Work Text:
Slivers of pinkish/orange light cascaded into the radio demon’s home, where Husk and Alastor were soundly asleep, curled up near one another. The deer slowly began to open his eyes as he naturally had a tendency to wake up earlier in the mornings to get ready for his radio broadcasts. As his eyes opened though, he found himself distracted by his furry companion. Husk was gently dozing off, his paw lazily draped around the deer’s waist. His wings were tucked in behind him as his front faced the deer. Alastor huffed a gentle smile. He always loved the early hours, the unguarded moments where the slightest of smiles would cross the ordinarily sour cat’s face, purring about who knows what in his dreams. But as much as he wanted to stare at Husk for the rest of the morning, he really did need to get to work. With that thought, Alastor quietly attempted to move Husk’s paw from his waist and slipped out of bed.
The cat’s purring stopped abruptly. Husker’s eyes blinked open and he yawned, his massive teeth glistening in the morning hellish sun.
“I’m sorry for waking you, dear” Alastor quietly whispered while gently scratching Husk’s chin. Closing his eyes again, Husk just scooched forward and started to wrap both paws around the deer again, his face pressing against Al’s stomach.
Alastor gently chuckled. “You know how this goes dearest. Pentagram City doesn’t wake up until I give out the morning news.”
Husk’s hold didn’t let up. “This City never sleeps and you know it” the cat grumbled. “Besides who wants to hear the same Cab Calloway jingle at 6 am…”
At first, the deer was slightly offended. Who wouldn’t want to hear Cab Calloway first thing in the morning?! But then the more Alastor thought about it, his heart swelled at the thought of Husk actually groggily waking up to hear his daily morning broadcasts.
Alastor gently gave Husk another pat before getting up. “Well at least I know I have one dedicated fan of the morning news.”
Just as Alastor smugly turned around, something solid and fluffy hit his back.
The deer demon whipped his head around and saw the cat demon had quickly pretended to go back to sleep, just as a pillow hit the ground. Alastor grinned. So that’s how he wanted to play.
He gleefully grabbed a pillow and just as he was about to land a hit on the cat, Husk rolled over to dodge the hit and grabbed the other cushion on the bed.
“Oh no you don’t you red bastard!” the cat demon playfully swatted Alastor with his fluffy black pillow.
“Says the one who decided to throw an object at an innocent man!” Alastor jabbed back. “Innocent my furry ass!” Husk quipped as he hurled another cushion.
However, as soon as Husk’s pillow made contact with Alastor’s side, a single feather suddenly popped out from the casing. Husk paused and the two just comically stared at the small, a distinctly familiar red, downy thing fluttering on top of the bed. Husk glared directly at the deer.
“You’ve gotta be shitting me.”
“Husker, clearly no one is defecating.”
“You’ve been using my feathers as pillows?!?!”
Alastor tried to make grabby hands at the said damaged pillow. “You said you never cared about what use I had for your excess fur and feathers in the past!”
Husk offendedly started gathering all the pillows closer to himself. “The voodoo dolls: fucked up, but I knew about. But this??? I’ve been sleeping on these!!”
“But you always sleep so soundly with these pillows!”
Husk just scowled at the deer and Alastor deeply sighed. “Look, I only use the feathers you drop or discard for certain pieces of bedding. And besides, as much as I would like to use all of them, Niffty keeps telling me I can’t use every feather for all of my pillows!”
“Niffty’s been in on this too???”
“Do I look like a little housewife that can sew to you? And don’t answer that question.”
Husk couldn’t believe it.
“So all these pillows are just stuffed with my feathers?? And you were never going to tell me?”
“Well what’s the point in telling you if you said you never cared about the discarded feathers?”
Husk shook his head, turning to leave. It was way too early for this bullshit.
“…you know what? Your beloved fans are probably waiting for your newscast.”
Sometimes Husk had the patience to explain common decency to the deer, but this morning? The mental gymnastics Alastor did sometimes made Husk grimly realize how selfish Al could be.
Husk quietly looked at the pillow and then trailed his gaze gloomily to the offending feather. It’s not like he wanted to constantly be hit in the face with how little agency he had on his own body. Husk’s ears suddenly perked up towards some noise coming from the other demon.
“I mean I…”
Husk looked searchingly up at the deer. For a moment it looked like Alastor was going to say something but then he quickly shut his mouth.
The deer turned away, attempting to look anywhere but Husk, while still nervously clutching the pillow.
“I just…wanted to feel your presence when you weren’t around.” Alastor’s shoulders hunched. “It’s rather difficult for me to sleep when you aren’t near me. That’s why I asked her to make the pillows.”
Husk’s ears perked up in surprise, with his eyes widening.
He was way too soft for this.
Husk gently placed his paws over the deer’s nervous hands on the pillow. He definitely wasn’t happy with the explanation, but…at least the reasoning came from a somewhat good place. The cat knew at this point he was never going to get any sort of normal reasoning from the cannibalistic, murderous stag.
“Please just tell me the next time you’re going to do something like make bedding out of my excess fur and feathers” the chimera sighed, and after a pause, chuckled a tired but affectionate smile, “…you crazy bastard.”
Alastor looked up, smiling and gently tilted his head towards Husk’s forehead, closing his eyes.
“Of course, dear heart.”