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Husk stared at the long dull talons of his fingers. They were yet another chafing punishment that his Hell form had saddled him with. It had taken ages just to learn to use the fucking things after he’d manifested in Hell, but there were some things even practice couldn’t regain. He’d just had another reminder that his sense of touch with them was all but gone.
He had no sensitive fingertips. Playing cards and poker chips had to be managed just so in order to keep them under control. Picking up a coin from a table was a challenge. Holding a glass was an act of carefully applied pressure and balance. Sensations of heat or cold were dulled down so that he’d learned to touch a knuckle to his coffee cup before attempting to imbibe.
Being blind to the sensation of surfaces under his new fingers had been one of the hardest things he’d had to acclimate to in this new form. Meanwhile, the sensitivity of signals received by his skin had grown exponentially in comparison. Every follicle of the pelt of fur that covered him burned with furious awareness at the smallest provocation. The slightest movement of the air would set the nerves of his skin aflutter with unwanted signals.
Everything that directly touched him was information roaring into his brain. Thanks to that, most clothing made him want to tear himself to ribbons if he had to bear it for very long.
In life, Husk had retreated from nearly all human contact, fleeing into drunken numbness from any touch he didn't reach for first. He’d been able to make cards and dice alike dance with nothing but a sensitive, nuanced touch.
In death, he was punished by his body being too sensitive to the world around him and further cursed that he couldn’t feel any sensation that his bladed digits sought. Years of effort returned some of his sleight of hand prowess but attempting to manage the overwhelming responses from his overwrought hairy skin’s senses left him perpetually (and literally) exposed and uncomfortable.
He was forsaken. He was wretched. And he deserved it, didn’t he? He’d dug his own grave, one spiteful failure at a time. Now he had to lie in it and feel his body scream with the slightest stimulation while the feeling in his fingers was silenced.
Husk had learned to grudgingly accept his new form, but he was a long way from embracing it. Today he realized that perhaps he never fully would, and as with most things these days, it was because of Alastor.
Drowning this particular self hatred: the loss of his fingers’ touch, had been sort of manageable. It had been, until it wasn’t. Of course it was Alastor (stupid, wonderful, utterly maddening Alastor) that was the cause of Husk’s rediscovery of the painful lack.
Alastor had, for nearly their whole acquaintance, been prone to seizing, rumpling, and abusing Husk’s hyper-reactive coat in his greedy hands. Husk had always assumed that it was his reactions and inability to suppress them under the mind-splitting duress that Al had enjoyed. In the beginning, that might have even been true.
Eventually though, Al had somehow done the unthinkable and fallen in love. Even less probable, he’d managed to fall for Husk, of all demons!
Husk, caught up in his bottomless self-hatred, had been blind to every awkward sign. He’d had to be told, and with the knowledge came a shocked scrutiny of decades of things he’d thought were Alastor’s eccentricities.
He’d pondered the strangeness, of course. Long, considering glances. Oddly worded fond statements. Nonsensical lingering touches. They all added up to a stunning whole in the shape of Al’s twisted heart, and Husk scarcely trusted himself to figure out what to do with it. The whole of Hell might as well be stood upside down.
The touches were the most alarming, in their own way. Alastor’s covetous hands had become more hesitant and gentle before he’d revealed his folly. Their grasp had changed to an appreciative caress instead of a possessive crush. Husk had noticed the difference, but had chalked it up to Alastor finding a new way to mock him.
Who could look at a reclusive, hairy monstrosity like Husk and see something loveable? (Alastor, apparently.)
Alastor had seen something in Husk that Husk didn’t quite believe in for himself. Alastor seemed to almost hunger with the desire to find that unnamed something, and to touch it! His growing need to reach down and embrace that thing that huddled like a miserable, starving alleycat in the dumpster of Husk’s soul was broadcast with every glance and each word that the Radio Demon gave his awed companion.
He was sincere! Had Alastor ever been sincere about anything but cooking and spilling blood? How was a demon meant to make sense of it?
The situation had become more serious, and in a way Husk had never anticipated. They were in Husk’s office, sharing a drink to mark their third timorous attempt at a relationship. From beside him on the worn loveseat, Al bowed his head and did the unthinkable. He sat aside his own massive ego and desires, asking Husk for permission to touch him instead of taking the action as if it were his right.
It was a watershed moment. It, more than any pretty words or outrageous boons, convinced the thunderstruck Husk that there was truly more to Al’s chaotic but sincere attempts at affection than Husk had ever dared to believe.
Alastor hated asking for anything. It was something that they’d discovered they had in common. It was ironic, really. Al would beg forgiveness a million times before ever even considering asking permission for anything. As for Husk, he would drown himself in bitterness a million and one times before ever admitting that he wanted for something.
