Archive of Our Own

Loona wakes up with a mouth like ash and a head full of tequila and regret.

At least, she assumes it’s tequila. Swollen tongue, throbbing pain behind the right eye, back and forth pitching sensation akin to seasickness, ceiling expanding and contracting above her, glo-in-the-dark stars spinning. All the symptoms are consistent.

A knock on the door now. Pain in her right eye expands to her left. Blitz’s morning go-getter voice. More pain, creeping into more locations. Fumbling on the side table for her phone. Not there. Peeling back the covers—sticky. Her cute red number with the pentagram on the chest—ruined. She sniffs it. Yep. Beneath the vomit: syrup, agave. Tequila.

She casts around for her phone. Not on the floor. Not attached to the charging cable. She checks under the bed, but it’s not there either. Just a few mouldy mozzarella sticks in a styrofoam dish and a guitar in a battered case, rarely played.

Another knock from Blitz. Louder now. Work in ten minutes. M&M already hanging around outside, twiddling their thumbs impatiently. Reluctantly calling off the search for now and stepping into the bathroom. Mouthwash, two pills, four pills. Gargling them all together and swallowing. A pause to keep it all down. Extractor fan droning above her. Hands on the sink to steady herself. Rubbing lidocaine into the bloody gash on her lip. No idea how that got there. Could have been a door or a fist. Doesn’t matter right now. Feeling the numbness spread.

Stockings uneven but no time to fix them. Bra fished out of the laundry basket. Crumpled and sagging but doesn’t smell too bad. Rake back hair with fingers, then attempt eyeliner, badly. Boil the kettle and flip a finger at Blitz when he makes a show of tapping the glass face of his watch. Tip half a pot of freeze-dried coffee granules into a keep-cup and jam on the lid, then follow him out the door. Snap at Moxxie when he makes a snide comment. Growl at Millie when she jumps to his defence. Get in the van. Plug in earbuds. Then remember she has no phone, and stifle a groan into her knees.

An hour later now, and she’s sprawling over her desk with her head in her hands. 

Her headache is abating, but it still feels like someone’s emptied an ashtray into her mouth and then pissed. The others are out, deleting humans and taking selfies, and she’s got nothing to do but sift through her memories from last night. There aren’t many. She remembers taking a cab to the party, maybe about half eight. No, nine. It took her thirty minutes to get one because her rating is so low, no one wants her in their car. She was grumpy with the driver who eventually showed up for being late. She had her phone then, for sure. The party itself is a blank, but she can imagine how it went. How it always goes. Bee, onstage, twisting and posing. Everyone around her cheering. Loona, standing on the sidelines, her mouth clamped shut to avoid ingesting any of the snowdrift of creepy candy that makes everyone go gooey-eyed. Passing over the cups of Beezeljuice that they inhale like air itself. Watching them take off to a new plane without her, leaving her behind. Noticing how their outfits change with each passing week, and how hers remains the same. The red number is the only decent thing she owns, and now it is fucked beyond repair. The way, once the song is finished, that Bee glides down to where Tex and her are standing. The way she plants a kiss on his cheek. The way he looks at her that makes Loona feel like death on two legs. Then Bee’s attention suddenly on her, raking her from head to toe, grinning and saying something like, ‘Love the outfit, Savage,’ or, ‘Looking fierce tonight!’ The very model of insincerity. It makes the tips of Loona’s ears burn. Her face flush with heat. Loona looks like shit and no one would ever pretend otherwise. Then grabbing a bottle—sambuca, rum, tequila, whatever’s handy—and drowning herself until she can’t think or feel or even stand.

The rational part of her wonders why she keeps showing up, to these parties, which take so much out of her, and the irrational part answers. Whipped dogs always return to their masters.

How did she get home without a phone? Did someone call her a taxi? Or did she call one herself and then lose it en route? It’s hard to think of all the different possibilities with her head pounding like it is. She fancies the alcohol has altered her brain chemistry in such a way that it’s made her hypersensitive to even to most simple of stimuli. Like all the neurotransmitters have piled up in her synapses: nanoscopic trucks on a freeway. Things flash and go pop in her peripheral vision, making her hyper-aware of her immediate environment. Her brain feels like it’s capable of picking up extraterrestrial impulses. Pull on her tail and she’ll pick up radio. Tweak her ear and she’ll bark the twelve o’clock news.

She jiggles the mouse to wake up her computer, trying to sign in to her Sinstagram on desktop, anything to pass the time, but her 2FA settings require a code sent by text. A quick glance over at the company calendar reveals no that appointments have been scheduled for today, thank Satan, and so she gets off her ass and slinks into the kitchen. 

Rooting around in the cupboard above the fridge yields an old jar of peanut butter, which she attacks with her fingers, scooping out the thick paste and licking them clean like an animal. The empty jar clatters against the wall of the trash can as she pitches it from the other side of the room.

A persistent buzz in her left ear now. Unexpected. Tinnitus is not normally a symptom. It’s loud and very deep, and distant. Almost like it’s coming from outside of herself, not from inside her own brain, with the rest of the tortures. She wiggles her butter-slicked fingers deep into her canals, in a vain attempt at dislodging the sound, but it doesn’t work. If anything it only gets worse. Within a matter of seconds the buzz has become more insistent, almost painfully loud. Suddenly it is accompanied by a rhythmic drumming sound, like the sound of knuckles on glass.

