Chapter Text
One more to go.
The creature struggling against the bonds of her blessed net trap is about as grotesque as they come— vaguely humanoid in shape, but with gnarled, protruding horns and leathery, crimson skin, long, bony fingers tipped in needle-like claws and rows of fangs erupting from blackened gums. Thick, obsidian blood spurts from its mouth and runs from its eye sockets, seeps from the places where the netting cuts into its flesh, and the more it struggles against its confines, the more it bleeds. Each thrashing movement brings with it more blood, coloring the walls of the alley behind and the pavement below with inky, oozing ichor.
Her net trap had done its job, alright, but not without making a bloody mess of this dingy back-alley.
Maka jumps down from her lofty perch and lands in a puddle of the creature’s filth, and wrinkles her nose in disgust. The demon regards her with hate in its glowing yellow eyes as she approaches, snarling and salivating and snapping its jaws fruitlessly all the while. Even if it weren’t bound by angelic netting, she wouldn’t feel terribly threatened by it— it's one of the weakest demons she’s ever caught. Despite its four arms and proportionally large horns, it would only stand about hip-height on her if she were to unbind it.
Low level or not, for her purposes, a demon is a demon.
“Number Ninety-Eight,” she muses, more to herself than anything, as she’s sure it can’t understand her. She readies her weapon, flexes her fingers around the worn, familiar steel of the snaith. “Any last words?”
The demon, perhaps predictably, only snarls more adamantly in response, gnashing its teeth and clamping its jaws around a strand of netting, only to wince away from it and whimper in pain a moment later.
Stupid, pathetic thing. She’s doing it a kindness, really, eliminating its wretched existence from this miserable earth.
“Didn’t think so,” Maka shrugs. She raises her arms and dispatches it with hardly a second thought, the blade of her winged scythe slicing through layers of skin and muscle like a warm knife through a pat of butter. She slashes cleanly through two of its arms and across its middle, sending a fresh spray of viscera and black blood spurting forth, and the demon howls in pain as its guts spill out onto the pavement. It's a shrill, mournful sound, and Maka silences it just as quickly with a plunge of her blade into the creature’s neck. Her aim is true; the demon’s screech sputters out with a garbled, wet sort of sound, and then the night falls blissfully, blessedly silent once more.
Not her cleanest kill. Perhaps she’s growing sloppy.
She hefts the blade of her scythe from the now-inert flesh with a skillful flourish of her hands, sending flecks of darkened blood flying with the momentum of the motion. Another wave of her hand magicks the weapon away, back into storage now that it’s fulfilled its purpose, and then, Maka crouches down, kneeling in all the wet, sticky carnage, and places the palm of her hand upon the dead creature’s chest. She closes her eyes and concentrates.
In no time at all, her hand starts to glow, shimmering as it takes on a semi-corporeal form, and then its no feat at all for her to curl her fingers and reach inside the demon— not simply inside its ribcage or its physical body, but into its very being — and grasp for her real prize— its soul.
The crimson orb casts its surroundings in an eerie, otherworldly light, bathing the surrounding alleyway in a soft red glow as Maka plucks it from within the demon’s carcass. As she beholds it, warm and pulsing with infernal energy between her fingertips, Maka almost feels sentimental— not for the stupid, pathetic creature she’d slain, of course, but at the thought that soon, this routine that’s grown so familiar to her will be a thing of the past.
Soon, her demon-hunting days will be behind her.
But for now, it’s dinnertime.
Demon souls, she’d learned, have a sort of spongy consistency when squeezed— a sort of fleshy texture that made her positively nauseous at first, but after all these months of hunting and consuming them, she’s grown accustomed to it. She tears into the soul teeth-first without batting an eye, sinking her metaphorical fangs in and ripping out a bite-sized chunk with a vicious twist of her head. She hardly even grimaces as she swallows— if anything, the feeling of it sliding wetly down her gullet all but whets her appetite, and by the time she dives back in for a second bite, she’s practically salivating.