And yet, here they were: a matched set of dumbasses. It was enough to make a demon walk downstairs and bet all of his chips on an imminent cold snap in damnation. Alastor, with those beautifully shaped, deadly hands of his, was asking to be allowed to reach out and embrace Husk’s fur and feathers.
Even though the idea made Husk’s skin crawl with nervous anticipation, he agreed. Al’s long fingers uncurled from his palms and he reached out. The obvious caution and hesitation in those gloved hands was able to quiet the nerves writhing in Husk’s body. Alastor combed through the thick ruff of fur at the side of Husk’s head, curling his digits against the cat demon’s jawline.
The slow, careful motion was luxurious. It made Husk’s heart stumble and his lungs seize. This! Oh, by the Almighty One, THIS! Had he ever existed before this exact moment?
This touch was an unexpected rain shower, blooming the desert with bright, lively flowering plants instead of scorching it with merciless sun! How? Was it magic? Was it the gloves? Had Alastor cast a spell that made Husk’s overwrought nervous system equalize itself into a sort of normalcy?
Husk’s own hand reached up in response to the exquisite feeling of warmth. The edges of his dull claws stroked and then pressed against the side of Alastor’s head.
The momentary spell of crystalline delight was broken. Pinpricks of uncomfortable stimulation began to rustle against the chimera’s skin.
There was no feeling but surface pressure against Husk’s talons. Alastor’s skin could have been baby-soft or coarse with shaving stubble, for all that Husk could perceive. The long sidelocks caught between Al’s cheek and Husk’s claw tips felt like nothing. A cold pit of loss opened up in a despairing wail from the bottom of Husk’s soul.
Husk froze in place, staring at his hand and mourning his many woeful inadequacies. He wasn’t permitted to share in this. He wasn’t deserving. He was like the cracked leather of the seat beneath them: busted.
Alastor’s bright smile faded as Husk closed himself off once more. What had happened to the joy that had been greeting the wonderful new level in their companionship? Had he taken things too far, too fast, once more?
Husk watched Al’s ears as they twitched forward and back in alert concern for whatever had just unfolded. What did they feel like, he asked himself in despair? Al’s long, beautiful fingers pulled back and withdrew. Both the anxious static agitating the cat demon’s senses and the last dregs of pleasantly bubbling cider warmth left with them.
“Husker? Have I offended you?”
Husk’s heart lodged in his throat at the cautious waver in the Radio Demon’s voice. He swallowed it back and closed his eyes against the disappointment in Alastor’s stare.
“It’s not you, Al. It’s me.”
His hand fell from Alastor’s face. There was no point in holding it there anymore. It was a useless appendage, and it told him nothing that he wanted to know.
“Husker?!” Alarm rose with the tone of Alastor’s voice.
“I’m too broken for this, Al. I can’t even touch you and feel anything.”
“Can’t feel...?!” Alastor’s radio filter went off the air with a sharp pop. Husk shook his head at the noise, long ears trailing behind.
“These garbage excuses for monster hands..! I can’t feel anything with them. Look at my damned fingers, Al. They’re fucking claws. They don’t work for this kind of shit. They feel resistance, but that’s just about it. They ain’t meant for touching and feeling.”
An abrupt bray of relieved laughter was the last thing Husk expected to hear. Al’s arms slid around the startled chimera’s buzzing shoulders in a loose embrace, leaning on Husk for support. His giggling voice was that of a stranger when he spoke again.
“Cher, you took decades off my afterlife! I thought you said that I made you feel nothing!” Alastor’s mouth stretched in an off-kilter grin. “Love, don’t you treat my ol’ ego so poorly, eh?”
Husk’s ears perked forward, startled by the sound of Alastor’s voice. It wasn’t merely the lack of affected accent and tinny filter, there was something utterly raw in the words. Something that had been hidden to him before this moment.
“Al?” The name was a half-frightened squeak. Before Husk could repeat it, the arms around his shoulders retreated until Alastor’s careful hands were lightly clasping the stunned chimera’s shoulders.
It was still Alastor that was sitting beside Husk. The familiar sight of his face made the voice that it emitted stranger. “Don’t you worry no more. You’re priceless as you are, my Husker.”
Before Husk could gather his wits and retort, Al’s palms were sliding down his arms, leaving sweet cinnamon warmth kindling in their wake before releasing him. Al’s left hand came up to clasp the right. Before Husk’s startled eyes the glove on it was loosened and pulled free. The startling color of the bloodstained flesh made it difficult to look away from the bared palm.
Alastor’s hands caught Husk’s own. For a moment, Al seemed content to examine the fearsome talons of the chimera’s right hand in silence. His short claw-like nails traced Husk’s larger ones in rapt curiosity.