A shadow falls on her. Loona glances to the side. The office kitchen has one window, right above the sink, grimy with mould and soap scum. The refection of her face is visible in the glass, but distorted. All her proportions are slightly out, her colours different, luminous and alive like the iridescent facets of a soap bubble, not grey and flat like the reality.

Except no, it’s not her reflection. It’s Bee, her vixen ears tapering to leaf-like points, wings a blur behind her, knocking on the window. Loona gapes. Bee’s mouth starts to move, forming words, but Loona can’t read them. She starts pointing at the latch, and eventually Loona twigs, knocking over the plates and mugs on the draining board as she scrambles to let her in. Bee glides backwards a few feet and then twists gracefully through the hole, alighting on the linoleum with her wings folded neatly behind her. She uses one pair of hands to fan her face and the other to peel her damp shirt away from her fur, which shimmers with sweat.

‘Holy shit,’ she gasps. ‘I forgot how muggy Pride was. Fuck. I gotta talk to Luci about getting some fucking dehumidifiers up in this bitch.’

The way she speaks, even outside the context of a party—the only context Loona has ever known her in—each word sounds like taffy stretched to its limit, smooth and silky but with a hint of fry, a purr that Loona feels ripple across her chest and at the nape of her neck. Now, its breathy quality amplified by exertion, her chest rising and falling as she gulps down breaths, and the patterns on her belly swirling, mesmerising, like she’s filled with various oils and they’re all slapping about from side to side, occasionally dipping below the band of her shorts, where the fur is a little less kempt, rougher, framing a toned v-line, pronounced and plunging, Loona forgets everything she wants to say. She stands there gaping.

‘Hey, um, I thought you said you worked in an office?’ Bee looks about her with her bottom lip thrust forward. ‘This is like, a dungeon. Well, whatever. Do you think you could rustle me up some water real quick? I’m dry as a bitch gone ten years without a dick, for real.’

‘What are you doing here?’ Loona grabs a glass and overfills it from the sink faucet. Bee gulps it down in one. Loona provides her with another, which goes down just as quickly. Then Bee reaches into her bra and pulls out none other than Loona’s phone. That explains that.

‘This is yours, right?’ she says, handing it over. It’s warm. Loona blushes and quickly secretes it in her back pocket, unwilling to think too hard about how her butt is now in indirect contact with Bee’s boobs. A phantom encounter. A phantom boob-butt encounter of the third kind.

‘You came all the way from Gluttony just to give me my phone?’

Bee shrugs. ‘Most people would say thanks.’

‘Oh, um. Thanks.’ Loona mentally kicks herself. ‘But, seriously, you could have just waited until next week. You didn’t have to go out your way like this.’

Bee folds one pair of arms across her chest and pouts while she inspects her nails. ‘I was in the area.’

There follows a pause which quickly turns awkward. Loona doesn’t know what to say. Eventually Bee clicks her tongue and glances through the door of the kitchen into the office proper.

‘So, this is where you work?’ 

She pokes her head through, and her eyes narrow as her mouth twists into something unreadable. The mundanity of the office is not suitable to act as backdrop to someone like her, Loona feels acutely. A wave of dizziness overcomes her, and she puts her hand out for something to steady herself against, finding the corner of the sink. Bee leans back against the fridge opposite her and watches her expectantly. Loona nods.

‘I know it’s a shithole,’ she says.

‘I didn’t mean that.’ Bee waves a hand. ‘I think it’s cozy. Like, it’s got family business vibes. Seriously.’ She glances at a wall hanging filled with small rectangular photographs: Millie, Moxxie, Blitz, and her.

‘You’re here alone?’

‘Yeah,’ Loona says. ‘The others are topside.’

‘Killing humans?’

‘Killing humans.’

‘Sweet.’ Bee beams. ‘That’s so fucking cool. If it wasn’t like, super illegal.’

Loona shrugs. ‘Depends who you ask.’

‘Huh. Fiery bunch, aren’t you?’

‘I guess.’

‘Fuck. I love that.’ Bee pushes off the fridge and stretches, her back arching. ‘Literally, I love that you don’t give a shit how many laws you break. You could go to ultra prison for literal eternity and it doesn’t stop you from making cool, hard cash. I can’t decide if that’s crazy or beautiful. Or maybe both. Crazi-ful? Beutzy…?’

For a moment she looks lost in thought, as if the invention of this new word is of genuine and all-consuming importance to her.

‘No more illegal than stealing from Bel’s stash,’ Loona remarks in the space that Bee vacates.

‘Hm. Touché.’ Bee pouts and shifts from one paw to the other. ‘So why aren’t you out with them? Not feeling well?’

At this simple and not apparently loaded question, Loona flinches, though she tries her best to cover it by running a hand through her hair. Truth is she may have exaggerated her role in the company to Bee and the rest of the hounds at the party. Might have made it out like she does most if not all of the killing. She doesn’t know how to tell the woman in front of her that all she really does is take phone calls and write invoices, sometimes refill the printer or do a coffee run.

The silence drags on unbroken by hound or Sin or even kitchen appliance. Bee bites her lip.

‘So, um, big party last night,’ she says, changing the subject. ‘Did you have fun?’

