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The same night after Lucifer’s arrival at the hotel, Husk is tending to the bar and listening to Angel rant about Valentino. It's during this time that Alastor slinks inside, having finished handling Mimzy’s mess.
But the damsel in distress is inexplicably absent, and it’s only as he meets Alastor’s gaze across the hotel lobby that he realizes what that must mean.
The red deer is entrenched in shadows and disappears without another word.
“Hey, are you even listenin’ to me here?”
“I’m listening,” Husk snaps, returning his gaze to Angel, who is drumming his fingers impatiently on the bar’s counter. “It’s just that you ain’t saying anything new.”
“Maybe not, but you could at least pretend it’s worth hearin’,” the spider bites, knocking back the rest of his drink and sliding the glass across the counter expectantly. Husk can tell that he’s disappointed and feels suddenly guilty.
“Hey,” he sighs. “It ain’t that I’m not listening, it’s just… I’ve got something on my mind.” He looks toward the shadows that Alastor had disappeared into for a moment before turning back to the cabinets of liquor to pull out a fresh bottle of rum.
“Well, you wanna talk about it? Seems only fair for you to complain about your boss if I’m complainin’ ‘bout mine,” Angel Dust replies, perking up.
Nice save, Husk thinks, busying himself with mixing another drink for the spider. “My boss is a few floors above and yours is on the other side of the pentagram, but whatever,” he shrugs, shaking up the sorry excuse of a cocktail and pouring it with a flourish. “He’s just acting like a smug asshole. Nothing new.”
“You say that, Whiskers, but you’re more troubled than usual,” Angel’s expression sours as he takes a sip from his drink. “Ugh, this is foul.”
“I’m just working with what I’ve been given,” Husk rolls his eyes, cracking a bottle of cheap beer open and taking a swig. “Any bar attached to a real five-star hotel would have a bigger inventory than this place. It’s all cheap shit, but it gets the job done.”
Angel giggles and Husk tries to ignore the flutter of his heart as he drinks in the sound. “If it gets us drunk, I guess it’s good enough,” he agrees. “But you’re kinda implyin’ you’d mix a better drink if you just had the materials!”
“I would,” Husk agrees as he absentmindedly wipes down the counter. “I’d mix you the best damn drink you ever had.”
“Aww, shucks, now I’m wonderin’ what I’m missin’ out on!” Angel bemoans, stretching out across the counter and into Husk's personal space with a dramatic flip of his hair. “I’d love to sample your specialties,” he croons, reaching out to toy with Husker’s tie. His voice drops into a low murmur as he says, “Lemme be your first, Whiskers.”
Husk feels the skin underneath his fur flush. “In your dreams.”
“Aww! Don’t play hard to get!”
“Didn’t I tell you to cut that shit out?”
“How am I supposed t' hold back when you make a face like that?”
~
Later, after Angel has gone to bed and Husk has begun cleaning up the bar, Alastor slinks from the shadows to approach.
“I expect to see you outside my door in ten minutes.” He instructs with finality, leaving no room for a retort or refusal. Husk feels his heart drop into his stomach, and it stays there, even as Alastor disappears just as quickly as he had appeared. He hurries to finish closing the bar up and rushes to the elevator.
The ride up is silent, the usual music that would radiate from the speaker system replaced with the hum of static. It imposes dread, the calm before the storm. Husk anticipates the worst; punishment perhaps, the reminder of his shackles merely a prerequisite to facing Alastor’s petty wrath.
In front of the double doors to Alastor’s penthouse, he hesitates long enough that the doors open from within.
“Ah-ha! Good to see you, my good man,” Alastor’s ghoulish smile stretches impossibly wide, teeth bared. It makes Husk’s base instincts rear their head, a stampeding in his mind demanding he flee the predator before him, but he steels himself against it. Alastor steps aside, motioning for him to enter, and he obeys.
The door snaps shut behind him, and Alastor glides past him to the red loveseat in the center of the penthouse.
“Look, boss,” he begins, watching as the demon seats himself in front of the hearth. “I didn’t mean nothing with what I said earlier.”
“Come here and take a seat, why don’t you!” Alastor replies cheerily, ignoring Husk’s comment and patting the space beside him on the couch. “I insist!”
Husk obeys, but sits on the opposite end of the couch, ears lying flat against his head.
Alastor ignores him, attention momentarily elsewhere. With a snap of his fingers, green sparks fly into the firepit. Within a few seconds a roaring fire begins to blaze in the hearth, emanating a comforting warmth. The sound of a record player scratching precedes a jaunty tune as music begins to fill the room. Classical jazz.