Then, to Husk’s breathless shock, Al ran his thumb across the heart-shaped pad of his palm. Tingling champagne sensation spiraled from the depths of Husk’s soul, arching outward from its very anchor. A sharp inhale betrayed his shock, and Alastor’s face split in a wide smirk.
“Seems like you’re not feeling ‘nothing’ now, hm?”
The sound of the Radio Demon’s voice was sinful delight: dark chocolate washed by an aged Portuguese dry wine. It was a singularly compelling, almost tawny Sound. It left Husk thirsting for more like no alcohol ever had.
His body, meanwhile, might as well have faded from existence except for his right hand. Alastor’s bare fingers traced over Husk’s newly sensitive palm, plunging into the darkly-masked fur that surrounded the heart-shaped pad. There, they scratched lightly through the fur to reawaken nerves and awareness beyond it.
Husk managed a ragged breath. Al’s pointed nails traced the shapes of the bones under his furry skin. The feeling was too much, wasn’t it? Or was it just enough, slicing past the vigilant follicles of his hide to ever-so-gently embrace the stiff balls of his knuckles? His senses had doubled down on utter starstruck confusion and left the cat demon with no thoughts of his own but astonishment.
Alastor leaned in and pulled Husk’s hand toward his mouth. He angled the fearsome paw so that it was Husk’s claw-like fingers, just below the effervescent confusion of his fur-covered knuckles, that met the Radio Demon’s lips. The kiss lasted long enough that pleasant, warm tingles began to register in the muted feeling that Husk still had in the digits.
“You always say that you got to play the hand you’re dealt.” Al’s voice was creeping back toward its familiar register, but the playful tilt of something secret was still there. “I’ve seen you use these remarkable hands more cleverly than demons with five times as many limbs to their name. You do something for me, hm? I’m asking, Husker. You take them and that insidiously adroit brain of yours, and you find some loopholes.”
Alastor straightened. Husk’s shaking hand was pulled back to Al’s smiling face. The bare flesh of Husk’s palm was pressed against the sharp rise of the Radio Demon’s cheek. A more pronounced transatlantic drawl was in his voice again now, and oceans of blood-drenched mischief were sparkling in his eyes.
“Dealers choice, my darling wildcard. Pick your target and try again.”
The buoyant sensation of Alastor’s playful grin widening to a fond, if shark-like, sharpness beneath his palm teased a soft huff of a laugh from Husk’s mouth.
“Again?”
Al winked at him from behind his monocle. “I insist. Once more, with feeling!”
Husk’s fingers, claws and all, flexed into the fall of Alastor’s sidelocks. The long hair slid through the long toothed comb of his talons. The strands whispered past the waiting fur, readily filling the interdigital space with bewitching newness.
Oh- he could feel them! The sensitive webbing between his vicious talons almost sang with the intriguing new texture that caressed his skin!
Al’s ears flicked at the soft mutter Husk made, unwittingly marking themselves as the next goal. Both hands reached now, palms plunging through the mass of Alastor’s hair to discover the exotic landscape of his scalp. Long claws surfaced like breaching whales in a sea of luxurious, flossy scarlet.
The transition from hair to fur grazed a deep kiss along Husk’s palms, teasing his ill-prepared nerves. The cat demon’s mouth fell open with shock at the unexpected revelation.
“Enjoying yourself, are you?”
Husk’s eyes flicked from the entrancing fluffy wonderland of Al’s ears to the half-lidded, droll amusement of his eyes before returning. The back of his furred hand was stroked along this seamless border before brushing down along the hairline once again. It was the same fluffiness, but it felt different as the hair glided past his fur-cloaked skin! Oh! And what of the skin? Husk moved his paw again, this time to greet the bare surface of the Radio Demon’s forehead. He paused there again, thinking.
Fur-covered knuckles rolled across the faint deathmark there, tracing the end of Alastor’s mortal life with insistent sense-drunk fervor. Was there a difference in the feeling of the skin? Slowly, carefully, Husk’s claws uncurled from his palm. With feather-soft gentleness, one dull-edged talon slid back through the overhanging forelock that shaded Al’s face.
Husk stared at the blemish, heart pounding in disbelief. When had he decided to reach for that? He shouldn’t have touched it. Of all the things that the perpetually buttoned-up Alastor might object to being explored, the deathmark had to be up the list. That sort of thing was the kind of personal that went past one’s physical body to be rooted in the core of one’s soul!
“My, my…” Al’s voice teetered on the edge of something raw again, easily intimated as alarmed or even frightened. “Your boldness surprises me, my dear Husker. To think you’d go for the proverbial jugular!” The way he shifted his weight almost sounded like his feet were nervously pawing the weathered floor.
If that was a hint, Husk was only too glad to take it. His hands were in motion, sliding down the sides of Alastor’s face. Alastor’s head tilted obligingly to the side, the ropey tendons of his neck guiding Husk’s palms to come to rest above the demon’s throat. The flutter of Al’s pulse flickered bashfully, just above the top seams of his tall collar!
