FSE

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You lounge listlessly in the back of a shitty cab, unbothered by its sticky seats and utter lack of seatbelts. Your face is split almost in two by a toothy grin, and a bubbling warmth spreads from your chest to your brain and back down to your extremities. You think you might melt into your seat at any moment, leaving behind a puddle of glowing, self-satisfied goo.

Logic (and experience) tells you that you're just riding the high of your weekend brothel bender. Two nights of hard drugs and debauchery would have put even your mother in a good mood - at least until the crash hits, but that's tomorrow You's problem. And yet...

You realise with a start that you've been balancing your work-issued knife upon an outstretched finger, tip first, its weight shifting precariously with each of the driver's wild turns. One movement too far, one turn too violent, and violence would have been the only outcome for you. You release a held breath and slide the weapon back into your thigh sheath, thanking your lucky stars that you've been practicing your knifework recently.

It is then, in that shock of pre-stabbing clarity, moulded by cocaine-fuelled elucidation, that you are graced by an epiphany. The reason you feel so strangely good is that you are, for the first time in your entire (un)life, looking forward to going to work.

You sit up straight in your seat, eyes wide, and laugh. The driver gives you a concerned three-eyed look in the rear-view mirror, but you pay him no mind. You are too wrapped up in unwrapping your revelation, plotting each twist in the path that led you to it.

Though relatively new to Hell, you quickly caught on to its general machinations, if not its more sinister peculiarities. Not interested in ending up on the streets, you'd managed to finagle your way into a position at some low-budget start-up - I.M.P, the Immediate Murder Professionals. Drawing upon your prior life experience as a therapist, you'd successfully made your case as a character profiler: someone who could delve deep into the thought processes of your targets; find out where they like to eat, what things they like to do, where they might be most vulnerable... honestly, it was only half-bullshit. You seemed to have a knack for this kind of stuff.

The pay is pretty shit, but it's good enough to afford a cheap apartment. It was your new co-workers that surprised you. Your boss, Blitzo, is a bit of a wild card; overly affectionate (was he hitting on you, or just always horny?) and entirely too trusting, he is naïve in the best of ways and bombastic in all others. You never really know what to expect from him, other than entertainment. Loona, the receptionist, well she is a bit of a bitch - but what moody teenager isn't? Then there's Moxxie and Millie, the power couple. They'd blown your mind at first - a married couple? In Hell? And they were happy?

Moxxie had been a tad dubious of your addition to the company at first. However, it became quickly apparent that his concern stemmed more from a worry about their lack of funding than any inherent distrust of your capabilities. An unbidden compliment here, a short laugh at his awful joke there, and then a gentle brushing of fingertips against the back of his hand and he was won - hook, line, and sinker. Millie had been even easier to win over - she'd practically jumped on you with an innocent enthusiasm for your life and interests, and all it took was a bit of reciprocation in her own hobbies to tie the three of you together. They'd even invited you to dinner at their place a few times. Hand-cooked! It is still hard to believe.

You'd taken to the work itself with surprising ease. Casing your targets came naturally to you, and any initial qualms over your part in literal murder were stamped out once you watched the three of them in action. It quite honestly looked like fun - when all things went to plan - hence your practice with the knife. You hope to join them on a job, one day. Even if only to deliver the final blow. Just to try it.

The thought still spins in your mind. It is strange, and you aren't sure you're willing to admit it yet, but dying (and going to literal Hell) just might have been the best thing to ever happen to you. Sure, you had a good-paying job before, but it was stressful, and you had been surrounded by morons. It had been hard convincing the ill and down-trodden not to give up on life, when you had already done so yourself so long ago. With no plans for the future, and certainly no wish to return to your past, your life had been destined for a long, slow decline from mediocrity into obscurity and eventual oblivion.

But not anymore.

"Hey, bozo, you gonna get out or am I gonna have to throw you out? Fuckin' crackheads, I swear."

You blink and look up. The cab must have been idling out the front of your building for a few minutes now, and the driver is getting understandably antsy. Hell is full of weirdos, and you look more dangerous than most.