It gives her a giddy sort of rush, to utterly annihilate something— to not just kill a demon, but to leave absolutely no trace of its existence, to kill it so thoroughly and completely that not even its soul remains.
Bite by bite, the soul shrinks in her grip, until it is no more, until all that’s left coating Maka’s fingers is a filmy layer of black blood. As she swallows down the very last bite, the demon’s body crumbles, turning to ash before her very eyes, until every trace of the creature’s body— blood and all— disappears from the surrounding earth. The blessed net trap collapses in on itself, now absent a subject to confine, and lands in a pristinely clean heap on the ground.
All that’s left in the demon’s wake is the stinking scent of sulfur, but even that is faint.
With a small, satisfied smile, Maka leans back, casting her eyes up to the seemingly endless desert sky above. A ceiling of inky, blue-black velvet greets her, so vast it almost makes her head spin. Most of the stars are obscured by the city lights, but a few manage to poke through all the same, light pollution be damned. She watches the sky for several moments, watches the brightest stars twinkle above her and listens to the ambient sounds of the city beyond, before finally, she sighs to herself and closes her eyes.
It's a far cry from Heaven’s light, but still, it reminds her of home.
Without another thought, she pushes herself to her feet and turns around, only pausing to gather up her empty net trap before leaving the alleyway and the memory of Demon Number Ninety-Eight behind her.
One more to go.
By the time Maka reaches the outskirts of downtown Las Vegas, the first rays of morning light have started to spill over the horizon, casting the city in all of its concrete majesty into a study in contrasts— brilliant, glowing light from the sun as it begins its ascent into the sky, and long, deep shadows across the landscape, so much of it still shrouded in darkness even with daylight imminent. When she’d first arrived on Earth, scarred and broken and still reeling from the consequences of her own actions, she’d chosen to take up residence in the place that the mortals refer to as the City of Sin, thinking a city with such a moniker would be a hotbed for demon activity— and demons, based on all of her past research, were likely her best hope for getting back to her real home. Surely, a place where the humans come to indulge in the very worst of their desires— sex and gambling and excess in all of its forms— would be a place crawling with demons.
Her hunch had been correct.
Now, as she beholds the sight of the rising sun on her walk back to her temporary dwelling place, she wonders if the demons that reside in this city think of their home when they see the sunrise— if the radiant yellows and fiery oranges and scarlet reds all melting together in the sky above make them think of Hell.
Maka sighs. Dawn, already, and she's only just now arriving back at her flat. Walking everywhere is going to be the death of her, one of these days.
With a wave of one hand, the door to the building unlocks, but Maka pauses at the threshold, her fingers curled around the knob and one foot on the landing inside; she gives herself a once-over before proceeding up the stairwell, double-checks that her glamour is still intact, that the mirage of hospital scrubs is still concealing what she's actually wearing: worn, threadbare jeans and a jacket several sizes too big for her.
The door shuts behind her with a decisive thud as she makes her way up the stairwell, and then there's the jingling of keys and the shuffle of footsteps in the hallway above, and Maka's thankful she double-checked her glamour at the front door. She continues to traverse the stairs, one step at a time, and when she reaches the top, she comes face-to-face with her next-door neighbor.
“Oh! Good… good morning, Maka.” Her smile is sincere and her dark eyes are as warm and welcoming as ever. “You’re home… late today. Rough shift at the hospital?”
“Hey, Tsubaki.” Maka offers a tired smile of her own. “Yeah, we had multiple gunshot wound victims come in from downtown… It's been a long night.”
Soon after settling in this top-floor flat, Maka had needed to invent some sort of cover story for her nocturnal habits— not because she’d wanted to, but because the next-door neighbor she’d been saddled with was a talkative one.
“Goodness.” Tsubaki runs a hand over the long obsidian braid of her hair, tugs idly at the lapel of her blazer and the hem of her skirt. She looks so polished and put-together, not a single wrinkle in her pristine receptionist uniform, not a hair out of place. It makes Maka shrink a little bit as she stands before the other woman. “I can’t even imagine. Rest well, today, okay?”
