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cookiesupplier · 4 months

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Hell Ain't So Bad - Part Twenty-One

pairing: Noah Sebastian x ofc (Ellie)

warnings/tropes: slow burn, smut, angst, fluff, mentions of death, mentions of torture, thoughts of religious ideology, minor violence, swearing, cheating.

summary: Ellie was lost in the world, homeless with no idea what to do and nowhere to go.. Who would have thought that one day, she’d end up working in hell itself.. And what does this even mean?

author’s note: Unbetaed, readers beware. Only one part left after this of Hell Ain't So Bad, and then we start A Friend Down In Hell

tags: @spicywhenspeaking @bngurngheart @cncohshit @valiantroeagleangel @blackveilomens @dominuslunae @tearfallpixie @nyxthedestroyerofworlds @wild-child-7747 @notingridslurkaccount @lyschko666 @lacktoesandtoddlerants @jilliemiw86 @emmmm127 @laurpartyprogram

“Noah.”

Looking up at him, her breath caught in her throat, Ellie felt frozen in place.

“Ellie.”

Not BabyGirl. She remembered she’d shut him down for that. He hadn’t called her that since, not even in the messages. She’d noticed. Her heart and her head screamed two very different things, and do not ask her which one was saying which right now because for the life of her, she couldn’t tell you. One wanted to throw herself at him, right into his arms, wrap her own around him and never let go. The other wanted her to slam the door right in his face, his tired, drawn face. And he did look it, so tired, he looked a mess. Noah’s dark eyes looked dull, weary, whether of her, and of whether she’d bother to give him the time of day, or something else he’d been dealing with, she didn’t know. His hair hung limp around his face, and there were shadows forming under his eyes. This was not the Noah she knew. In a blink he could change his appearance, she knew that, but this was a Noah that didn’t seem to care. That didn’t seem to be fussed over anything, and it hurt some to see him like this. To see him beaten.

Why did it hurt? There was a part of her that was still so angry at him. How dare he make her feel like this. How dare he look at her with those eyes and make her want to crumble in her arms and beg his forgiveness for ignoring him, for sending him away, and she’d done nothing wrong!

Steeling herself, Ellie took in a deep breath as she looked up at him, with the state of him, she was almost surprised he was standing right now. He looked dead on his feet. Was he sleeping? None of the others had said anything about him doing this badly, but then again, she had refused to hear anything about him, refused to talk about him at all if she could help it. So how would they have been able to tell her anything? How would they have been able to tell her they were concerned about him or not?

“May I come in?”

He asked, his voice rough, and not in the roughness that told her she was going to be in for a wild night, wicked that would have her voice hoarse from delicious screams by morning. Still, Ellie blinked slowly and nodded slightly, accepting, he asked, he asked instead of demanding, for that she could give him time.

“I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

Offering without thinking, because, honestly, it sounded like he needed one. He sounded wrecked, and, if he was there to talk and not to knock her off. Hey, she was already dead, what more could he do to her, right? Aside from dragging her to a punishment realm, and Nicholas had already assured her she wasn’t assigned to one, then, the least she could do was make him a cup of damn tea while they talked. Find out what he had to say for himself.

Stepping aside, she let him pass her by and come into her apartment. The whole place was so very different from that first night he’d brought her home, that first night she’d drunkenly tried, and failed, to seduce him at the time. It had gone from just being a place where she just slept her nights away, considering she'd barely arrived back then, and now, this was her home. Noah had spent many a night with her here if she was honest, and yet right then, as he walked in, the way he looked, he just seemed, adrift, and it hurt her heart even more than she missed him. Less than two weeks ago, it had felt like he belonged here, about as much as the stupid fake plant Jolly had given her when all the boys had realised how easily she kept killing the ones they’d kept replacing for her housewarming present. Sure, she might keep a cactus alive, but this was one prettier! It had bright flowers, she loved the flowers.

Standing in her kitchen, she watched as he moved to sit on one of the stools at her breakfast bar, swallowing as she set the kettle to boil and prepared Noah some tea. It was Mama Ruffilo’s special blend, she made it herself. He was silent as he waited, just watching her while she moved around the kitchen until she set the cup in front of him lightly and moved to sit across from him with her own cup of tea. As he took a sip, sighing as she looked at him. Swallowing as her hands curved around her mug, trying not to think about how formal this felt now that they were sitting across from each other. Those dark eyes looked right into her like they always did though, a shiver running down her spine.