"Sorry, Boss," you say, reaching into your pocket. The driver flinches at first, and then nervously relaxes when you place a few extra dollars on his centre console. He squints, quite clearly unsure how to take your generosity, then turns around in his seat to eye you properly. You grin back, running a hand smoothly over your soot-stained horns. His eyes are boring into your skull, and you can feel the dampness of drool upon your chin. "Oh," you exclaim, jumping in your seat, "right. Leaving. To work! And what a lovely day for it!" You kick the door open and leave without looking back.

***

The ride up the elevator is as slow and boring as ever, but you don't really mind it - not today. At least it works today, and even the elevator music seems infectiously light-hearted. You find yourself humming along with it, thinking of the day ahead.

You think about showing Moxxie more of your new knife skills. He's been fairly encouraging and helpful besides, offering tips on how best to balance its weight, or how to sight a target. You'd show Millie, too, but not until you're a little more confident. Not that she'd judge you for it all - on the contrary, she'd be almost overwhelmingly enthusiastic. She could be a little competitive as well, and you don't want to embarrass yourself in front of her. Or have to justify your refusal to use her as target practice.

The elevator reaches its stop and the door dings. As usual, it doesn't quite open all the way, and you have to force it to budge. It's something you still find surprisingly easy, thanks to your demonic form. A fair bit taller than your already tall human self, you're still fairly lanky, but lithe in the manner of a swimmer, with naturally visible muscles that you've been too busy partying to develop much further. Sprinkle in prominent fangs and shaggy goat legs, and you strike quite the satanic figure, if you do say so yourself; the only thing remaining of your old self: a mop of shoulder-length black hair, and a clean goatee. The horns still take getting used to - ivory white with a pattern of soot coating their tips, they curve back and around in the manner of a ram's. You still get stuck in doorways occasionally, which the imps always tease you for.

"Mornin', Pup," you say, walking through the front door of the I.M.P office. In the interest of not being disembowelled and having your entrails feasted upon, you hastily raise a hand in a warding gesture, and procure a steaming hot coffee from the crook of your arm. Loona, mid-vault from her desk, slowly settles back into her seat, and her snarl is replaced by a low-pitched growl. She snatches the coffee from your hand and immediately downs at least half of it, despite its tongue-blistering temperature.

"Yeah, whatever asshole." She watches as you cross, and then scowls as your claw-tips grasp the handle to the conference room. "Hey, heads up," she mumbles, trying to appear both urgent and unconcerned at the same time. "Everyone's a little gloomy today." You hesitate at the door, and you find your manic grin smooth itself out just a smidgeon.

"What, like Loona gloomy, or...?"

"Ugh, why do I even bother?" She throws her hands in the air, and crosses them dramatically, focusing her attention back on her magazine - Hell's Hottest Hunks (they're literally on fire!). You might have apologised, but you could tell you may as well not have existed at all to her right now. Ah... teenagers.

You press your way into the conference room and can tell immediately that there was some truth in Loona's words. Moxxie is sitting alone at the far end of the table, eyes down cast and his thoughts clearly elsewhere. His normally charming little face seems tired and distant. He looks up briefly as you enter, giving a genuine, if small smile, before retreating once more to his reverie. Blitzo is pacing in front of the whiteboard, muttering.

"Where's Millie?" you ask.

"Where the FUCK have you been?"

Blitzo rushes up to you, having to lean up on his boot-tips to grab hold of your arms, and shakes you vigorously. His stick-thin arms and weirdly gloved hands prove once again to be stronger than you give them credit for. Your eyes rattle around in your head and your brain throbs, leaving you feeling a little seedy. You shake your head to clear it, and gently push your boss a step backwards.

"You know where I've been, sir. At the brothel. You were there with me, remember? It was the company's shout - all the blow and hookers, I mean." From behind Blitzo you hear an audible smack and a miserable groan as Moxxie facepalms hard.

"Riiiiight," says your boss, tapping his chin.

"We got high and sung songs together. In fact, I'm pretty sure I left you there. How did you even get to work before me?"

"Look, let's not talk about who's been doing what with their dicks and for how long, and let's start figuring out how we're going to get this job done today. Sit." He rushes back to the board, clears some horse sketches off with his sleeve, and begins doodling something new. You've always thought he looked cute when he focuses and sticks his tongue out like that.