“Of course, of course.” Maka gives a wave of her hand and widens her smile. Tsubaki’s kind expression and genuine concern for her well-being are a breath of fresh air after a long night of demon-hunting, and it makes her feel even worse for the fact that her own smile feels so forced. “I will, I promise. But don’t let me make you late for work.” She side-steps around Tsubaki, hoping beyond all hope the sulfur smell clinging to her skin and hair and stinging the insides of her own nostrils isn’t too noticeable. “I hope the tourists don’t give you too much trouble today.”
“Oh, it’ll be fine, I’m sure.” Tsubaki shrugs. “Let me know if you need anything later, okay, Maka?”
“Sure thing—” Maka agrees, even though she’s never taken Tsubaki up on this kindness before, and has no plans to change that anytime soon. She’s made it halfway down the hallway by this point, has reached her front door, but pauses with her hand hovering just above the knob. She ought to carry an actual key with her for these increasingly frequent encounters with her neighbor— it’d be a pity if Tsubaki were to accidentally see Maka unlock her front door with nothing more than a wave of her hand, and it’d be even more of a pity for Maka to have to warp the mind of such a kind soul so that she forgets the sight. “Bye Tsubaki!”
Maka watches her turn around, and only once Tsubaki starts to descend down the stairwell does she wiggle her fingers, sliding the bolt of the lock open with naught but her own will. She’s just about to close the door behind her when—
“Oh, and Maka?” Tsubaki calls from the stairs, her voice straining to carry her words. “Don’t forget about Friday! No pressure of course, but…” She pauses. “But it’s my birthday, and I’d love for you to be there.”
The silence that hangs between them in the stillness of the hallway is potent, growing only heavier with each passing moment, until Maka finally finds her voice.
“Y-Yeah. Yeah, I haven’t forgotten, Tsubaki.” She swallows the lump in her throat. “I’ll… I’ll see if I can get someone to cover my shift.”
“I’ll keep my fingers crossed!” Tsubaki shouts happily, and Maka listens to the sounds of her steady footsteps until they fade, until she can no longer hear the clack of her heels, before quietly closing the door behind her.
Alone, in the quiet, familiar low light of her apartment, she finally exhales. Finally lets the weight of her glamour disappear, lets it lift away from her body and evaporate into nothing. She sags against the door, presses her forehead against the worn, weathered surface, and heaves a bitter, bone-tired sigh.
It’d be better if she said no. If she told Tsubaki she couldn’t get the night off. She’s come so far, and now she’s so close— so maddeningly close she can almost taste it, can almost hear the music at the heavenly gates— and she can’t afford any distractions, not at such a crucial moment.
Not when only one demon soul stands in the way of her redemption.
One more demon soul, one more hunt, and then she can kiss this life of exile and shame goodbye, can leave this realm of mortals behind her and never look back. She’d told herself when she’d first arrived in this godless wasteland, it would only be temporary— that she’d get back into Heaven no matter the cost— and she’s not about to lose sight of that goal now, not when it's finally within her grasp. But…
But she’s just so lonely.
She’s lonely, and she’s tired, and she knows it’s better this way— a life of solitude, a life not only cut off from her true home, but bereft of connections in this mortal realm, too— but even still, she can’t help the way her heart yearns for companionship. For connection . The brief glimpses of kindness shown to her by her neighbor all these months have been a comforting balm to the crushing loneliness, but they’ve also made her crave more— an escape from the constant isolation, a respite from the quiet solitude of this existence.
But then, for what? For what purpose would it serve— to cultivate friendships, while she’s here? To grow close to someone— Tsubaki, or anyone, really— only to leave it all behind once she earns her place back among the angels? As hard as it is sometimes, it's better this way— better not to make any earthly connections. Better not to have any loose ends.