‘Um, yeah,’ Loona replies, too quickly, remembering precisely none of it, and simultaneously being sure that she did not enjoy it in the slightest. ‘Yeah, totally.’

‘Hm. Because you seemed kind of out of it.’

‘Did I?’

‘I’d say. I mean, Tex and I had to bundle you into a taxi. D’you remember that?’

‘No,’ Loona says. And then, ‘I mean, yeah. Vaguely.’

Bee nods. Her eyes flick down the length of Loona’s body, and Loona suddenly remembers the uneven stockings, the day-old bra. She flinches a second time, crossing her knees and covering her midriff with her arms, all the while trying to make it look like a natural gesture, like, perhaps she’s just cold? She’s also painfully aware of the state her makeup. Why the fuck didn’t she put on deodorant? She must look a wreck. Not to mention smell. But Bee just hums and says, ‘Loving the combo today, by the way. You look fucking hot, Savage. Why don’t you ever wear that outfit when you come over? Not that I don’t like your red dress, because I do. Like, I really like it. It’s just, you’ve got so much potential, you know? It’s a crime not to let people see that tight pelt.’

She canters forward to playfully swat Loona’s belly, but Loona cringes away.

‘These are my work clothes,’ she says, biting back a flush of embarrassed anger, a torrent of self hatred raw as a freshly slapped cheek.

‘Hot as shit, I’m telling ya.’ Bee shrugs and takes her own phone out of her pocket, unlocking it with a quick gesture of her finger.

‘Oh, hey, I forgot,’ she says, after a moment. ‘I’m fucking starving right now. I haven’t flown that far in months, not since Mammon cancelled my credit card for a prank, the asshole. I couldn’t even buy a tube of foundation until I caught up with his goons. You can’t imagine. And you can forget about taxis. Ugh. But that’s by-the-by. Is there anywhere around here we can grab some lunch? On me, of course. I’m feeling like treating a bitch.’

With the hands of her upper arms framing her face like a high fashion model and her lower pair miming splashing cash from a wad of imaginary bills, Bee seems to resemble Hell’s sweetest sugar mommy. That or a multi-limbed pimp.

‘You don’t have to,’ Loona says, shaking her head vigorously. ‘Really, it’s fine.’

‘No, I insist.’ Bee grabs her wrists and starts to drag her through the main room towards the front door, effectively making her decision for her. ‘Come on, Savage. Indulge me.’

They end up in a diner four blocks east, on the western edge of the so-called gentrified part of Imp City. Bee prattles all the while they walk, a meandering stream of did-you-hears and who-said-whats, talking in and around the various characters at the party and the other deadly sins like she thinks Loona is in any way abreast of Hellish politics. She has worn a large pair of dark sunglasses for the sake of anonymity, but it’s not fooling anyone. Heads swivel as they pass, and Loona feels small and dumpy beside her, like a doleful hunchback designed to increase Bee’s desirability by comparison, as if it could possibly be increased any further.

In the diner, Bee sits them down at a window booth and orders most of the items on the dessert menu. Loona orders a black coffee and a croissant, which she picks at, her stomach still raw and jumpy after the abuse she subjected it to the night before. There is a glass pot of sugar on the table, one of the ones with a metal spout, and rather than using it to sprinkle into her own cup of milky white coffee, Bee instead lifts it and tips it directly into her mouth, guzzling it down like some kind of granulated aperitif. After about ten minutes, an imp waitress arrives with a stack of plates on a trolley, and Bee has her arrange them in a semicircle around her. She attacks first a heap of doughnuts, levering them into her mouth and storing them in her cheeks like a beaver, shivering with bliss.

It occurs to Loona that this is the first time she has properly socialised with Bee in a one-on-one context, and her impressions, in what little time she’s had to gather them, are mixed. I want to be you, I wish people looked at me the way they look at you, I wish I could see you naked, are all things that have gone through Loona’s mind at one point or another. But she also hates her. Or, if hate is too strong a word, then she at least wishes Bee would drop the “I Love Everyone!!1! xD” act when she’s around. Experience has taught her not to trust people when they pay her a compliment, no matter how genuine they may seem at first, and since no one in their right mind would seriously tell her she looks hot right now, with her shoulders hunched and her eyes large as saucers, with only her dead-end job and recycled outfit to recommend her, the only reasonable explanation is that Bee is playing her for a joke. Her insistence on including her in the sphere of people she compliments on a regular basis is painfully transparent, and (it seems to Loona) actually diminishes the value of that praise for everyone else. So, even without an audience of hounds assembled to trade furtive, ironic glances between themselves, the message behind Bee’s words still lands true, making Loona more conscious than ever of her infinite deficiencies.

It’s not even cruel, necessarily, just the kind of sacrifice that a good hostess is expected to make. Loona understands that. Keeping up appearances might be humiliating, but asking Loona to leave outright would be awkward, icky, although it is clearly what everyone at the party is thinking. Bee is handling the situation professionally, by allowing the party to self-select, quietly removing undesirables in such a way that an equilibrium of good vibes and attractive people is maintained. When Tex invited her it was with a sense of hope that she first showed up—hope for a change, to an end to the tepid Lustindr dates and unfulfilling one-night stands that had made up her social life until then. Eventually, she knows, that stock of hope will run out. One day, Loona will look at herself in the mirror, see the fading red of her off-the-rack dress, which never really looked that good to begin with, and imagine all the conversations she will struggle through, the facial expressions she will have to contort herself into in order to express amusement, or surprise, in her effort to mark herself out as a pleasant and decent individual who knows how to have fun, and decide that maybe, just maybe, it is better for everyone if she stays home.