At the foot of the table, you hesitate. You would normally take your seat opposite Moxxie and Millie, on Blitzo's left-hand side, but Moxxie's current despondency is triggering something within you. You flatten out your striped pants, readjust your tie, and stroll as casually as you can to the little imp's side. You sit beside him, hoping desperately you aren't overstepping any boundaries. This is Millie's seat, after all, and you aren't looking to replace her.

Moxxie's eyes widen in surprise, and he looks up at you, but you focus more intently on Blitzo while you plan your next move. He steps away from the board with a flourish, revealing a crudely drawn picture of knife protruding from some poor sap's eye, complimented by spurts of blood and a 'blllerrrgh, I'm dying!', as well as a few dollar signs.

"How good are you with a knife?"

You blink. Beside you, Moxxie gives a soft smile, and a thumbs up.

"Actually, Sir, I've been practicing." You bring your knife back out of its sheathe and roll it between your fingers, flourishing it like a pen. "You need my help?"

Blitzo rolls his eyes, planting both hands upon the table.

"Apparently Millie's 'not feeling well', so I need you to take her place. I didn't even know we had sick days here. Who the hell wrote that employment contract?"

"That would be you," said Moxxie, raising a finger and sending his boss a withering glance.

"Let's not go pointing fingers, Mox. I'm not the one bitching out on everyone today."

"She's not-!" Moxxie surges from his chair, but you are quicker. You place your hand upon his and give a gentle, if firm, squeeze. His anger hitches in his throat and he quickly sits back down. You think you can detect the slightest hint of a blush, but red skin makes that a bit of a bitch to determine at a glance.

"Okay," you say in a calm voice, hoping to keep the energy in the room from getting out of hand. "I'm happy to help, though I'm nowhere near Millie's level. What do you need me to do?"

"You remember that freak with the missing finger? We need to make it look like an accident."

"The butcher, right." You recall his casefile: a bit of a miser who slices his meats a little thinner than requested. Not quite worthy of murdering, but hey, you aren't in the business of judging. He'd lost his pinkie in a work-related accident, so you could already see the precedent for something a little more lethal.

"Right," says Blitzo, clapping his hands together. "I'm going to need you to throw a knife right into his eyeball."

You and Moxxie look at each other.

"That's fucking stupid."

"Thank you! See, sir?" exclaims Moxxie. "I'm not the only one."

"Oh, come ooooon." Your boss claws at his eyes in exasperation, as you've seen Loona do when her father talks to her about boys. "People trip and fall eye-first on their knives all the time. And besides, it'll look really cool on camera. I want to make another ad - this one'll be bigger, and better, and songier. It'll be fuckin' great!" His eyes are sparkling, and his thoughts are far off. There's no getting through with him on this issue.

"Riiiight," you say, "so, when do we start?"

Blitzo shakes his head.

"As soon as you get your shit together, Soldier! Come on, we've got a musical to film!"

***

You've often fantasized about your first day on the field - a day of carnage and action, running from angry bad guys (good guys?), away from the boring books and files and CCTV recordings that make up the majority of your work. But this... this isn't exactly what you had in mind.

You and Moxxie are pressed cheek-to-cheek inside the gutted carcass of a cow. Blitzo has taken the only other carcass in the otherwise empty cold-room - you know the target's business is struggling, but this is ridiculous! Muffled through the walls of flesh, you can hear your boss taking an increasingly raunchy call with his avian not-boyfriend, leaving you and Moxxie in relative privacy. It might be a while until the butcher arrives, so best to take this chance to suss things out now.

"So," you say. Moxxie's eyeball tracks slowly around the carcass to look at you, and then quickly darts away again. "Is that a bone in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"

"Oh, shut up," he says, but he smiles. You smile too, happy to see he isn't too far gone.

"Alright, talk to me Mox. What's going on? Millie's not really sick, is she?"

Moxxie sighs, and you don't think you've ever seen him more miserable than he is right now. You shift around within the tightly packed meat, wiggling an arm through some ribs to better wrap around his shoulders. Your arm is so long, and he so short, that you've locked him in securely like a seatbelt, from clavicle to hip bone. He leans into you instantly, as if it were instinctual.