And besides, she’s banished. This is supposed to be a punishment . Penitence, for what she’d done. A time of reflection and struggle and hopefully, growth, from which she’ll emerge anew as a better angel. She isn’t here to have fun and make friends— she’s here to pay for what she’d done, to atone for the sin she’d committed.
She pushes herself away from the door with a groan, kicks off her boots and shrugs her too-large, too-heavy jacket off, chucks it to the floor beside her shoes. It’d been a long night, and she’s still covered in guts and grime and demon blood and God knows what else, and by the Archangel, she can make this decision on the other side of eight hours of sleep.
In the bathroom, she strips, lets the ratty old clothes fall to the floor and pool around her feet, and she doesn’t let her eyes linger on her own reflection any longer than necessary. The hot stream of water from the showerhead is meditative, calming, and it lowers the volume on everything— the thoughts in her head, the guilt, the shame, the memories of her mistakes. It makes the weight of the loneliness just a little bit more bearable, soothes the ache in her soul just as it soothes her skin of the blood and grime.
By the end of it all, she’s breathing a little easier and feeling a little lighter on her feet. It's only at the end, only once she’s reaching to twist the knob and cease the water’s flow, that she allows herself the release of her final concealment, the very last glamour applied to this earthly body of hers.
Her wings push out from their confines between her shoulder blades, and Maka closes her eyes, braces her hands against the wall of the shower and winces against the sensation— it isn’t pain exactly, but something close to it. An extreme awareness of her own being, a tingling, sort of burning sensation that overwhelms her senses and drowns out everything else in her body. It's an agonizingly slow process too, and by the time it's over, when they’re fully emerged and protruding from her upper back, spanning the width of her tiny shower and brushing against the curtains and the tiles on the walls, Maka is gasping for breath. Her chest heaves and her hands tremble as she stabilizes herself, as she moves to yank the curtains away and step out of the tub.
She can’t help it this time— when she catches a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror, she doesn’t look away.
And how she hates what she sees.
She was never one for vanity, in her past life, but now, all she sees when she looks in the mirror is disappointment. A reminder of how far she’s fallen, all that she’s lost. She looks too human, these days— too mortal. She sees it in the lines of her face, the splotches and freckles on her skin, in the glint of her haunted green eyes. In the slope of her shoulders and the set of her brows, but mostly, in her wings, and how out of place they feel, now that they no longer serve any purpose.
How needlessly cruel, to let her keep her wings after her fall, only to clip them and render them utterly useless. If only so that every time she looks at them, she’s reminded of the choice she’d made, and the consequences of that choice.
It’s no longer automatic, no longer muscle memory, to move them, because they no longer feel truly a part of her. She has to think about the act, has to make a conscious effort whenever she wants to stretch them or flap them or simply fold them down against her back, and even though it feels pointless to do so, every morning, at the end of every hunt, she does this— this ritual movement of her now vestigial appendages, flapping them and stretching them to their full length and folding them into different positions, if only to ensure she doesn’t forget how to do so.
When she’s finished, she retires to her apartment’s sole bedroom, dresses herself in her sleep shirt— oversized, white cotton soft and worn from wear, slits cut in the back for her wings— and collapses into bed. It doesn’t take long for the heady embrace of sleep to claim her.
And, just like every other sleep since her fall, she dreams of flying.
Only one more to go.
Soul’s grip on the tattoo gun is steady as he applies color to the final camellia blossom— a rich, deep red, bright crimson blooming between solid black lines and darker, shaded edges. Colorwork is his favorite thing about tattooing, and it isn’t all that often he gets to indulge in it, let alone to this level of detail. It's his favorite for a number of reasons— the novelty of it, the change of pace it provides him from standard black linework; the fact that simply adding color to an existing tattoo can completely transform it into a different piece entirely, can give it dimension and depth and life . The way clients are always so satisfied when a piece is finally colored in and finished , even if it takes hours over multiple sessions— which sometimes it does, especially with large pieces such as this one.