Which altogether culminates in her overwhelming feeling right now, sitting opposite Bee, which is defeat. A grey, heavy sense of defeat. Blacking out is just the excuse Bee needs, the final straw, to tell Loona that she probably shouldn’t come around anymore, that she’s too much of a liability, that she’s totally “killing the vibe”, even when she’s not conscious. As she tears apart pieces of warm pastry like a crow carving up a mouse’s corpse, she notices that in addition to her split lip the knuckles of her right hand have scabbed over. She’s obviously punched something. Or someone. And whatever it was punched back. But she can’t remember what it was, or whom, although (she detects with a grim sense of foreboding) it seems like Bee is about to tell her.

When all the plates have been licked clean (and Loona notices peripherally that she seems no worse for wear for having ingested more than half her body weight in carbs alone), Bee leans back in the imitation leather booth and sighs, looking from left to right. One pair of hands drums a nervous rhythm on the table, ten little soldiers marching in jaunty non-unison, while the others sit in her lap, nervously wringing together.

‘Hey, so, I don’t want to be a bummer or whatever,’ she begins. ‘But . . . do you remember anything from last night?’

Loona takes a slug of coffee and holds it in her mouth, not swallowing. She shakes her head.

Bee hums. She looks uneasy, but also unsurprised. Batting a loose strand of fringe, she steeples her fingers, bouncing the pads off of one another. ‘Well, um. You kinda got into a fight. With, um, Vikki? A fist fight, I mean. With . . . fists.’

‘Oh.’

Loona swallows. Instinctively she brushes the knuckles of her right hand with the fingers of her left, flinching slightly at the sudden sting of pain. She pictures Vikki’s face, her tight curls and red lips, and imagines the delicate cartilage of her snout snapping, and the springy resistance of her nose as Loona’s fist made contact.

Of course it had been Vikki. Who else?

The lingering smell of mildly burnt coffee that pervades the diner suddenly becomes oppressive. Her stomach begins to turn, and Loona pushes her half empty mug away from her.

‘Yeah,’ Bee says, sinking into herself slightly and clearing her throat. ‘It was pretty spectacular. Or at least so I heard. I didn’t actually see it go down. Tex and I were . . . upstairs. Taking a breather, if you know what I mean. But we heard a lot of shouting, and I kind of felt it in my gut, you know? That some vibes had been killed?

‘Anyway, by the time we got downstairs, the others had just about pulled you off each other. You seemed okay, but Vikki was beat up pretty bad. I panicked and called up Bel, and she sent an ambulance, which cost me a fucking ton, lemme tell you. Total overreaction, but I didn’t know what else to do…’

As she describes it, Loona sinks lower and lower into her seat. It doesn’t trigger any specific memories in her, but she can picture how it went down—can hear the insults Vikki had ready for her, which Loona knows she plans ahead of time, and to which Loona always rises. While the others try to keep them veiled, Vikki is always forthright. If she didn’t hate her so much, Loona would almost be impressed by her dedication to the craft. Even after all these years, that hound still has the power to make her feel shitter than shit. Last night she must have pushed her over the edge. Again. But at least it explains the busted lip and bruised knuckles.

‘So, yeah,’ Bee says by way of conclusion, biting the lining of her cheek. ‘Totally not good vibes.’

‘Is she . . . okay?’ Loona feels required to ask. But despite this, it is still a mild relief when Bee nods.

‘Yeah, last I heard. Tex is out checking on her now.’

Loona relaxes slightly, glad that she’s not a murderer in addition to everything else. She bites her lip, knowing exactly what she’s supposed to say next but feeling almost physically sick at the thought. An apology. An acknowledgement of guilt. But in truth she doesn’t feel in the least bit bad for whatever damage she might have inflicted on Vikki. She wishes every bit of it on her and more.

She doesn’t know what Bee makes of her silence, however. Eventually, the Sin clears her throat, and says, with a reticence and foreboding as if peeling back the lid of a can of particularly rancid worms, ‘So, um. You two seem to have some kind of history, maybe?’

‘Yeah.’ Loona’s scoff is reflexive, drawn out of her like a backfiring car.

‘Did you like, date?’

‘What?’ Loona’s lips curl. ‘Fuck no.’

‘Okay, okay,’ Bee raises her hands. ‘Just asking, sorry. I wanna understand, you know? It shook us all up. I haven’t had a party shut down that quickly since . . . Well, to be honest since your Blitz dude went asshole-mode on poor Dennis.’

The various plates on the table jostle as Loona leans forwards and places her head in her hands. Obtuse shapes swim in front of her eyes, like some sort of warped and beige reflection of Bee’s trunk.

‘Honey?’ Bee begins tentatively, leaning closer. ‘Look, honey. I don’t want to overstep any boundaries or anything here, but . . . Are you okay?’

‘Course I am.’