"Sick of me, maybe. I told her that perhaps... perhaps we should get a div-... d-..." He swallows, unable to get the word out.

Your eyes widen - that doesn't sound like Millie at all. You've never seen a couple so in love before.

"You don't mean that. She loves you more than anything, Mox."

"Maybe," he says, scrunching further still into a little ball of self-pity, "but she shouldn't. I'm a loser. A wimp. You know I don't deserve her - everybody does! She's so... so perfect! She needs someone better than me, someone that can provide like a man is supposed to. And I can't be that person... I can't do that for her!" He's looking up at you now, his voice trembling, and his eyes shining with tears that are just barely held in check. He's looking at you expectantly - for admonishment, for judgment, for an affirmation of his failures.

Your heart breaks: something you'd never thought possible on Earth, let alone here in Hell.

"Oh no," you whisper, "Oh you poor, sweet thing, no." You reach up and pull his head right into your chest, cradling it, and he at last releases his grief freely. You rock slightly, and your gentleness surprises you. You've never been this genuinely emotionally intimate before, not in life or death, but you find it comes easy with him.

He trembles gently against your bare chest, shoulders drawing up with every sniffle, and in that direct contact you feel something - a spark, passing from him to you. He does not moan, or sob, or whine - merely exudes his grief, flesh to flesh, a reverse osmosis. Even now, in this his most vulnerable of moments, Moxxie carries within him a kind of quiet dignity, faint as gossamer but as strong and sure as stone. You doubt he has any idea it exists, but it's there all the same.

While he recovers, slowly drawing strength from your intimacy, you run your fingers through his snow-white hair. It's soft, like a girl's, and when you straighten out a loose strand, it suddenly bounces back into his natural, boyish curls. The motion is mesmerising - it's as if the body resists any outside attempt to alter it, knowing well its own perfection. You find yourself disappointed when he pulls back away from you.

"Sorry," says Moxxie, sniffing once more. "That was... very unprofessional of me. Please don't tell Blitzo."

You study him a moment as he rubs at his eyes and tries to fix his unfixable hair. You grab him by the chin, pinched between your thumb and forefinger, and lift it up to face you.

"You know, I'd imagined us in this position before..." You say, voice pitched low, sinful. You might have done the unthinkable then, and judging by the confused and... anxiously eager? look on Moxxie's face, he was sure expecting you to. But instead, you smile, and run your clawed thumb, thick and black like charcoal, under his nostrils. "But I hadn't pictured this much snot."

You rub your thumb off on your trousers, and laugh as Moxxie buries his face in the crook of his elbow. When he finally looks back up, face a little cleaner, a smile tugs at his lips. It's the happiest you've seen him all day. But it doesn't last. The smile slips, and he once more looks at his hands.

"Mox," you say, suddenly serious. He doesn't look at you, but you know he's listening. "There's more-." You struggle with the words because you cannot quite grasp their concept yourself, despite believing in them so thoroughly. "There's more than just your marriage at stake here, Mox. I-... Hell, needs you two to work out to prove... something. You and Millie were made for each other. Please don't give up on that." The words seem ripped from your very soul, and they leave you panting. You hadn't planned this, hadn't used any of your therapist tricks or skills, it is just the raw, honest truth.

There is a pregnant pause, and the moment stretches on uncomfortably slow. These things can't be rushed, you know, but you're desperate for an answer. Finally, he looks back up, tears balling at the edge of his eyes, and his voice comes out in a mouse's squeaky, broken whisper.

"But why me? How could anyone love someone like me?"

And there it is: eyes as wide as saucers, lip trembling, the innocent naivete that is Moxxie's biggest weakness, and his greatest strength. It is something worth protecting. For a flash you think of your little brother's face, eyes just so, pleading, but you shove that awful thought from your mind just as quickly.

You can think of one hundred answers to Moxxie's question just off the top of your head, and you are ready and willing to list them, but something stays your tongue. They are words he needs to hear, yes, but not from you. That is a confusion he doesn't deserve to deal with right now.

You release the breath you've been holding.

"You want to know why, Mox? Well, fine. I'm going to find out for you. You're staying at my place tonight while I sort this out for you, okay?"

