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Baz hasn’t done the whole “roommate” thing before, but he’s memorized the basics. Always flush the toilet — and remember to put the seat down. Load cups on top of the dishwasher, and plates on the bottom. Don’t leave his shoes laying around, there’s a shoe-rack for them. Don’t eat someone else’s food. Don’t crowd someone else’s space. Don’t… sit on anybody.
See? He’s doing great! Just a normal guy.
Baz maneuvers his hulking form through the kitchen doorway. His horns brush the ceiling, so he has to duck his head. The plated armor over his back shifts whenever he moves; his huge muscles are tense, golden eyes focused. Slowly, with great deliberation… Baz approaches the refrigerator.
He does this every day. He can’t help it. Poor Grace is always ordering groceries, always running out to the store. They have to get more food every day, because Baz… can’t help himself.
The leftover chicken. A whole can of olives. Three pieces of pizza, which have been in there for days. Four apples. Two ice cream sandwiches. All washed down with milk… a whole gallon of milk.
Baz is left sprawled on the couch in a haze of food wrappers and grease. His stomach is huge, pinning him down to the sofa. When he shifts, the couch moans in protest… he’s too goddamn heavy for it.
Baz moans, then burps. His massive hand — rough with scales, his fingers too long, with nails sharp as daggers — massages his tummy. He can barely breathe, he ate so much.
But at least the hunger is gone.
When Grace arrives home, she finds him right there — splayed on the couch, his head tipped back, his breathing loud and shallow. Baz’s eyes are closed; he’s not in a food coma, but he’s close.
The soft creak of the sofa gets his attention, jarring him from his gaze. There’s a familiar face leaning over him — wild blonde curls, pixie features, curious eyes that never judge or condemn.
“Again, huh?” Grace asks. Baz tried to reply… but a deep, gut-quaking belch rolls out instead. Grace nods, like he’s said all she needs to know.
Without a word, she cleans up for him. With a wave of Grace’s hand, the empty milk container flies into the recycling bin; the apple cores and wrappers hover into the trash. Grace wiggles her fingers, and they disappear. Her nails are glittery — bright teal this week.
“Dude, you’re the best,” Baz murmurs. When he shifts, his heavy stomach gives a groan of protest. Baz tries to shush it… but accidentally presses down. Another powerful burp rolls out of him; it’s all he can do to press the back of his hand to his mouth.
“Wow,” Grace says, her voice laced with amusement. “You’ve outdone yourself today.”
Baz huffs a laugh… but his smile is strained at the edges. She doesn’t know. She can’t know. Some things, you don’t need to share with your roommate.
Grace found him on the street, three weeks after… his change. Actually, he found Grace. Back in Massachusetts, when he first started losing control, they read about a witch with a gift for breaking curses. Apparently, Grace has broken lifelong binding spells, can dispel hexes with a wave of her hand, and once saved an entire town from being consumed by an otherworldly darkness. She’s developed a reputation in the magical community as… incredibly gifted.
Eccentric, too. Bubbly. Impulsive. Not what you’d expect from a powerful witch at all.
By the time Baz found her, he was fully changed into… what he is now. Once he arrived in town, he kept to the shadows, not wanting to terrify anyone. Something like him can’t just stroll down the street. He’d give little kids nightmares, and old ladies heart attacks.
It’s funny — people used to cheer for him. During his quarterback days, he’d streak down the field like a shot while the crowd roared. His body was so lithe, so powerful. His own body. Baz used to have biceps. He was tall, shaggy blonde, with warm hazel eyes and a wide smile. His teeth were a little crooked. So was his nose, from breaking it during football practice. Still… people used to call him handsome. Girls would giggle at him in the hallways, and Baz never knew what to do with it. He was never popular before high school, so… it was an adjustment.
“They don’t know what I am,” he used to tell his best friend, Sofia. “Not the real me.”
She used to scoff, and even get a big defensive. “That’s not the real you!” she’d insist… even though Baz could always feel his demon half, deep down.
It wasn’t his fault one of the Ancient Order of Draconians seduced his mother. Apparently, centuries-old monsters don’t wear protection. When Baz was born, his mother tried to pretend everything was fine… that he was just a normal baby.
Until he grew horns.
And the scales… and the muscles, and the iron-hard body, with flesh thick as cowhide. Hell, Baz spouted fangs. His temper tantrums as a toddler must have been legendary — a tiny devil running around, tearing the house apart.