Bee scoffs, her disbelief palpable. ‘Babe, half the time you show up to my parties you get blackout drunk before most people are even tipsy. That’s not normal. I’d have let you stay the night and sleep it off, but it was kind of too awkward with Vikki and everything. In the end I had to send everyone home. I’d hired a whole bunch of fireworks and shit, too. And it rained last night, so they’re all soggy now—’

‘Just get to the point.’ Loona cuts her off. ‘Stop stalling.’

Bee’s jewellery clinks as she tilts her head. ‘What point?’

But by now Loona has heard enough. Or rather, she has realised that she is not in fact strong enough to hear what comes next. She stands up and abruptly slides herself out of the booth, ignoring Bee’s calls for her to come back. Barging her way out through the cafe’s double doors, she storms down the sidewalk, tears stinging at her eyes. Her nails haven’t been cut recently, and so her paws click on the concrete as she careens past clusters of office workers on their lunch breaks, heading who knows where.

At a level crossing, she is forced to wait while a train rolls past, and it is here that she feels a hand close around her wrist. Bee has followed her. 

‘Hey, not cool, Loona.’ 

Bee spins her around, but whatever followup she has planned dies in her throat. She sees the tears streaking Loona’s face, and, after a hot beat of hesitation, drags her into a hug.

Loona shoves her away.

‘Hey!’ Bee staggers back, angry now. ‘What the fuck?’

The train passes, the barriers rise, but the pedestrians lined up on their side do not cross. For a moment it seems as if Bee is about to burst into her true form, but she manages to hold it back, growing about three feet in height before snapping back into place, like an elastic band going taut then releasing. The air around her shivers. ‘You’re being a real asshole right now,’ she growls, jamming a finger into Loona’s sternum. But again Loona bats her away. ‘What’s the big deal?’

‘I got the message,’ Loona says, her voice shaky but insistent. ‘You don’t have to say it.’

‘Say what?’ Bee squares up to her, but no longer trying to initiate any kind of physical contact.

‘I’ll stop showing up. For good. I’ll stop coming.’

For a moment Bee looks confused. Then she twigs, and looks (oddly, Loona thinks) horrified.

‘What? Stop coming to the parties? But—why? What the fuck are you talking about, Loona?’

Loona bites her tongue hard, tasting blood.

‘I know Vikki,’ she says. ‘And she’s not going to step foot in a room with me ever again after last night. It’s her or me, and you’re all gonna choose her. And I don’t blame you.’

‘Choose?’ Bee repeats. ‘Who’s choosing? Seriously, Loona, you’re acting real fucking weird right now. I just told you, she’s okay. Shaken up, but okay. What the fuck’s all this crap about not coming round anymore? You’re literally welcome. I just want to understand why you hate each other so much.’

Loona squeezes her eyes shut. The tears sting, and so she wipes them away with the back of her hand. Bee is applying salt to the wound now by pretending to care. But she can be acerbic too. She takes a deep breath.

‘We both know these parties are just a way for you to draw power from poor suckers who don’t know any better and get them addicted to your creepy booze,’ she spits, ignoring common sense. ‘And when an asshole like me shows up and kills the vibe, you can’t do it. So yeah, pretty fucking clear why you’d want me out.’

The words are out before she can stop them. She watches as a hardness enters Bee’s eyes. Without necessarily meaning to, she appears to have struck a nerve.

‘Um, no,’ the Sin replies. ‘I throw parties because I like throwing parties. Now let me ask you something, Loona. Why do you hate me so much? Is there something I’m doing wrong? Like, am I not good enough for you? Because every week I try and do something bigger and better just to make you smile and every week you just stand there like you’d rather be literally anywhere else. You don’t even dance anymore when I sing. Am I that boring to you? Because I’m trying my fucking hardest to make you like me, and I feel like I’m wasting my time.’

For a moment, there is something almost wounded and childish about her, but also desperately earnest. Loona doesn’t understand it. At best it seems like a ploy to make her feel guilty. She takes a step back.

‘I’m nothing but a cheap laugh for you all, and you know it.’

Again Bee appears confused; pained and confused. Loona watches as she consciously reins herself in, considering her next words.

‘Is this really all because of Vikki?’ she demands. ‘Because I feel like you’re overreacting. Like, massively overreacting.’

‘It’s because of all of you,’ Loona snaps. ‘I know you’re all laughing at me.’

‘No one’s laughing at you!’ Bee’s mouth falls open in a helpless gape. ‘Look, between you and me, I know Vikki is a number one bee-eye-tee-see-aitch, yeah? But her family sponsors a lot of the drinks, and . . . I don’t know. She’s okay, sometimes. It doesn’t matter. You’re talking as if . . . As if no one wants you there.’

‘That’s because they don’t. That’s pretty fucking clear.’

‘And I’m telling you that not true!’ Bee sounds a little desperate now. ‘Tex wants you there. I want you there. Satan be damned, I love seeing you there. And it fucking hurts me when I feel like you’re not having fun. I’m trying everything I know to be your friend, Loona. And I don’t know why it’s not working.’

By now they have amassed a largish gathering of demons. Some have their phones out and are taking videos. Noticing them, Bee grumbles to herself and fishes her sunglasses out of her pocket, then leads Loona away by the arm to a small park recessed from the main street. Though it is little more than a smattering of scraggly trees and a festering pond, it still offers them a little privacy. Bee’s colour has risen, the swirling patterns of her belly reaching as far up as her shoulders and neck. She glances round once more to ensure they are alone, and then lowers her voice, speaking more calmly than before, but no less insistently.