The imp blinks, struggling to comprehend.

"What? No-."

You pinch his lips shut and lean in close.

"Mox, it hurts to see you like this. Let me help you. Don't give up just yet, okay?"

His eyes search yours, and within them you see it - faint and fragile, but burning nonetheless: a spark of hope. He nods, slowly, and you let go of his lips.

It's at this moment that you hear the sickening sound of bones snapping. You're pretty sure that it's not you, so you double check with your frangible friend just to be sure.

"Was that you?"

Moxxie's eyes are bugging out, but he shakes his head.

"Oh, well that's a reli-."

The carcass tears open like a paper bag, spitting you and Moxxie out onto a cold floor. A tangle of limbs and horns, you can do little else but look around. There, before the both of you, stands a bewildered human in bloodstained overalls, his stubbled jaw hanging slack.

The target.

He is glancing between you and a half-empty bottle of booze in his hand, shaking his head.

"What the fuck?"

You have little time to comprehend the situation before Blitzo, too, is birthed from his fleshy cocoon. For all his faults, you can't say the man doesn't have great comedic timing.

Your boss lands on his back, pants slung around his ankles, snagged on a jutting bone. He's sporting love heart boxers, but instead of hearts they are patterned with rows of tiny Blitzo faces. Where does he even get those?

"This, uhh, isn't what it looks like."

You look at Blitzo, Blitzo looks at Moxxie, Moxxie looks at the butcher, and the butcher looks at you. For one obscenely long moment, everyone is stuck in a standstill.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" yells Blitzo. "Kill him!"

You reach for your knife but find a handful of Moxxie's hip instead. With no time to waste you ignore his protestations and slide your hand down his thigh to where his own knife is strapped. You draw, aim, and loose it all in a single motion, which ends with you smothering the imp with your mass.

The brief hesitation, however, has bought the target just enough time to turn and run. Your knife thuds into the back of his skull, piercing out through the other end with a smattering of grey matter, and his eyeball plucked upon its tip, like an olive in a macabre martini. The corpse collapses to the ground face first.

"Holy shit," says Moxxie, squeezing himself out from underneath you. He puffs with the exertion. "Good shot."

"No, no, no!" Blitzo, still pulling his pants up, hops over to the freshly executed corpse. "You were supposed to get him in the eye... you know, like this!" He waves his hand around and points at his own eyeball for emphasis, not noticing when he drops his pants again. "Who's going to believe this was an accident with the knife coming through the back of his head?"

You and Mox shoot each other a glance. Clearly, neither of you thought it would have made much sense either way.

"Sorry boss," you shrug. "Can we just turn him over?"

Blitzo snaps his fingers.

"Son-of-a-bitch. That's genius. Take notes, Mox, this is the kind of forward thinking we need here at I.M.P. If you're not careful the new guy may take your job."

Moxxie bristles.

"You hired me as a weapons specialist, sir. He's a target profiler. Our skillsets are hardly comparable."

"Yeah, yeah. Look, why don't you quit being a bitch and help me turn this body over. It needs to look perfect - just another casual workplace accident."

Moxxie grumbles, but does as he's asked.

After cleaning up, you and Moxxie stand over the victim's body. Blitzo has resumed his call in the freezer nearby, leaving you two alone together.

"So," says Moxxie, searching for the right words. "How does it feel? Your first kill, I mean."

Through the adrenaline of the moments prior, you haven't yet given time to considering your feelings. It is important - or, rather, it feels like it should be important. But looking at the body, and then at your hands, you're left feeling unsatisfied. Empty.

"It's alright." You rub your hands together and turn to face him. "Wish I'd been able to use my own knife for it. What about you, though. How are you feeling?"

Moxxie squats, absent-mindedly pokes at the body, avoids having to look at you.

"Okay? Better, I think. I don't know... sorry I got in your way."

"Nonsense, being close to you is a blessing, Mox. Here," you say, holding out your key. Moxxie looks over, eyebrow raised. He plucks the key gingerly from your hand, like honeycomb from an angry beehive.

"What's this for?"

"It's the key to my apartment. I told you: you're staying with me tonight. I'll meet you there later, right after I have a chat with Millie."