And of course, the pain.
The pain is simply delicious.
He feels it radiating from his client’s skin with each and every stroke of the tattoo gun, washing over his senses and seeping into his consciousness, a constant, willingly-given supply of that which he needs to quell his ever-present hunger. Colorwork pain is different from linework pain, more intense for the client and more satisfying for him, because human skin needs to be penetrated more deeply to hold the pigment, and usually, there’s so much more of it than linework. And while it’s true that pain tolerance varies from human to human, it feeds him all the same. Soul has been doing this long enough now to know that it matters less how much the human feels the pain, and more that it’s being inflicted in the first place, and all the better that tattoo pain is given with the express consent of the human involved; it’s a much more satisfying meal than trying to force it out of a struggling victim.
And this way, he isn’t hurting anyone— not in a way that really harms them, anyway. He gets the daily dosage of pain that he needs to survive, and he even gets to make art while he’s at it. A win-win situation all around.
“ There .” His voice is triumphant as he applies the final strokes of color to the camellia blossom, as he reaches to wipe away the excess ink bleeding from his client’s skin. “You’re all done.”
Her body heaves with a long, satisfied exhale, relaxing further into the tattoo bench. Her head shifts and she peeks her face out from where it’d been cradled in her crossed arms, and the joy in her dark eyes is palpable as she regards him.
“That wasn’t so bad,” she breathes around a contented smile. “The stag was a lot tougher to sit through than that.”
“Naturally.” Soul nods. “Greater surface area, more to color in.” He leans back in his chair to admire his handiwork, to gaze upon the finished piece, finally complete after four sessions in the studio— a great, black-and-white striped stag with yellow eyes and branching antlers, framed in crimson on all sides by numerous camellia blossoms. “But you handled it all like an absolute badass. Can I get you anything? Water, or something?”
At that, she smiles. “I think I’m okay, thanks. Can I see how it looks?”
“Of course.” Soul stows his tattoo gun, wheeling backward on the stool he sits upon to stash it away and dispose of the used needles before pulling his phone out of the pocket of his jeans. He has to stand up to photograph it, to capture the whole piece in the viewfinder of his camera; the stag’s antlers span from the corner of one shoulder to the other, its body stretching lengthwise down the curve of her back. When he shows her the photo, she goes quite still, staring in silence for a long moment. He swears there’s a misty sheen in her eyes when she finally speaks.
“It’s perfect,” she says with a small smile. “Masamune would love it.”
Tsubaki had been a client of his for years, and when she’d come to him about doing a memorial piece for her late brother, he’d only hoped he’d be able to execute her vision for the tattoo in a way that would honor his memory. Humans are funny creatures, sometimes, with how sentimental they can be about these things, and he supposes maybe in some ways it’s rubbing off on him after so much time spent in their realm.
“I’m glad to have done it justice.”
“You always do, Soul.”
He wraps the finished piece in Saniderm and cleans up the rest of the tattoo station, stepping out to allow Tsubaki some privacy while she redresses herself. While he waits for her, he texts her the photo he’d taken.
“Any questions or concerns for me before you go?” He asks her when she emerges from the tattoo room. With Tsubaki being a regular client of his, he figures he doesn’t need to give her the usual spiel about aftercare and healing.
“Just one, actually,” she smiles. “Do you have any plans this Friday?”
The question gives Soul a moment of pause; he'd gotten to know Tsubaki fairly well over the past few years of tattooing her, but in that time, he'd failed to pick up on any signs or signals she'd possibly be interested in something beyond friendship with him. The confusion and concern must register on his face, since Tsubaki picks up on it immediately.
“I’m not asking you on a date or anything.” She rolls her eyes with a smirk on her face. “I have a girlfriend. Friday is my birthday, and a bunch of my friends are going to the club. It’d be cool if you could join us.”
“You’re inviting your tattoo artist to your birthday party?”
