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Hastur ran down the hall to Ligur's room. He barged in without knocking, because he was a demon.
"Ligur! Ligur! Wake up!" yelled Hastur. "It is spring!"
"Who cares?" said Ligur. "Every day down here in Hell is the same."
Ligur was lying in the corner under a small mountain of unfiled paperwork. His lizard looked gray and sad and droopy. The room smelled clean and fresh. It was terrible.
"It's spring!" repeated Hastur. "Everyone is ready to sin. We will tempt priests and encourage wrath and send souls to Hell. And in the evenings, we will sit by the pond and catch flies with our tongues."
He licked his lips. A loud, angry buzzing sound filled the air. It made Hastur's head hurt. He changed his mind about the flies.
"Um. Crickets. Lots of crickets too. Much tastier than flies. Crunchy."
A cricket demon somewhere chirped indignantly. But it was not scary like Lord Beelzebub, so he ignored it for now. He would find it later and eat it.
"I don't care," said Ligur. "It is dark and warm and safe in here. If I leave, there might be holy water."
"But Ligur! You'll miss all the fun!"
"Leave me alone."
"You've been down here since you came back to life in August. Don't you want to lurk and frighten people and make them sin?"
"No. Go away."
"I don't want to go away!" Hastur stamped his foot and pouted. He did not want to go away. He did not want to corrupt priests and eat bugs without Ligur. It was no fun lurking by himself.
"Fine. If you won't go away, then tell me a story."
Hastur did not know any stories to tell Ligur. He had no imagination and he did not want one. Only Crowley had one of those, and look what it had gotten him. Tight trousers and personal hygiene and an angel. No thank you.
Ligur was worth a hundred silly angels.
But Ligur wanted a story, so Hastur was going to try to find one for him. How hard could it be? Stories came out of your head. Hastur thought about pouring a glass of water on his head to make a story come out, but that might upset Ligur, so he did not.
He banged his head against the wall instead. Something rattled around in his skull. Maybe that was the story. He banged his head some more. It hurt and made his wig fall off. His frog nearly fell off too. It dangled from his ear by one pointy claw.
There was still no story. He stuck his tongue out and licked the wall. It tasted like rotten bananas and old socks, but not like a story.
His tongue was stuck to the wall. He tipped his head back to try to unstick it. He walked backwards. His tongue stretched and stretched and stretched like bubble gum until it came loose with a loud POP!
"Ow," said Hastur. He tried to stuff his tongue back into his mouth. And then he forgot all about it, because Ligur was sitting up and laughing.
Hastur's mouth fell open and his tongue unrolled and hit the floor. His frog made a surprised ribbit sound.
Ligur laughed harder. His lizard turned a bright, happy orange.
Hastur laughed too.
"Budge over," he said. He dug a comfortable hole in the pile of paperwork and burrowed in next to Ligur on the floor. The papers crinkled noisily under them. Dagon would be angry, but Dagon was always angry about something. Ligur was happy, and that was the important part.
His frog made a frog noise. Ligur's lizard made a pleased lizard noise in response. They bumped heads.
Later they would get up and go up to Earth. It was spring, and there were mud puddles to jump in and politicians to corrupt and bugs to eat. It was a funny old world up there, full of things that were better to do together.