Chapter Text
Note: Alright, so I had so much fun with the first one, I thought I'd see if I could carry this concept a little further and have some more fun with it. I think I like Part 2 and 3 better than Part 1. I hope you enjoy!
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A lot had changed in the two years since the Saja Boys got their souls back. For the sake of everyone's sanity they got their own apartment, though (also for the sake of everyone's sanity) it was in the same building. It wasn't every day you shared the kind of history the Saja Boys and Huntrix had together, and they still needed support adjusting to their new lives. Nobody was eager to cut ties, though some were more reluctant to admit it than others.
"I just don't see," Abby said through grit teeth, pushing a massively overloaded weight up from his chest, "why we," he pushed again, "have to live so close."
Jinu's face was unapologetic as he curled a weight with one arm. "Come on, Abs. You used to like them."
"Like hell I did," he retorted, returning the weight to its hold. He sat up, rolling his shoulders roughly. He'd been increasingly irritable since the Mystery incident when he got his soul. More emotional, though nobody would have dared to point it out. "We've got our souls now. We've got our record deal, and our tours. We can have any woman we want. Life moves on, we should too."
"You're welcome to get your own place," Romance said with a grin, switching places with him on the bench. "I'm not quite finished my project."
Abby's jaw clenched, but he studiously kept his eyes bored. "You're pathetic, but suit yourself."
"Your loss," Romance said in a sing-song voice, pushing the weights up from his chest, "my gain."
Baby rolled his eyes from the pull up bar as he silently counted his reps. His features had hardened ever so slightly in the past year, nothing you could put your finger on but enough that his Saja Boy nickname seemed slightly less appropriate.
Abby squeezed his water bottle too hard and took a swig, then rubbed a hand across his mouth irritably. "We're aging," he said, tapping one finger against the water bottle. "We're loaded," he tapped another. "This could be it for us. One last chance."
"That's why we're staying," Jinu replied, like it was obvious.
"That's why you're staying," Abby corrected, "and keeping the rest of us here with you." A sudden thought had him glancing across the room to where Mystery was running on the treadmill, headphones blasting. "Though obviously he's not going anywhere." They were all pathetic, he thought, fists clenching. These women were nothing but trouble.
Baby dropped from the bar and massaged his hands, staring out the window, expression unreadable. They were aging, and for the first time in centuries he had to reckon with the very thing he'd bargained with Gwi-ma to avoid.
Death.
Hearing more than he let on and seeing Baby's expression, Mystery slowed the treadmill then stopped it altogether. He pulled the headphones off his ears and quietly approached his long-time friend. It still felt weird to think it. Real demons didn't have friends.
"It's not like we were really living," he said quietly, handing Baby a bottle of water. "Do you regret it?"
After chugging down the entire bottle in one go, crushing the plastic in his hand and tossing it in a nearby bin. "Trying to save your ass? No. Getting my soul back?" Baby shrugged. "Didn't have a choice." His soul had been returned to him whether he wanted it or not. He'd received it back like a plant desperate for water. Now he had to endure the consequences.
It turned out life with a soul wasn't easy. There were emotions, longings, the occasional traitorous hope. Some days he stared at the crowd, churning and screaming with fanaticism, and wondered what he even was. Not quite human---that much was clear. When the lights were out and the music faded, when the masses snapped out of their addictive haze and returned to their normal flickering human lives, he was left with exactly what Gwi-ma had left him with.
Nothing.
A bump against his side caught his attention and he glanced down. Jinu's guardian tiger stared up at him, jaw gaping open. Baby's eyes narrowed. "Don't look so damn pleased, you agent of chaos."
Mystery smiled and ruffled the tiger's fur, scratching him behind the ear. "Good boy, Derpy."
"I'm not thrilled," Baby said suddenly, turning to look at his friend directly, shocking blue eyes narrowed. "But I've never had power over my destiny."
Behind his hair, Mystery furrowed his brow. "You do, though. You get a chance to really live life now."
Baby made a scoffing sound. "Live life? Do you even hear yourself? You're still not human, Myst."
"I don't remember any of my life before I surrendered to Gwi-ma," he replied. Thinking of Zoey, he couldn't quite stop the small smile from reaching his lips. She was beautiful, kind, creative, strong. Vulnerable. She needed him, and he knew it. He glanced at the patterns on his arms. "I may be only part human, but I'm happy. I don't know if I've ever been happy before."
"Good for you." His tone was low and caustic. Giving his friend a sarcastic two thumbs up, Baby turned and left the room. Mystery watched him go. The tiger trailed silently at his heels.
That wasn't necessarily a good sign.
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"Okay, coming through! Everyone step aside please!" Bobby cleared a path through the screaming crowd of fans--most of them female-- as the Saja Boys sauntered behind him with varying levels of smugness, waving and blowing kisses.