“I’m inviting my friend who also happens to be my tattoo artist to my birthday party,” she corrects. Soul finds himself touched to be considered her friend, and fuck, what kind of demon is he, getting all sappy about making friends?
“Are you… sure?” He blinks, the dueling emotions of gratitude and embarrassment rendering his words choppy, his tongue heavy and slow in his mouth. His reasoning for asking for confirmation is twofold, he supposes— partly to stall for time, and partly to be sure he’d heard her correctly.
“Of course I’m sure, silly,” Tsubaki replies without missing a beat.
“Ah, okay, well,” Soul swallows the lump in his throat, reaches to scratch at the back of his neck sheepishly. His eyes falter to his feet for a moment before flickering back up to meet her gaze. “That’s… really nice of you. To invite me, I mean. I have that night off so I can definitely be there.” He pauses. “Um… what club?”
“The Inferno.”
The most legendary fetish club in all of Vegas, renowned for its BDSM play nights and live kink demonstrations. Soul is more familiar with it than he’d care to admit to Tsubaki, so he plays dumb.
“Ah, the… the one out in the Arts District?”
“Yeah.” Tsubaki nods. “You know of it?”
There isn’t an ounce of judgment in her expression, but still Soul flounders.
“I… I’ve been there a few times.”
He’s got multiple reliable pain sources to get by without hunting and killing humans, and hanging out at fetish clubs is one of them. It’s fascinating, honestly, how often humans willingly subject themselves to pain— tattoos, masochistic kinkplay, eating spicy foods, deep-tissue massage. It’s a wonder his fellow demons haven’t caught on.
“Oh! That’s so cool!” Tsubaki’s eyes sparkle. “I’ve never been, but Liz has been begging to go sometime.”
“Yeah?” He quirks an amused eyebrow at Tsubaki. “Well, the Inferno sure is something. It’ll be an experience. The people-watching alone is amazing.”
Come to think of it, it’s been a while since he’s paid a visit to the club himself. He’ll have to look online to see if there are any live demonstrations or scenes scheduled for Friday night— last time he’d gone, it was fire-play, and that was a satisfying meal for him.
“I can’t wait,” Tsubaki says with a grin. “And I’m so excited that you’ll be there to celebrate with us!”
The more Soul thinks about it, as he rings Tsubaki up at the register and sends her off with a smile and a promise to text her when he arrives at the Inferno on Friday night, the more excited he is, as well.
When he gets home, his roommate is already up.
“Ah, Soul!” he hollers from the kitchen, in a voice much too chipper for this ungodly hour of pre-dawn morning. “Welcome home! You’re just the guy I wanted to talk to—”
“Whatever it is,” Soul deadpans, leaning back against the door with a heavy sigh. “The answer is no.”
“Geez, what crawled up your ass today?” comes the reply from the kitchen, coupled with the tell-tale sizzle of a griddle. “Let a guy talk first.”
Braxton Starr is probably the closest thing Soul has to a best friend this side of Hell. He also holds the dubious honor of being his roommate, as well as a gigantic pain in his ass most of the time.
“Sorry, Brax,” Soul sighs. “Long night at work. Finished Tsu's stag piece and now I'm feeling drained.”
That, coupled with the fact that it’s nearly dawn, and Soul feels like he’s running on fumes. Demons are naturally creatures of the night; his day begins at sunset and ends at sunrise. He could be awake and active during daylight hours, if need be, he’d just be eternally grumpy about it. He’s grateful for Las Vegas and its twenty-four-hour tattoo shops that never close, and that the city as a whole is largely accommodating to nocturnal folk.
“Yeah, she already sent me the photo,” Brax replies as Soul kicks his shoes off. He heads deeper into their shared apartment, shrugging his jacket onto the back of the couch as he approaches the kitchen, and finds Brax standing in front of the stove with a spatula in hand and a truly impressive stack of pancakes piled upon the counter. He turns his megawatt smile on Soul, and between that and his electric blue hair, beholding him hurts Soul’s eyes. As long as he lives, he’ll never understand morning people . “You better be there on Friday for her birthday.”