“”I dare say it feels as though you’d like to strangle me,” Alastor twittered from beneath the large palms.
“I won’t pretend I haven’t had the odd daydream about it” Husk replied, his mouth set on automatic. He felt reckless. His Luck had held so far, why not go all in and risk the pot? Al had asked for this, after all! “What, you think you can show me how to use this hypersensitive hellflesh to my advantage for once, and expect me to just stop?”
Alastor’s hands trapped Husk’s own, pulling them away from his neck. His tone was still strained when he replied. “I trust you implicitly, Husker. I’ve discovered that I don’t trust myself. Not yet, at least. Is there something else you could try, love? Something a little less… potentially hazardous? Ha… I’m afraid my fight or flight response tends to favor violence over avoidance. I know you love a gamble, but-“
Husk blinked at the way Alastor’s speech see-sawed away into awkward silence. A little curl of something golden and warm quivered in the deepest part of his soul. His Al was not a demon who gave others much thought, as a rule.
Was he making Husk an exception?
He bit the inside of his cheek to stop the stupid, heart-dazzled smile that wanted to spill across his face like a fumbled deck of cards. He couldn’t let on that he’d had such a dippy thought.
“An exception? Husker, I consider you to be truly exceptional!”
Husk’s wings puffed open with surprise. Had he said that shit out loud? He fucking must have, if Al was answering him! He made to retreat, only to be held fast by Alastor’s grip on his wrists. His tail curled against his thigh, the feathered tip twitching in alarm. He was stuck fast! Al wasn’t going to let him flee from his embarrassment!
The chimera’s brows pulled low over his narrowed eyes. He was too flustered to think rationally, and his heightened pulse made his gambling instincts yearn to battle. He’d push his Luck if Al was going to make this kind of wager! If flight was out, then fight it was. Alastor wanted him to try something else? Fine. He had an entire body full of hypersensitive nerve endings to use against the guy.
The whiskers flexing annoyance from either side of his nose caught his attention, and Husk nearly purred.
Before Alastor had the chance to do more than register the change in Husk’s demeanor, the cat demon was leaning in, brushing the stiff bristles of the delicate sensory hairs across the Radio Demon’s face. The garbled static noise that Al made was pure, stunned confusion. He froze in place, grin jagged and surprised.
The tips of Husk’s feathered eyebrows stroked carefully across the curve of Alastor’s cheekbones next, dancing in a gentle arch down his jaw. Husk’s eyes were aglow with triumph when he raised his face to meet the stunned demon’s gaze.
“I’ve got the high card in this game, Al. I think you’d better fold.”
He’d bamboozled himself, Alastor decided, stunned at the turnaround. He thought that he’d captured Husker, but instead he’d only sealed his own fate.
What a fate, though! Being on the receiving end of Husk’s victorious (and excitingly predatory) leer was the kind of entertainment that he’d never expected to discover. He could be incinerated down to the bones by that look and not complain! What was Husker planning to do? Was his end game a kiss? An enveloping embrace by the outswept wings that were closing in on him?
He forgot to hold on to Husk’s hands, and the chimera’s claws threaded their way past Alastor’s temples to tilt his face downward. The wings surrounded him, enshrouding him in a teasing prison. Husk pressed forward, bumping his forehead gently against the Radio Demon’s own, just below the deathmark. What sort of enchanting ritual was this?
Husk’s hands slid through his captive’s hair, curling below Alastor’s jaw to guide him into position. The Radio Demon closed his eyes as Husk’s shining gaze filled his vision.
Husk gently nuzzled his way along Al’s jaw, admiring the trusting presentation of his neck. The guy did things to him, he could admit it. Well, he could admit it in the privacy of his own head, at least. And maybe somehow, he did things to Alastor, too? It was hard to imagine Al willingly offering his throat - clothed or bare- to just anyone. This was a rarity; something precious that made the old gambler’s heart twist a little in amazement at the odds.
He really wanted to shove his cold, damp nose into the little hollow just below the guy's jaw and laugh at the ensuing Chaos. Or he could give Al’s face a startling lick with his sandpapery tongue. That was a good gag, too.
He was going soft, Husk decided as he pressed the side of his face against Alastor’s. He was going soft and damned if he could figure out how an overgrown gremlin the likes of Al was doing it to him.
Maybe there was something to be said for soft, though. Soft swallowed up the numbness and the hyperactive sensitivity alike, leaving enjoyable, ticklish new sensations behind that Husk hadn’t ever anticipated.
He could use what he had. There was always a way to play the hand you’d been dealt. Sensitive fingers weren’t capable of what Husk needed anymore. He’d hold onto this softness with all the vicious strength he had in those long, terrible claws.