“Much better.” Satisfied, Alastor turns to him with a closed-mouth smile. “Come, Husker. No need to be shy. Why don’t you get a little more comfortable?” With another snap of his fingers, a bottle of top-brand whiskey and a pair of crystal tumblers filled with ice appear on the table in front of them, complimented by a chest of cigars and an ashtray.
Predictable, Husk thinks to himself with a roll of his eyes, biting his tongue to keep from muttering under his breath. He reaches for the whiskey first and pours a generous helping into one of the glasses, which he passes to Alastor. The radio demon takes it with an appreciative hum, leaning back in his seat and swirling the liquid inside, ice clinking against glass.
Husk pours his own glass, but he knows better than to relax before Alastor. He opens the chest of cigars next, pulling one out and handing it to Alastor, who takes it between his lips, waiting and watching with an unblinking stare as Husk procures a lighter and holds it underneath the tip of his cigar. He pulls a long drag and heaves a plume of green-tinted smoke through his nostrils into the air; it curls around them both, the whispers of indulgence from a life long past.
“You gonna tell me anytime soon what you want with me?” Husk mutters as he finally takes his own glass of whiskey in hand, waving his hand a few times in the air to disperse the smoke. He takes a drink to wet his throat. “Aside from being your personal butler. God, what is that crap?”
“Ah-ha! But what if that is precisely what I want?” Alastor chimes back, taking another long drag. The smoke in the air becomes obnoxiously thick and fragrant. “It's from Havana, of course! We used to relax like this together, back in the day. Isn’t it positively nostalgic?”
"This crap stinks," Husk complains, fueled by mild lung irritation. He coughs into a fist pointedly. "Don't tell me you were smoking cuban cigars when I know damn well it was stogies."
Alastor shrugs with an impish smile on his face. Husk suppresses the urge to roll his eyes. “Life wasn’t particularly sweet for me, even when there was more to it than just drowning in vices. It was the same then as it is now.”
“True enough!” Alastor quips cheerily. “Perhaps there was more for you in life that you were never able to grasp. Life was as sweet as could be when I exited the mortal world!”
“Right,” Husk does roll his eyes this time. “You’ve always had it all. You were a radio star then, and you’re a radio star now.”
“Haha, but things aren't so different for you, are they?” Alastor moves closer to Husk on the sofa, watching as he gulps down the contents of his glass in one swig. “You were a pathetic alcoholic loser in life, and you’re a pathetic alcoholic loser now!” he sighs dreamily. “Some things never change.”
“And you’re still a sociopathic freak with an unquenchable bloodthirst,” he fires back, incensed.
“And you’re still my pet,” Alastor croons, drawing closer still. Husk feels cornered. “However disobedient and disrespectful you may be, you are mine.”
Husk feels his face flush with shame and fear, and he jerks his head away, shifting back on the couch to escape him. Alastor follows, a hand wrapping around his forearm, red claws digging into his skin.
“Won’t you admit it?” Static crackles throughout the air.
His fur stands on end, and a shiver wracks his frame. Frozen with fear, Husk stutters, “I’m yours.”
“And…? I can’t quite hear you!” Alastor sings.
“I’m your pet!” he hisses in a quiet but clear voice, furious.
Alastor, unphased, continues to tease him. “Ah-ha! The magic words,” his hand moves from his arm to the top of his head, patting him as he says, “Good kitty.”
Husk doesn’t dignify that with a response, shifting uncomfortably in his seat before reaching for the bottle of whiskey, pouring himself another glass. Alastor doesn’t stop him, and that’s permission enough. With a chuckle, he leans back as his eyes rove over Husk’s face, drinking in the anguish written across his features with malevolent delight.
Husk drinks the whiskey down and surfaces from his glass with a gasp, pouring a third and then a fourth, all as Alastor puffs on his cigar beside him, glimmering red eyes locked on him. It unnerves him like nothing else.
He notices the cherry on the end of Alastor's cigar and holds out the ashtray, all too aware of what is expected of him. With an appreciative hum, the radio demon taps the ash off the end of the cigar, and Husk places it down in front of him, going back to chasing the bottom of the bottle.
He was right. It was true. Alcohol was a respite for him. Not an indulgence, but a crutch, as it was in life. An escape. Cowardly as ever, he thinks to himself. His shame burns as steadfast as the blazing hearth.
He goes to pour himself another glass and finds it empty but for a few droplets. With a sigh, he slams it back onto the table, leaning into the cushions behind him.
Patience waning, Alastor pulls him closer with his hand on the back of his neck. By now, he's snuffed out the cigar, finished with it for the time being, attention more keenly focused on Husk than before. Husk can do nothing but obey the unspoken command, and as he’s drawn to lay in Alastor’s lap, he wonders why this is the only form of physical contact that the demon seems to desire.