Soul runs a hand through his hair in exasperation. “Word travels fast.”
“Mrowwwww~”
Right on schedule, his cat announces her presence— as if he could ever forget who rules this household— with a delighted meow. She practically bounds into the room, crossing it in a flash and purring loudly as she weaves herself around his legs in greeting.
“Hiya, Blairy.” He bends down to scratch the top of her head, her favorite spot right between her little horns, which she can never quite reach herself. “How’s my girl this morning? Did you miss me?”
She purrs harder in response and gives an enthusiastic swish of her clubbed tail before rearing up onto her hind legs. She paws insistently at his knee and meows again, louder this time, until Soul relents with a sigh and bends down to pick her up. Her body goes limp once she’s in his arms, still purring relentlessly like the world’s furriest little motor engine.
“You and that damn demon cat—”
“She’s a hellcat,” Soul corrects without missing a beat.
“Yeah, whatever. You’re still a sap.”
“ Anyway—” Soul rolls his eyes. “Tsubaki’s birthday. I’ll be there. Will you?”
“Nah, I’m actually leaving today for an extended mission. Dealing with some cult activity out in bum-fuck-nowhere California. HQ thinks it may be something legit.” Brax chuckles and shrugs his shoulders, gestures with the spatula emphatically. “You know, something demonic. Imagine that.”
“Ha, ha.” There’s absolutely no humor in Soul’s voice as he barely suppresses a yawn. “You actually agreed to take a mission?”
“I gotta keep them on their toes, you know?” Brax says. He finishes the pancake currently browning and slides it onto the flat of the spatula, carefully depositing it atop the precariously-balanced flapjack tower. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen any action . ”
It’s an irony that’s never lost on Soul, the fact that his best friend is an exorcist. A demon hunter. That the reason he and Brax ever met to begin with is because Brax had been sent to kill him. That, for reasons that Soul still doesn't know if he agrees with, Brax had ultimately decided to spare him.
“And besides,” Brax continues. He reaches for a carton of eggs set nearby on the countertop and extracts one from within its styrofoam confines. “Even if it’s not a demon, which I seriously doubt, I’m getting bored.”
“What makes you so sure it's not a demon?”
“Just a feeling I’ve got. Call it my godly intuition .”
“ Right," Soul snorts. "Intuition. More importantly—” He’s all too eager to change the subject. “I wanted to ask you for birthday gift ideas for Tsu. What sorts of things does she like?”
“Dude.” Brax cracks the egg with nothing more than his bare fingers, letting its gooey contents ooze onto the surface of the griddle. “You did her back tattoo. You don’t need to get her anything.”
“The tattoo was a paid service, not a gift,” Soul scoffs. “Tell me what she likes so I don't have to show up empty-handed on Friday.”
“You sweet on her or something?” Brax replies. “You know she has a girlfr—”
“Satan's balls, no! I'm not sweet on her or anything!” Soul groans. “She invited me to her birthday party, so I want to get her a goddamned gift! Why is that so weird to you?”
It’s an effort to keep his voice low— low because it’s the asscrack of dawn and he’s fucking exhausted , and also because he doesn’t want to wake the neighbors that he and Brax share paper-thin walls with . He may be a demon, but he’s not a complete dick.
“I don’t know man, cause I didn’t even know y’all were like… friends?” Brax says. He cracks another egg onto the griddle.
“Yeah, well, me neither,” Soul huffs. “Hence the reason why I need gift ideas from you.”
“Alright, alright,” Brax relents. “Uhhh, lessee…” He brings the spatula thoughtfully to his chin and pauses, taps it a few times as his brows scrunch together in concentration. “Well, Tsubaki really likes tea, and plants, and cute stationery to practice calligraphy on. She’s got a lot of hair and she’s always styling it, so like maybe a fancy comb or something? Or hair clips. Stuff like that. She’s not all that hard to buy for.”