The storms would always pass, though. Eventually, he’d go back to normal. No more horns, no more scales… only Baz.
Baz used to keep a tight lid on his shifting; he learned to control his temper, never getting mad because that would wake the demon half. He learned to meditate. He rolled with the punches. Baz was well known in school as an easy-going guy who never let anything faze him. His control was his secret superpower.
Until prom. Right after he was crowned Prom King, and was dancing with Libby Henson in the middle of the floor. Somehow… he began to change, right there in the middle of the crowd. He felt the horns pushing themselves out, the features of his face shifting as his musculature changed, his skin lining itself with scales. He couldn’t stop it. All his life, he’d been able to control it. Suddenly, that control was gone.
He fled like a scared cat. Back to his neighborhood… then up the tree, climbing it with the ease of a goddamn lizard. He spent twenty minutes knocking frantically on Sofia’s window. At last, she let him in.
“Baz,” she’d said weakly, “I don’t know how to fix you.”
“But you’re a witch!” he growled. His voice was changing too, deepening into something rough and dangerous. What should have been plaintive came out like a threat.
“I do good luck charms,” Sofia retorted. “Productivity spells. I can cleanse someone’s energy, but that’s it. I don’t have much power.”
Baz went quiet. He hadn’t realized there was some… witch hierarchy. It was a community, sure — Sofia was in a bunch of witchy forums, and once travelled to a meet-and-greet in Boston — but he thought being a witch meant power. That you could do anything.
“There are a few things we can try,” Sofia squeaked, pacing the room. “Maybe you’re just, like… under stress. We can do a relaxing potion. Maybe it’s a problem with your aura, we can fix that…”
They tried everything. Potions and enchantments, spells recommended by people on Sofia’s forums. They crowd-sourced help, and it still didn’t change anything.
Baz was… stuck. He couldn’t control his demon side anymore. Sometimes he’d look human, but then it would begin to happen… and he couldn’t stop it, couldn’t slow down the change. He’d just sprout scales, or massive, hulking muscles…
Baz made it to graduation. That was a freaking miracle. He couldn’t go to any of the badass parties thrown by his friends, even though they tugged on him and tried to tow him along. He wanted to so badly, ached to make a last memory with his friends — but they couldn’t risk it.
Two days after graduation, Sofia told him: “I found a witch. She’s mysterious, but a really powerful curse-breaker. If you could… like, find her, then maybe…”
Maybe his life would change. He wouldn’t be trapped like this forever.
Baz had to take public transport all the way to Harbor Point, Maine. It was… a very long ride. By then, regular clothes no longer fit; he was this hulking monster of a man, with a hunched back and curiously rough skin. Baz kept to the back of the greyhound bus, keeping his head low. Even as they travelled, he felt himself… shifting. Changing.
And with the physical differences came the physiological ones. Those, he’d never tell anyone about.
The guy six rows ahead has a Subway sandwich in his bag; Baz could smell it. The woman in aisle 13 has cheese crackers… and she was wearing some perfume, some rich, flowery thing. Baz’s stomach groaned. For a moment, the hunger was so intense…
And he knew what he wanted. The cravings flashes through his head, rippling in his stomach like a plea. He imagined leaping upon the perfumed woman… tearing her into pieces, sinking his fangs into her tender flesh. He wanted to eat her heart, raw and dripping… it would rest so well in his stomach. And maybe, once he was done with the woman, he’d have room for dessert. Several mothers were traveling with little kids…
No. Fuck, no. A shudder ran through him. Baz clamped both hands over his mouth, muffling a sob. That wasn’t him. He wasn’t a monster. This hunger, wherever it came from… a hunger for lifeblood, to tear and consume, to swallow humans whole and feel their life slowly draining away… it couldn’t be him.
It wouldn’t.
He crept out of the back of the bus during a pit stop. Baz disappeared into the woods. If anyone noticed a hulking, horned monster sulking into the trees, they didn’t say anything.
It took him six days to find Grace in Harbor Point. By then, he was so weak, he was shaking. Baz was fully demon now. Everything, from his armor-clad body to his distorted face, was otherworldly. He bore no trace of the boy he used to be — the football star with a grin for everyone.
Oh, how things change. He found Grace in an alleyway — on her way back from a party, tipsy and giggling with her friends. The moment she saw Baz, she hexed first, asked questions later. (Which… rude, but he’s a hideous horned monster, so he gets it.) Baz dropped like a stone, falling rigid to the ground. He landed face-first in a fetid rain puddle. Not an auspicious start to a friendship.
