Demon who has invited you to a feast. There's no need to hesitate, you must be starved.
"Everything okay?"
Bernadette nods enthusiastically. "I told you not to worry," she says.
"After last weekend, meet me at the abandoned amusement park and don't worry, everything's fine wasn't..." and Djulnael raises a single apologetic shoulder, hands in her pockets and expression tight around the eyes, "quite as reassuring as you wanted it to be."
"Sorry." Bernadette hangs her head.
"I'm not mad at you," Djulnael says. "I just — I really wish I could hurry things up and get you out of here."
Bernadette nods, still looking at the ground, and kicks her foot back and forth through a tuft of grass.
"Why are we out here, babe?" Djulnael adds gently, and Bernadette takes a deep breath and puts on a smile and holds her hands out.
"Lemme show you," she says, and tugs Djulnael along weed-shattered concrete paths, between the rusting skeletons of the park's attractions, to a blanket and a picnic basket underneath a tree.
"Bernadette," Djulnael says, in a voice that's fierce and quiet and vulnerable all at once, and pulls her into a tight hug, and it takes her a whole hour of gazing at Bernadette soft-eyed, running fingers through her hair while they eat sandwiches and drink Mountain Dew—
("Why are we drinking this crap, babe?"
"Because of that time I was under arrest and you came and sprung me," Bernadette says solemnly—)
— for Djulnael to finally make her little squinting something is bothering me about this face, and finally say, "Bernadette?"
"Yeah?"
Bernadette has her head in Djulnael's lap, staring up at her face like she can find constellations in it. She's pretty sure she's smiling in a way that would make a fellow demon hit her in the face with a shovel, on principle.
"Did you shoplift this?" Djulnael says, tilting her drink.
"Nope." Bernadette wriggles a little. "I wanted to do it properly," she adds shyly.
"Where did you get the cash for this?"
The thing is, Bernadette did want to do this properly, but what she really wants is to distract Djulnael from the unhappy thin-lipped quiet she's had since the cultists managed to yoink Bernadette right out through the Bureau safehouse safeguards, and she is a demon.
"Oh, you know SA Juleia, on the protection detail? She likes to hit up the gym across the road, after her shifts?"
"You borrowed cash off Juleia?"
Bernadette looks up at her, all big innocent eyes, and shakes her head a little. "No," she says, drawing it out just a little.
"Jules," Djulnael says heavily, arms crossed.
"Djulnael," Juleia says. "You back already? Thought the girlfriend was taking you out."
"Juleia," Djulnael says slowly. "Apparently my girlfriend's been coming over to watch you in the gym. And — stealing your clothes while you're showering. Some of your clothes. Some — garments."
"Fuck," Juleia says, and puts her coffee down, with an expression that's about equal parts horror and relief. "Fuck, Djulnael, I did not know how to bring that up with you. I swear I have not — led her on or encouraged her or anything and I don't know why she's been taking my knickers, but—"
"Selling 'em online," Djulnael says, looking at the ceiling.
"...Say what?"
"Genuine Hot Gym Lady Sweaty Panties," Djulnael says, carefully, with a litle pause between each word. "I'm gonna leave out what she said about bumping their cash value by faking other stains with egg white, I wanna forget that, but — using your photo from your FUCKING TINDER PROFILE, JULEIA."
"Oh fuck," Juleia says.
"I am going to leave that out when I take this upstairs as more argument why our opsec isn't the right fit for stashing her here," Djulnael says, and not-quite looks at Juleia before repeating, "TINDER," then turning sharply and sticking her head out of the door. "BERNADETTE."
"Hi!" Bernadette says brightly, sidling in.
"What did we talk about, Bernadette."
"You'd like it if I apologised to SA Juleia for stealing her stuff and exploiting her for money!" Bernadette says, a picture of contrition, and Juleia looks at her and looks at Djulnael and knows in her bones that the little shit is exactly where she wants to be.
"I'll be upstairs," Djulnael tells her, and stomps out.
"I'm sorry," Bernadette says sweetly. "Also, you should get off Tinder, because SA Sashara is really into you, in a slightly aggro butch-on-butch angel-wrestling way."
Juleia keeps her mouth firmly shut around her first reaction; she's pretty sure Bernadette can smell weakness. She gives the demon her best perp glare. "Don't break Djulnael," she says gruffly.
Bernadette blinks, and her face melts into the most terrifyingly genuine happy smile Juleia's ever seen.
"We're gonna get a puppy," she says.