He settles stiffly into the position he’s pulled into, and Alastor hums thoughtfully. “Do try to relax. Was the alcohol not enough?”
“I wouldn’t mind more,” he grumbles in response.
“Mmm,” Alastor’s clawed hands gently stroke through the fur on top of his head. “Perhaps later.”
Husk opens his mouth to respond with more grumbled complaints when Alastor digs his nails into the fur behind his ear, giving him a scratch. He lets out an undignified groan instead and immediately freezes up, petrified.
“How cute,” Pressed against him like this, he feels the rumble of a laugh in Alastor’s chest before he hears it. He snaps his mouth shut. “I did always love cats, you know.” Alastor’s hand returns to the top of Husk’s head, stroking between his ears to his neck, where it lingers.
“I hated them,” Husk replies, voice low.
“You did!” Alastor titters. “Inexplicably. And now you are one. Hell is such a twisted delight, isn’t it? You might hate your form,” another stroke, this time pausing to rub the fur between his shoulder blades, dragging the pads of his fingers along the tense muscles there. “But I quite enjoy it.”
Husk doesn’t reply, looking into the fire with vacant eyes. He feels suddenly boneless, exhausted and ragged – it must be the alcohol catching up to him. Alastor doesn’t stop petting him, gentle ministrations that go against everything he stands for, the violence and destruction he claims to love.
Husk’s eyelids droop as the gentle, rhythmic petting lulls him into a relaxed haze.
“You were right,” Alastor speaks quietly, the words interlaced within the murmurs of static from the record player as the next song begins to play. “Mimzy was intent on bringing trouble here. I sent her away.”
Husk barely hears the whispered statement, but it reverberates in his head, playing back over and over again in his mind. You were right. He tries to disguise his surprise and he can’t, but Alastor doesn’t say anything else and he feels as though acknowledging his words are a surefire way to end the night in bloody tatters, so he settles on saying nothing at all.
He gradually begins to relax again after being caught off-guard, and the silence stretches between them, jazz playing at a low volume in the background.
He wonders how and why Alastor can be partial to this kind of physical contact when he otherwise recoils from it, but then he supposes that if Alastor considers him a pet, it must not mean the same thing to him. He especially hated to be touched or otherwise in close physical proximity to men; brutish, loud, and unrefined, he’d say.
Husk is an exception to the rule. As much as he wants to convince himself it’s because he resembles the furred companions Alastor had once adored in life, they knew each other as humans – the association should be immutable. And yet…
Alastor continues to pet him, humming along with the jaunty music as he does so. Despite everything, it doesn’t feel uncomfortable now that they’ve settled into the cushions; Alastor is gentle with him, even as he coaxes him to sit upright so he can lay on his back with his head in Alastor’s lap. The demon runs his hand up and down Husk’s furred chest, and he shivers slightly as a claw scrapes his skin.
He moves on from that, cupping his cheek, thumb brushing over the bed of his whiskers. His nose twitches as he breathes in the loose fur from Alastor’s hand and he sneezes, blinking blearily up at the grinning demon who hovers above him.
It becomes more and more difficult to keep his eyes open, and his vision swims until he shuts them. He drifts in and out of a sleepy haze as he’s doted upon, until it all abruptly stops. Alastor pokes his cheek, and he grumbles, wiping the drool escaping from the corner of his mouth.
“That’s enough now,” the demon says with a sigh, and perhaps Husk is delusional in his exhaustion, but Alastor’s smile is content, lacking the edge it normally has. “Why don’t I take you to your room?”
“Sure, if you’re going to be leaving me with that bottle you promised,” he grumbles.
“Aha! Certainly.”
Shadows consume Husk’s vision and when he closes and reopens his eyes, he’s in his own room, alone but for the bottle of alcohol at his side. He examines it absently, thoughts wandering. Full, as promised. Smiling to himself, Husk lays down in his bed, allowing sleep to wash over him.
~
In the morning, Husk heads down to the hotel lobby to prepare to open the bar for the day.
Only, the bar he left last night is no longer there – in its place stands a fully renovated lounge, equipped with a full-sized fridge filled with all the ingredients he would need for more complicated mixed drinks.
Even in life, he had never tended a full-sized luxury bar like this.
Husk shakes his head with a wry smile, greeting Angel Dust as he descends the hotel stairs with a wave.
“Holy shit!” Angel exclaims, eyes blowing wide at the sight of the new bar. "When did all this happen!?"
Husk laughs, reveling in Angel’s delighted and shocked smile. “Who knows. Why don’t I make you that drink I promised?”