Still. Despite being paralyzed, he was able to explain the situation… and for some impossible reason, Grace listened.
“Please,” he’d appealed. “I need your help. I’m not a monster — not like this. I just… need to get back to normal again.”
The tiny blonde looked him over, pursed her lips, and declared: “I’ll do my best.”
So, that’s how they got here. Baz is living in Grace's basement; he’s turned it into a man cave, with a gaming console, beanbag chairs, and a messy bed. He’s even got a mini-fridge down there. Upstairs, his chirpy roommate is always doing some spell, or brewing a potion, or taking magic lessons from her immortal familiar. Grace keeps herself busy.
No solutions. Not yet. Baz has been here for a month, living alongside Grace… and she’s working hard to figure out how to turn him back, but they haven’t hit a breakthrough yet. His demon form has taken root. It seems permanent.
Baz… can’t bear that. Can’t stand to live this way forever. She doesn’t understand — no one gets what he deals with every day. The instincts he has to fight.
That’s the thing about demons. They’re always hungry. Not just for something to fill their stomachs, but… something to tear into, to destroy. They crave raw muscle between their fangs, rich iron flooding their mouths, the rasp of someone’s dying breath…
It’s all so goddamn delicious. Baz is starving every day.
So, food. Food makes it better. It fills the hollow in his stomach, dulls the impulses to smash and dominate and tear apart. The voices in his head go quiet. When Baz eats, it’s only him and the food; each bite is the only thing he has to worry about in the moment. And it feels… so damn good to be full.
He leans back against the couch, succumbing to the haze of a food coma. Another deep belch rolls out of him; he lets out a groan, relieved, not embarrassed.
“That was a nice one,” Grace murmurs. A long heartbeat passes… and then she lays her hand on Baz’s stomach. He’s rock-hard, swollen beneath a layer of muscle; his stomach is taut from all the meals. Baz always has a protruding gut (as if his demon form drinks a lot of beer) but this is on another level.
Grace makes a tiny sound, and begins rubbing his stomach in slow, smooth circles. The demon’s feet flail on the floor, unable to handle the pleasure. His breathing grows stark, needy.
“Don’t,” he murmurs. “I’m so… big…”
“You’re putting on weight,” Grace observes, pinching a bit of leathery flesh at Baz’s hip. He never had that in his human form… but maybe binging on food multiple times per week has consequences. Heavy consequences.
“Oh god,” he whines, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’m gettin’ fat, too? Just what I need.”
“No,” observes Grace, her voice deceptively innocent. “You need…”
She presses down on a tense space, just beside his belly button. Baz’s mouth drops open. A deep, rumbling burp escapes, against his will. It tastes strongly of milk.
“Oh,” he gasps, and burps again. “Ohhh man…” Another belch. She’s set off a firestorm. He didn’t realize the milk had him feeling like that, but now that Grace has prodded at it…
With a moan, he turns onto his side, still cradling his tummy. A moment passes; his stomach is loud, rumbling in protest… and then the rumble escapes out his other end, in a deep fart.
Oh god. Baz buries his face in the soda cushions, mortified. As a human… he would never do this. He’d have more self-control.
“Excuse you,” Grace teases. Baz whines like an abused puppy.
“Don’t do that to me.”
“Why? You needed it.” For Grace, it’s as simple as that. She’s a curse-breaker; that sort of magic comes naturally to her. So, when she sees an opportunity to fix a problem, she just does it, without asking anyone. Baz needed space in his stomach. She cleared up space. Problem solved.
The demon muffles a few more burps, and releases even more gas into the poor sofa cushions. It’s clear that Baz is mortified… but if it’s helping his stomach, he’s not going to complain. Grace lingers for a moment, still rubbing his stomach — but then her black cat mewls, distracting her, and she has to run off to feed him.
“You’ll be okay,” she declares before leaving. “I’m sure demons have eaten worse before.”
Worse. The word reverberates in his head, and Baz shudders.
She never has to know about the cravings. He’s fighting them; that’s the important thing. As long as he keeps filling his stomach, keeps gorging himself into a blissful haze… the hunger isn’t there. He’ll take it.
This curse can’t last forever, after all. Someday soon, Baz will be human — be himself again.
And this goddamn hunger will finally be defeated.