“Do you have any idea how much I have tried to beg to get this tea out of Mama Ruffilo?”

Ellie smiled slightly at the question, his voice a touch smoother, but still so rough, and tired. Noah was trying to find a way to be light-hearted, she could tell, but what was between them was weighing them both down.

“Please, she’ll practically give you anything you want, Noah Sebastian. She loves you like a son, Nicholas always spouts that she’d disown him and adopt you if her husband would let her, and you know it.”

Shaking his head a little, taking another sip of his tea slowly, easing it down his throat before speaking again. His eyes held a little mirth at her words, she wasn’t wrong, it was a running joke between him and Nicholas about his mother, however when it came to this tea, that was a different story altogether.

“Not this tea, this is her magic tea, this is her feel-good tea. She only ever gives it up when she wants to make someone feel better, or, she particularly likes someone. She hasn’t given that tea to any of us to take home, ever. Furthermore, she gives it to Nicholas for his office to calm anxious people, she makes us a cup when we visit, but lets any of us take some of it home. Never. Until you. Everyone says I’m her favourite, but I think it’s you, BabyGirl.”

Noah’s voice grew smoother, and softer as he spoke, the tea soothing his throat as it did. She tried not to react, but a tiny smile formed on her lips as he spoke of Mama Ruffilo and how protective she was of her tea, and his claim that she was her favourite. Never had she ever been anyone’s favourite before. She did know about the tea at the office, she’d been one of those that needed a little soothing, just as Nick had told her, she remembered telling his mom about her magic tea, and how it healed her cough.. She realised now that she’d known she was dead, it was a horrible reality, figuring out all the people who had hidden so much from her. Did it make her a horrible person that forgiving Mama Ruffilo was easier, though? Was it cruel to hold it against Noah? He’d been in her home, her life, her bed.. He lied to her every day.

Then her breath hitched, that tiny smile on her lips froze, and her heart clenched when she heard it, BabyGirl. She remembered him telling her how nothing could make him not want her as his BabyGirl. Taking in a sharp breath as her expression dropped, setting her mug down, she wasn’t sure calming tea was going to help her now.

“Noah, I-”

Swallowing, she didn’t know what to say to him.

“Listen, Ellie, I would have told you if I-”

“Don��t.”

Her eyes closed quickly as she stood back from the bar and shook her head, no.

“I don’t want to hear you tell me excuses, about how you would have told me if you could have. Noah, you could have. You chose not to. You lied to me, Noah, you started a relationship with me knowing you were lying to me, the entire time.”

Ellie couldn’t help the way the words were flowing when she started talking now, almost ranting at him. Noah’s dark eyes pained as he regarded her, he hated that she thought that they got involved as they did, and how he felt about her, and all she could think about was that he lied to her. He knew why, he knew... And it was killing him.

“I’m not-”

She just kept going, cutting him off as he tried to talk.

“And don’t you dare try to say we weren’t properly dating, because I was stupid enough to keep telling myself that again and again, that we were just hooking up, and just hanging out every time you came over to spend time with me. That we were only enjoying ourselves, nothing more. Even if we never said the words specifically, even if we never actually called them what they were, we’ve been dating for months. You’ve been lying to me for months.”

Standing from the breakfast bar, Noah’s voice was forceful as it cut through her little tirade, but he had no choice as it was the only way to get her to hear him as her words just kept steamrolling forward. “Goddammit, Ellie, I’m not Jeremy!”

He couldn’t stand it anymore, he couldn’t stand her accusing him like that, she wasn’t saying it, but she was comparing him to that bastard, he could feel it, every time she talked about their relationship, talked about him lying.

“Yes, I lied, I should have told you, but I didn’t, because, I love you BabyGirl. After our talk, I was trying to convince Nick to tell you, I was going to enlist his Mama if I had to, to get him on board, but I was not going to back down. I didn’t care if I was going to get busted down to the lowest of ranks, I would have done it.”

Ellie glared a little at how aggressively he spoke about Jeremy, she knew he wasn’t, didn’t she? She went to yell at him, how dare he assume to know what she was thinking when he kept going, and suddenly she was completely floored with what he was saying to her.