‘Do you know why Tex brought you here in the first place?’ she says, fixing Loona with a dazzlingly sincere gaze. ‘It’s because he wanted to hang out with you. And he wanted us to meet. Because he thought we’d get along. And I think we do. I like you, Loona. I’ve been trying to show you that every week for like, the past three months.’

It’s too much. Loona bites her lip and stares at the ground. A smooth red-and-black caterpillar crawls between her toes. She has an urge to quash it, but resists. ‘I don’t want your pity.’

‘It’s not fucking pity!’ Bee groans. ‘How many ways do I have to say it? Jesus.’

She massages her temples and pinches the bridge of her nose with one of her free hands, as if fighting off a headache.

‘What… What did Vikki say, exactly?’ she asks after a moment, as if trying to sort it all out in her head.

‘I don’t remember.’

‘Bull-shit.’ Bee’s eyes flash gold, her latent power asserting itself.

‘I blacked out,’ Loona insists. ‘You said it yourself. I don’t remember shit from last night, Seriously.’

‘Okay, well,’ Bee sighs. ‘Why don’t you tell me how it all started between you two? What’s she said to you in the past?’

Again, Loona bites her bleeding tongue. Again she feels heat rise to her cheeks. In truth the answer is any number of things, although it feels like to repeat them would shame her more than it would shame Vikki.

But at the same time, she’s already about to hit rock bottom anyway, and how much worse could it really get? She decides she might as well go all the way.

So she straightens herself up, stepping away from Bee, and pads towards the skeleton of a dead tree. She runs her hand over its flaking bark, picking off a few pieces and flicking them to the dirt. She hears a crunch of leaves and gravel as Bee draws up behind her.

‘I got adopted into her family,’ Loona says, watching the Sin linger in her peripheral vision. ‘When I was younger. Thirteen, or fourteen. Something like that. I didn’t last long. They all hated me. Our owners partied all the time, and they liked to drag us along, to look pretty on the sidelines, I guess. I think it was a way to flex their wealth, like, “Look at how many hounds we own,” or some shit like that. I guess in retrospect they were probably spiking my drinks, trying to get me to do stupid things, to see how far they could push me.

‘Anyway, one night it went too far. I don’t even remember what happened, really. I just blacked out. Next thing I knew, I was back in the orphanage.’

The memories of that time are not sharp anymore—the lies, the tumbles down stairs, the lonely mornings waking up to find all her clothes clawed to shreds, the cigarette burns—but they persist. Time does not heal wounds, but it does blunt them. They become a scab you can pick at will. Unfortunately, Loona’s always been bad for that. She likes to gouge, to excavate, to feel the contours of the flesh beneath the flesh. A bad habit she’s never been able to break.

‘Worst thing is, I don’t even remember her being the ringleader back then,’ she adds. ‘She just copied everyone else. But now she won’t let me forget it.’

Finally she turns and looks at Bee, who, unsurprisingly, looks disgusted.

But then the other demon does something unexpected. With her slender paws sending a few small stones skittering over the hard, packed earth, she takes a step forwards and captures Loona’s hands in two of her own. 

‘Loona, that’s… That’s awful,’ she says, resting her thumbs between the ridges of her first two knuckles. ‘Did you . . . spend a lot of time there?’

Loona flinches. Countless families. All failures. She was a bad dog, in every sense. Bad dog, kennel cunt, flea-ridden mutt. Bars and a bed of splinters were all she deserved.

‘Yeah,’ she admits.

‘Fuck,’ Bee breathes. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s whatever.’

‘No, it’s not.’ Bee lets go of her hands and steps forward, wrapping her in a hug. This time, surprisingly, it’s welcome; pleasant; comforting. They stay in that position for a few heartbeats, saying nothing, just feeling the presence and close proximity of another demon. It’s almost . . . nice?

Eventually, Bee breaks the silence. Her voice is subdued now, but still genuine, intimate, and without a shred of that performative streak she normally englobes herself with at the parties.

‘I’m not proud of it, you know. Like, these orphanages and stuff. Tex and I…’

She trails off. But Loona’s ears perk. She presses: ‘Was . . . he an orphanage kid, too?’

‘Kind of,’ Bee says. ‘He got selected for boot camp when he was twelve. Spent his whole teenage years there, toughening up.’

Loona nods understandingly. She knew a few kids who went off to the kinds of military school Bee is describing, including several who failed the gruelling training programme they were subjected to. They always returned with something missing—an arm, a leg, an eye. Or something else, not quite physical, but something behind the eyes, a curious absence of emotion, of restraint. Some of the crueller orphanage kids liked to exploit their trigger words to try and get and a reaction out of them—duck!, march!, grenade!—and watch with glee and horror as they dove to the floor with their hands grasping their scalps. Tex was obviously one of the successes.

‘That figures.’

‘I know it sucks.’ Bee adjusts her position, pushing her snout into the crux of Loona’s neck. ‘But you gotta believe me when I say I’m not in charge of the ones outside Gluttony. Yeah, they stamp the papers with my seal, but it’s not like I have any real control. I’m not like the other Sins, Loona, if you want the truth. I’m just a kid to them. I wish I could do more, but I just...’