The little imp surges to his feet, trying to put your key back in your hands, but you wave him off.

"No! No, you can't do that! What if-."

"Mox, I won't be able to rest until I at least try. I told you, didn't I? There's more depending on this than just your marriage." You give him your most confident smile, and close his fingers back over his palm, trapping the key within it. "So, let me be a little selfish here, okay?" Your stomach is in turmoil and your heart beats loud in your ears - you can only hope Moxxie doesn't hear it.

***

Dressed in your usual outfit of striped, grey-and-brown slacks with suspenders, you begin to wish you'd swung by home to grab a coat first. Or at least a shirt. Your demonic transformation has left you nigh immune to the touch of heat and flames, but the bite of cold affects you all the same. And this afternoon's winds, reminiscent of Earth's Autumn blusters, are threatening to shrivel and unman you.

You take solace in your righteous purpose. That, and your responsibility to the roses you held, which you are struggling to keep sheltered from the wind. You'd asked Moxxie twice; "Roses? Really, she likes roses? Like, red ones?" yet still you remain sceptical. Millie, as sweet as she could be, didn't seem the type for such... bog-standard romantic tropes. But, you remind yourself, whether they are something she really likes or not doesn't really matter. What matters is that they were Moxxie's idea - they aren't supposed to be from you, after all. She'll be able to tell the difference. At least, you hope so.

Turning the corner, just down the street from their home, you find your pace has slowed. Maybe you should give them time, let them sort their own mess out. You are a therapist after all, not a marriage counsellor, and even that was stretching things a little. You're standing in front of the door now, hand raised to knock. Maybe you should go. Your fist taps gently against the wood, once, and slides down it as you turn to leave.

"Moxxie! Moxxie, is that you?" You hear a glass smash inside, followed by swearing, and then the pounding of imp feet. If you want to get out now, you best start running. But, of course, you don't - you can't. "Mox, thank god you're home. Where have you be-."

The door opens, and Millie cranes her neck to look up at you, eyes wide. You stand up straight, then figure you might be being rude and hunch over instead.

"Hi Millie." You wave awkwardly. "It's just me. Sorry to disappoint."

"Newbie? What are- no, no it's fine. Come in, come in!"

She grabs you by the wrist and pulls you inside. Luckily, you have the presence of mind to duck beneath the door frame or else things might have gone poorly for you. Millie is talking, but you're not paying too much attention. You're watching her - sitting you at your special tall chair (that they'd acquired specifically for you), treading carefully around the glass she'd dropped at your arrival, asking you if you wanted a drink, you saying no, and then her getting you one anyway. Where Moxxie is constantly hesitating, constantly second-guessing, watching and waiting, Millie is motion. She never stops, and you hope she never does.

"Are those...?" She slots the question into the ongoing pleasantries so casually that you're not sure if she'd only just noticed, or if she had been building her courage just to ask it.

"Flowers," you say, then shake your head. "Roses, rather. Mox said they were your favourite." She laughs, confirming your prior suspicions. "But I had my doubts..."

Still smiling, she takes them tenderly from your offering hand.

"They aren't, but, they are... in a way. I don't know where he first got the idea, honestly, but I've been running with it ever since. It makes him happy, so... it makes me happy, too." She rifles through the bunch, finding one with a shorter stem which she snaps in half, and then slides gently into place beside her horn. You're glad you paid that little bit extra for the thornless ones. "He says it 'really brings out my eyes'. What do you think?"

"I think you're beautiful."

You blink. That isn't what you had intended to say. Thankfully, she laughs again - that sound the distillation of wind chimes teased by a playful spring breeze. Millie picks out another rose and leans forward, gesturing for you to do the same. You obey.

"They're not just for me, either. Moxxie likes to wear them, too. He says it helps him feels connected with me, but sometimes I think he realises just how cute he is and wants an excuse to express it." She places the flower in the same spot beside your horn, an unlikely mirror, and then hesitates. "Don't... tell him I told you that."

You sit back up straight, hands raised with your palms outward.

"My lips are sealed, Mils."