"See," Abby said, winking at a particularly pretty girl and handing her a picture of his abs, "look at this. We've hit the jackpot."
"Why does it feel like a couple hundred years of damnation taught you nothing?" Mystery asked rhetorically, waving to the crowd with a smile on his face.
"He's his own worst enemy," Romance said with an exaggerated, tragic sigh, throwing an arm over Abby's shoulder and posing for a camera. "Biceps are bigger than his brain, I'm afraid."
"Get lost," Abby muttered, but covered his annoyance with a calculated, dangerous smile for another crowd of girls. They screamed.
Baby waved calmly to the crowd, expression sly and guarded, prompting another wave of screams and faintings.
"They like you now because they know you're still single," Jinu said drily, though there was no malice in it.
"They like him because his face is all chiseled now," Abby said with a grin, glancing back at the older demon. "Age is catching up with him."
"Looks better on me than it does on you," Baby replied boredly.
"Keep the aging talk to a minimum please, it's a branding nightmare," Bobby instructed cheerfully, turning around to walk backwards and beckon for them to hurry up and enter the building. "Where is Mel?" he called out, sending stage crew scrambling. "Someone get me Mel, please!"
"Mel's here? Tell her to bring me an ice coffee!" Romance called after him.
"We could change his name," Mystery suggested. "Humans do it all the time."
"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that, because, surprise! You are humans and I refuse to suspect otherwise." Bobby clapped his hands. "Okay people, let's go let's go let's go, 10 minutes to showtime!"
"To what? Toddler?" Romance quipped.
Baby reached into his pocket for a drink and chugged it back, lowered it thoughtfully. "I could go by just B." The hunter girls had started calling him that out of the blue one day. He kind of liked it.
Bobby stopped in his tracks, then quickly spun around. "I actually love this! Very thug life, strong choice, let's discuss later because now it's 9 minutes."
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"Should we have told them we'd be here?" Zoey asked nervously, pulling her hat down over her face.
"Relax, it's a private booth, nobody will see us," Rumi replied. She turned to study the crowd, shaking her head. The stadium was packed out, standing room only, energy electric.
"Personally, I don't think they need the ego boost," Mira drawled. "I'm good not telling them."
"Shhh," Rumi said, patting her friends' arms. "It's starting!"
The stage went dark. Thousands of people screamed.
Then there they were.
Rumi and Zoey leaned forward in their seats, heads resting on their chins, and sighed. "There's our boys!" they squealed together.
Mira shook her head, but couldn't keep the small smile off her face. Her friends were happy, and she was happy for them. She turned her attention to the stage. If she'd seen her own lovestruck face, she'd have wanted to punch it.
The boys launched into their newest hit, choreography perfectly on point, voices a menace to society.
Collectively, the girls sighed. These demons, or men, had completely stolen their hearts. They were like family.
And they were still ridiculously hot.
A sudden noise interrupted their thoughts. Gunfire. The girls stood to their feet, and everything happened too fast.
Mystery, Jinu, and Baby figured it out first. They dropped to the ground and demon vanished, knowing the crowd would register this as their trademark special effect.
Romance had his back turned as part of the choreography.
Without hesitation, Abby threw himself in front of him.
The crowd screamed as he lurched backwards, blood splattering around him.
"Quick," Rumi said. All three summoned their weapons and leapt down from their private box. The curtain had already dropped, and Bobby appeared on stage, quickly calming the crowd with a story about a pyrotechnic mishap.
Mira could feel her blood pumping in her ears, and didn't hear her friends making plans to search the audience for the shooter. Her boots pounded against the stage as she ran forward, pushing through the crowd of people surrounding him.
Abby looked up, sensing her approach instantly, and tried a smirk. It looked like a grimace. "Couldn't stay away?" he asked.
Quickly surveying the situation--the medics were focused on his arm, it didn't seem to be lethal--Mira stared down at him. The two locked gazes for a long, tense moment.
"You're an idiot," Mira finally said coldly. "If you weren't bleeding already I'd make you bleed."
Abby's eyes narrowed. "I take it you weren't here as security detail," he mocked.
She could still hear her blood in her ears.
"I'm okay, in case you wondered," Romance said, throwing an arm around her and giving her a quick peck on the cheek. She turned and nodded, patting him on the arm.
"Good. We need to help the girls find who did this. Come on." She grabbed his hand, and the two ran off together.
"Wait - where are you two going?" Hair disheveled under her headset, Mel appeared and stared after Zoey and Romance in a combination of anger, fear and disbelief. Seeing they weren't going to stop or answer her, she turned to Abby, eyes wide. "Where are they going?"
Abby watched them go, an unnamed irritation churning in his stomach. "You're welcome," he called after them.