“Fancy tea, stationery, and hair clips,” Soul repeats. “I think I can work with that. Thanks.”
“No sweat.”
At that moment, Blair, who had more or less peacefully fallen asleep in Soul’s arm, stirs impatiently, twisting urgently in his hold as she wakes up from her slumber. He doesn’t fight her as she wrests herself from his grip, as she leaps down to the floor and heads right for the fridge. She turns to him with an expectant meow.
“Yeah, yeah, I know you’re hungry. Give me a sec.” Soul pushes his way past Brax, opens the fridge, and fixes her dinner like he has a thousand times before— a mixture of wet cat food and fresh tuna from the fridge, and she yowls at his feet in excitement the entire time he’s mixing it, follows his steps out of the kitchen so eagerly he nearly trips over her as he goes to set her bowl down in the spot by the porch window where she eats.
“What about you, man?” Brax calls from the kitchen. “Are you gonna eat?”
“Nah,” Soul shrugs, cracking his neck and rolling his shoulders. Sometimes, after a long shift, he’ll cook up some stir fry or pasta or whatever he’s got laying around— but he doesn’t need to eat, and besides, the concentrated dose of physical pain from finishing the colorwork on Tsubaki’s stag has him so heavily satiated he’s drowsy. “I’ve got a hot date with my bed. Good luck with the cult stuff.”
“Thanks, though I’m sure I won’t need it,” Brax laughs. “Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone. If you get into any trouble I won’t be around to save your ass.”
“As if I’ve ever needed you to save my ass to being with!” Soul hollers, but there’s not as much bite in it as he’d like— he’s struggling to stay awake as he staggers toward his bedroom.
“There’s a first time for everything!” Brax yells, and Soul hates the smugness in his voice. “Good night, Soul!
He would slam his bedroom door shut to make a point, but he elects instead to leave it open just a crack so that Blair can slip in once she’s done with her meal. Clumsily, he goes through the motions of undressing— tugging off his shirt and unbuttoning his jeans. He’s barely pulled on a pair of clean sweatpants before he collapses into his bed, crashing into the mattress face-down with a sigh.
Shedding his glamour is almost an afterthought as his eyelids flutter shut— it's like a second skin he’s grown so used to these days, he often forgets to take it off. He’s too tired to even wince at the pressure of his horns emerging from his scalp or the pinching sensation of his tail erupting from the end of his spine. He runs his tongue absently over his teeth, feeling the flats sharpen into points in real time. A few rays of neon-yellow sunlight seep from around the edges of the blackout curtains on his windows, and Soul glares as he squints against the light.
“ Mraaaaaah~?”
Blair’s glowing amber eyes peer up at him from the foot of his bed, her head cocked to the side curiously and her tiny little forked tongue licking the remnants of her meal from her lips.
“We’re both full and ready for a nap, huh?” He chuckles, and he rolls over onto his back in bed, because he knows exactly what his cat wants. “Come on. Let’s go to sleep.”
He doesn’t have to tell her twice. She leaps up from the floor and lands primly upon his chest, her little paws soft and impossibly light. Soul strokes at her fur as she settles, as she snuggles happily against his bare skin, and the low rumble of her purring is potently soothing, lulling him swiftly to sleep.
If this is all there is to his life, he thinks as he drifts off, he’s happy. A quiet, uneventful life on Earth, making art and snuggling with his cat. Most demons would probably scoff at him, at his choice to masquerade as one of the humans and live peacefully amongst them. It's not without its struggles— he’s not immune to his demonic urges, after all— but for the most part, he’s found a way to coexist. To satisfy the hunger constantly clawing at the insides of his chest, to quiet that deep, primal voice within him that begs for pain, for pleasure, for stimulation of some kind, without hurting anyone, despite his infernal nature.
Despite everything, he’s happy.
He falls asleep to the feeling of Blair’s gentle purring and the sounds of the city outside his window as it wakes up, and the last coherent thought in his head is that he wouldn’t trade this life for anything.