Watching him, completely silent, a bit dumbfounded actually as he paced back and forth, ranting about how he was going to push Nicholas to finally agree to tell her if it was the last thing he did. Hearing that he couldn’t stand holding back from her anymore, that the night before she found out had almost broken him, but his best friend, his brother, it was his job that was on the line, and betraying him was…

Hearing Noah’s voice crack at the word betrayal had Ellie finding her voice, finally, not just because it was finally dawning on her just how much turmoil Noah must have been dealing with, going in circles dealing with his loyalty to Nicholas, and how much guilt he had with how he’d treated her.. But also her feelings about what he’d said..

“You love me?”

Her voice was so quiet, that the words were barely breathed out. She felt so small. He’d never said it, and she knew she hadn’t either, not until, not until she’d admittedly thrown it in his face that she’d fallen in love with another liar.

Despite how soft her voice was, even with his ranting, Noah heard them, how could he not? Of course, he fucking heard them, this was Ellie, this was BabyGirl, he’d been dying to get her to talk to him all week, and hearing her utter anything at all, and he’d hear it. No matter how painful. Yes, her questioning whether he loved her, was painful, because, did she not know?

No, he hadn’t admitted how he felt, that was something Noah had struggled with since he was young, and he always had, he’d lost so many people in his life, that telling someone how he felt came with actions, over words. He showed them how he felt. Which, is kind of why he tended to round up all the people who hurt everyone he loved and tortured them to wit's end. It was safe to say, that Carla, Jeremy and Gia had truly been enduring so much pain and suffering at Noah’s hands this past week. It wasn’t his wrath that was justly earned, however, his pain that had been poured into their suffering, which just made it all the more potent as far as he was concerned.

Noah moved around the island bar and shifted to stand before her, his hands moving to cup her face in his hands.

“Ellie, BabyGirl, of course, I love you. If you’ll let me, I will spend the rest of my life proving it to you.”

His forehead leaned down to hers softly, she shuddered softly, tears glistening in her eyes as she smiled slowly,

“I love you too, you, idiot.”

Thankfully he was already leaning down to press his forehead to herself so it wasn’t hard to bring her lips to his with a kiss. She hadn’t told anyone she loved them properly since, since… Jeremy. Ellie hadn’t dared trust herself to do such a thing, because the thought of that kind of betrayal…

Her heart clenched thinking about loving someone who would use her, and lie to her, and yet, seeing the pain and anguish in Noah’s eyes with the fact he’d been living with the reality, she’d been comparing them.

And she had, hadn’t she?

It made her feel sick.

That this man, this man that had been willing to try and force the hand of the closest person to him in the world, his brother, for her. No, not a man, a demon, who could torture, main, and kill, all manner of beings in ways she could only imagine, and he had been talking about plotting against Nicholas, because that was what he’d been saying in no uncertain terms with that little rant just now. His words were coming out in a jumbled mess as he paced along the breakfast bar, but they had been there. Looking up at him now, her hands resting on his biceps, fingers squeezing lightly as she smiled.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, BabyGirl, but I couldn’t stand the thought of, okay, still having been lying to you when I did.”

She laughed at that, tears in her eye, fuck, why was she crying, her cheeks were wet and Noah was kissing them now, brushing her tears away with his lips. Sighing when she got another good look at him though, shaking her head, she might be in tears, but he looked, damn he still looked like he was barely able to stand up on his feet, how was he still standing right now?

“Come on, Mister, you look like you are about to fall asleep on your feet! What you have been doing all week??”

Starting to guide Noah towards her room, he really did need to sleep, he looked dead tired, and she was the one who was honestly dead.

“I’ve been playing with my new pets, three of them, it's been cathartic to make them scream.”

Oh, oh, she could bet what their names were too, Carla, Jeremy, and Gia.

As she got him into her room, and into her bed, wrapping him up into her blanket, he managed to convince her to join him, she did, wrapped up with him, cuddles, nothing more, he needed sleep. Sure, he could magic himself to look normal, but he’d still be exhausted, and she wouldn’t believe him for a second until she’d seen him sleep with her own two eyes. Her head on his cheek, hearing his heartbeat start to lull,

“Ellie?”

“Mmm, yeah?”

“M’not Mister.”

“No?”

“I’m the fucking king.”

Giggling as she remembered one of his lines at the music show, yes, yes he was.

Dividers by @saradika-graphics