.
No boy that looked like that should ever have looked at her.
And the way he looked? She couldn’t quite wrap her head around the impossibility of it. He was infuriating and gorgeous and most likely the predator to her prey. He had installed, with a simple minute of strange behaviour, an abnormality to the place she had called home for the better part of a year, and though she should have been…
…she wasn’t angry about it all.