Your smile holds, but the conversation quickly fades. The two of you are left to look around, twiddle your thumbs, or take the occasional sip of juice. You wish she'd given you something a little harder, at least, but you aren't about to complain. You can tell there is something bubbling just beneath Millie's skin, hidden just behind her tongue. You might have prodded her for it, but she isn't like Moxxie in that regard. Where he was in need of gentle guiding, Millie wanted only for a sympathetic ear, and the will to take on her problems alone. At last, that dam broke:

"Is he... safe?"

"He's staying at my place, don't worry. I'll take care of him." She relaxes visibly, finally letting out tension she'd had no other way of assuaging.

"Oh, thank Lucifer. I've been sick with worry all weekend, but it's a relief to know he's being looked after by someone I can trust."

A weekend! He's been gone all weekend? This is news to you, and not a lick of it good. This whole mess is starting to sound even more serious than you initially thought. He'd seemed a little dishevelled this morning, sure, but you'd put it down to a poor night's sleep. Where the hell had he been these past two days? You don't bother to correct Millie's misconception.

"So, tell it to me straight, Mil. What's going on? I've only got Moxxie's half of the story and he was a bit... emotional when he shared it." You wince, the image of his miserable face buried into your chest fresh in your mind.

Millie sighs and lowers her head to the table, looking away from you.

"I guess I've been a poor excuse for a wife... maybe, I don't know. He gets like this sometimes, a little upset, but we always come through in the end. It ain't never lasted more than a day before, though. And it was over something so... so stupid!" She gestures to the air, replaying the scenario in her mind. "A jar of honey -- can you believe it? We were going to bake honey cakes together, but I just couldn't get the damn thing open. He takes it from me-." Her voice takes on a gruffer pitch that hardly resembles Moxxie at all. "'Don't worry, darling,' he said, 'let me take care of this for you.' But he couldn't do it, no matter how hard he tried. I shouldn't have laughed, I really shouldn't have, but I did. Oh, poor Mox, his sweet little heart just broke. I tried to say sorry, that I didn't mean it, but he was already heading out the door." She sighs. "I know he's not mad at me, I know he ain't, he's not like that, but I've done him wrong... He told me... he would be okay if I wanted to... y'know... 'leave' him."

As much as it hurts to hear, you are glad it's coming out so easily. Ripped off like a Band-Aid - painful and raw, but quick. Millie, face buried in her hands, goes quiet again. You reach out, grab two of her tiny fingers, and pull her hands away from her face. She squeezes your fingers, and you squeeze back.

"You say this has happened before?"

You never would have guessed it, based on how madly in love they always seemed. You need to find out more.

"Right, the trigger's always different, but the reasons are the same. He says he 'doesn't deserve someone like me', that he's 'weighing me down' or something stupid... Doesn't he see how much I love him? He's my world, Newbie."

"Well," you say, mulling her words around in your head. Your next words you have to choose carefully - you don't want to risk offending her, or making her feel any worse. "Honestly? I don't think he does know. Not that you don't treat him well, or do sweet things for him. It seems that you, and everyone else, Mil, may have taken your relationship for granted. I mean, it's obvious, isn't it, just how well you two fit together? But, you know Mox, he's not like everyone else. He's kind, and sweet, sure, but he's also sensitive and... oblivious, about certain things. Moxxie thinks about you a lot, that much is obvious." You are starting to trip over your words. You have a lot things to say, but not enough words to say them with. "I think he just needs to hear the same from you, direct and honest." It suddenly clicks in your head; you know exactly how to phrase it. "Moxxie knows you love him, Mil, he just can't understand why."

Millie is sat up completely, studying you intently, brows knit. She nibbles on her lip and her gaze, far off, shows she's clearly engaged with your suggestion.

"But... what can I say to him that will make him understand? There's not a thing about him I don't love, Newbie, even the silly parts. How do I say, 'I love you', without saying just that?"

Your blackened claw tips tap-tap on the diminutive table. You blow out your cheeks, and think out loud.

"I don't know exactly, Millie. It has to come from you, after all..." You look around and, spying one of Moxxie's bowties slung over the back of a chair, you get an idea. Considering your neck is at least twice as thick as Moxxie's, you are proud of the fact you manage to fit it on anyway, even if it forces you to focus on your breathing a whole lot more. It couldn't have just been a clip-on, could it? "What do you think?"