Loona sighs and loops her arms around Bee’s waist, suddenly ambivalent about the whole thing. She has spent years thinking of Beelzebub as this scheming queen, like Lucifer or Mammon, but the reality is quite different. She’s not sure how to reconcile these false impressions with the woman in front of her.

‘I guess, in a way, things haven’t worked out so terribly for me,’ she admits, feeling an urge to say something nice now, like she’s suddenly got a duty to make Bee feel good again. ‘Blitz—I mean, my dad—well, he’s a dork, and my job is a waste of time. But it beats being a lapdog for some rich fuck who only wants to dress me up and parade me around on a leash. I don’t envy Vikki that.’

A feeling of gratification fills her when Bee smiles into her shoulder.

‘Not at all,’ she says, and sighs again. ‘Although, from what I hear, you’re in with the rich fucks.’

‘You mean because my dad’s porking one?’ Loona scoffs. ‘I wouldn’t really call that being “in” with them.’

‘Hmm, perhaps.’ Bee squeezes her a little tighter. ‘But actually I was referring to his daughter. What’s her name, Octo-something?’

‘Octavia?’ Loona blurts, surprised. ‘How do you know about her?’ 

Bee chuckles, beginning to card her hand through Loona’s tail. ‘Oh, I Sinstagram stalk everyone who has the hots for my boyfriend. You two tag each other in a lot of shit.’

Registering the implications of what she’s said only a few beats after the words reach her ears, Loona cringes, and knows Bee can feel her do so. She feels embarrassed and ashamed, but the way Bee starts to rock them from side to side makes it clear that she is only teasing.

‘It’s fine,’ she says. ‘Seriously. Honestly, I always wanted a little sister like that. All my siblings, if you can really call them that, are way older. Or at least they act way older. She’s lucky to have you.’

‘She’s not my sister,’ Loona insists, feeling like they’re beginning to skirt dangerous territory now. But Bee’s hands start roaming the expanse of her back, distracting her. She’s in a flow, clearly, and Loona can hear the grin in her voice. 

‘I mean, you said your dad’s fucking her dad. I’d say that makes you like, step-sisters. Or at least step-sister-adjacent.’

Loona flinches again, but not quite as sharply this time. ‘Yeah, maybe.’

A couple more moments pass as they continue to bask in each other’s warmth. Loona feels relieved of a weight, and closer to Bee than ever. But there is still the question of what to do about Vikki.

Thankfully, on this point, Bee preempts her.

‘Look, Loona, I really hope you keep showing up to the parties,’ she says, her breath tickling the fine hairs of Loona’s cheek. ‘We can deal with Vikki. I’ll have a word with her. But . . . please? And if you really don’t want to come back, then can we at least hang out, just the two of us? I’m not lying when I say I really like you. I wanna get to know you better.’

Hesitantly, Loona nods, Bee’s luminous and oil-like hair swimming before her eyes. ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Yeah, okay. I’ll come back.’

Bee sighs.

‘Okay, good. Okay, great.’

There’s another quiet moment. Bee leans some of their weight into the tree. Then she pulls away, and before Loona knows quite what’s happening, her mouth has closed over her own.

The kiss lasts only a handful of moments. Loona stands rigid, the fine bristles of Bee’s chin tickling her nose. Then they separate, leaving Loona standing there, blinking.

‘Bee?’ She works her mouth. ‘What—’

‘Shit, sorry.’

Across from her, the Sin has flushed bright red. She steps away from Loona. ‘Was that too much?’

‘No.’ Loona shakes her head rapidly. ‘I mean—why?’

‘It was Tex’s idea.’ Bee waves a hand. ‘He wanted me to see if—I mean, if I felt like—’

She cuts herself off, her eyes squeezing shut. ‘Shit. I’ve fucked this up.’ 

She shuffles from foot to foot, her tongue darting out to lick her lips. Grinding the heels of her palms into her eyes, she takes a deep breath.

‘Hey, um. So, this might be a weird time to bring this up. But I promised myself I would. Because I think about it a lot. Think about you, I mean. The thing is, Tex and I. Well, I mean, we kind of have a . . . A thing for you. If you get what I mean. Like, we like you. And if you were interested, we could… Y’know, if you were up for it.’

‘Up for what?’ Loona asks cautiously.

‘I wanna sleep with you,’ Bee says, almost comically frank compared to her previous stuttering. ‘We do. But, like, in a friendly way.’

‘You . . . want to sleep with me in a friendly way?’

‘Right!?’ Bee blows out her lips and sighs in relief, Loona’s tone of confusion apparently not quite registering. ‘Fuck, I thought that was about to get awkward. I’m so glad you understand.’

‘I’m . . . actually not sure I do understand.’

Bee freezes, and Loona feels like she’s entered into some kind of parallel universe, or possibly a dream. Did Bee really just kiss her a moment ago? It certainly seems that way. But perhaps she should pinch herself, just to make sure.

‘Oh, Tex would explain it better,’ the other demon admits. ‘But I guess I can try anyway. You think he’s hot, right? Like, you wanna jump on him and ride him till you can’t think straight?’

A sudden, crushing wave of dread descends on Loona’s shoulders. She takes a step back, her hands raised in supplication.

‘Look, Bee,’ she says seriously. ‘I promised I wouldn’t do anything. He’s your boyfriend. I’m not about to try and steal him.’

Not that she even could, a part of her whispers.

‘No, Loona,’ Bee says, a note of exasperation beginning to creep in. ‘You’re not listening. I’m saying that if you wanted to ride him, or me, or both of us, then you could. You get me?’

Finally, it twigs for Loona, although the invitation, for that’s what it seems to be, comes completely out of left field. It blindsides her. If what she’s hearing is that Bee is somehow interested in her, romantically or otherwise, it’s frankly unfathomable. And to put Tex into the equation too…

The husks of the trees that surround them begin to undulate in her vision as her heart begins to race. The two hottest demons she’s ever met are showing an interest in her, of all hounds. It’s not a dream come true as such because she wouldn’t have ever dared imagine it, let alone dream it. Even her unconscious mind wouldn’t have contemplated it. Bee’s glances at her—her comments, no less—far from a web of veiled insults, were actually her coming on to her?

Where should she begin?

‘Oh, um,’ she says, feeling her tail curling around her legs, a nervous habit. ‘Wow, I mean. Just . . . wow. I’m flattered, of course. And you’re both like, y’know. Really fucking hot. But I just. I don’t know—’

Bee halts her stream of disjointed sentences with a smile and a gentle laugh, gliding back in to recapture her hands. Rather than disappointed or put out, she actually seems impressed. In fact, she’s beaming.

‘Hey, no pressure, girl,’ she says, massaging the meat of Loona’s palms with her thumbs. ‘I know I can come on strong. Tex calls me overwhelming. But I’m working on it. I wanna be your friend, Loonie. That’s what’s most important to me right now.’

‘Sorry.’ Loona’s apology is reflexive, although a high tide of relief floods through her at Bee’s words. ‘But, um, yeah. Thanks.’

Bee tilts her head and hums, tracing loose patterns with one set of hands and stroking Loona’s chin with the other. Loona’s resolve briefly weakens, then strengthens. 

They separate. Bee stretches, her arms raised high above her head, suddenly full of energy.

‘Woah, can you feel that?’ she announces, spinning in place. ‘I’m gonna be high for a fucking month on all this. You’re a special hound, Loonie. I’m just like. So fucking happy right now. I literally can’t wait for the next party. We’re gonna have a fucking riot.’

‘If I make it that far,’ Loona murmurs. ‘I . . . kinda ruined my only good dress last night.’

Bee stops spinning and looks at Loona sidelong.

‘You’re really worried about that?’ she says, glancing at Loona’s current outfit. ‘You could literally turn up in what you’ve got on, if you wanted. Or I’m sure I’ve got some old spares of mine I can adjust for you. But that said…’

She grins to herself. 

‘Well, best case scenario I’m tearing them off you anyway, so maybe it’s not worth the effort.’

Loona freezes, the red returning to her cheeks. She coughs.

‘Was that too much?’ Bee rubs her hands together, her expression a little sheepish.

‘Yep,’ Loona gasps. ‘Yep, far too much.’

The Sin has the audacity then to laugh.

‘Oh, and another thing.’ She darts in and loops an arm around Loona’s waist. ‘I’ve been thinking for a while, but your little not-sis seems cool. In a prickly, anti-establishment kind of way. Do you wanna bring her along sometime? To a party? If she doesn’t need to be home by sundown or anything.’

Though the last part is clearly meant as a joke, Loona knows that Octavia would not take it as such if she heard. She’d be fuming.

‘She’ll wipe the floor with whoever does your pyrotechnics,’ Loona warns. ‘Seriously, give her some time to prep and she’ll put on the best light show you’ve ever seen. Stars and planets and everything. Her dad isn’t the only one who can do magic.’

Bee’s grin turns devilish now. ‘Is that so? Well, in that case, you’ve got yourself a deal. I’m excited to see it.’

With her head angled sideways, she starts to guide them away, back towards the path.

‘And hey, the offer’s still there. It can mean nothing, or it can mean something. I’m happy either way.’

And so she starts prattling again, leading Loona back by the hand in the direction of the diner, not letting go even as the eyes of the Prideful assholes from before lock right back onto them. Loona mind is chugging away at a mile a minute thinking of all the possibilities, but eventually slows to a halt. She stops walking. Bee makes it a few extra paces before noticing and turns round, her head tilted curiously.

‘I’m not saying no, by the way,’ she says, her cheeks red as candied apples. ‘Can we just . . . See how things go?’

Bee blinks. Then suddenly she takes two long strides forwards and kisses Loona square on the lips. Loona briefly forgets how to breathe. When they pull apart, Bee holds her close, their breath mingling. A hand whose palm smells like honey and lavender cups her cheek.

‘All the time in the world, Loonie.’

On the other side of the city, Octavia glances up from a book as her phone buzzes on the bed next to her. She folds down the top corner of her current page and picks up the device, peering at her notifications. It’s from Loona. Sighing through her nose, she opens the messaging app and squints at the dense type.

What are you doing next Friday?

Octavia frowns before hopping off the bed and padding over to the calendar tacked to the far wall, placing her finger over the box for Friday next. It’s empty. She settles down back on the edge of the bed to type out a quick response.

Nothing. Why?

Loona’s reply is a while coming through. The trio of dots on her friend’s side of the conversation pane dance with computerised precision as Octavia waits, tapping the side of her phone case with her nails.

Ever been to Gluttony?