"Hold on," she laughs. Perked up with the electric energy you knew her for, Millie hops off her chair and rummages through the pantry, returning with a small bag of flour. She dips three fingers into the bag and then presses her fingertips to your cheeks. Dot-dot-dot, one cute cluster of artificial freckles on each side of your face. "Now you're perfect!"

"Alright, I've got the flower, the bowtie, and the spots. So, practice on me. Pretend I'm Moxxie. What do you want to say to him?"

Millie has her cheek in her hand, and she's flashing her pearly whites in a cheeky grin.

"My-my, Moxxie, how tall you've gotten! And, why, have you been working out?"

Your cheeks flush, and you lower yourself down as far as you can go. You grab one of Millie's small hands in either of yours. Her grin fades, and she's left searching your face for the words she needs. But yours is not the face she sees, not really. She takes a breath, swallows, and begins.

"Moxxie, I-... I love the way your tongue sticks out when you're focusing on something, and you think no one's watching. I love the way you iron your clothes every morning before work, even if they're already perfect. I love... I love the way you brush my hair so gently, and apologise at every little knot you come across as if it's your fault." She is leaning closer to you now, tracing over your knuckles with her thumbs.

"I love how you personalise each little cake you make, and make sure there's enough for everybody, even if they're pissing you off." She smiles, remembering, considering. "Mox, I don't think the thought of holding back has ever crossed your mind... I love your songs - even the bad ones!" She laughs, and the tears that she's been holding back are finally let loose to spill over her cheeks. "I love your daggy dancing in the mornings when you make breakfast, and how your face lights up when I compliment your cooking. I love how you stick up for me, even when you don't need to. I love how your butt wiggles when you're lining up a shot, and how every time you even think about lying your tail always gives you away."

Her hand is on your face and you're frozen. Your heart is hammering so loudly it's a wonder you can still hear anything she's saying. You should pull back, stop her, say something - but you are stone, as like to lift a mountain as move a single muscle in your body.

"I love your freckles. I love the cute notes you leave in my lunch. I love how you still blush when I kiss you, even after all this time. Gosh, Moxxie, don't you get it?" She's climbed halfway on to the table, and her face is an inch from yours. "There ain't a God-damned thing about you I don't love."

Her lips press to yours and the effect is instantaneous - a spark that ignites into a flashfire ravishing of your core, consuming every last thought, feeling and impulse until you're left hollow. Empty - but complete, like the last page of a good book. It lasts all of a second before Millie's eyes pop back open and she realises what she's done. She jumps back, and its only your instinctual grabbing of her arm that saves her from tumbling back into her chair.

"I'm sorry, Newbie. I-I don't know what came over me. I was thinking of-."

"Moxxie. I know." You straighten in your chair, rubbing the tension from your brows. "Maybe dressing up was a bad idea. Just... give me a minute." You bury your face in your hand, and focus on steadying your breathing.

What the hell are you doing? You're in over your head. Impartiality has always been a core pillar of therapy, why did you think it would be any different this time? Should you stop? Call it quits? They would sort themselves out without you, wouldn't they?

A minute passes and you realise with a start that you haven't yet let go of Millie's arm. She's been stuck, poised on the edge of the table, just watching you with the presence of an animal caged. Millie is a tough girl, but you are more than three times her size - she wouldn't stand a chance of escaping your grip, and the thought unsettles you. You promptly release her, praying you haven't been too rough.

"Sorry," you say, but she doesn't reply. Millie sits back in her chair, takes the flower from her hair, and begins wiping her cheeks where her mascara had begun to smudge. "I should go." The table rattles as you excuse yourself from it, and the screech of your chair moving makes you wince. You take the flower from your hair and place it in front of Millie, but you can't bring yourself to look at her as you leave.

In the stifling silence of the house, your hoofsteps are loud and obnoxious. It seems the harder you try to extricate yourself silently, the more your body tries to make a fool of you. Still, you make it to the front door, sweaty but in one piece. You place a hand on the doorframe, and another on the handle, which resists your initial attempt to turn it.

A thought: Does Moxxie feel those same flames when he kisses Millie?

"Mils," you say, without turning back. "Tomorrow morning, at the local café. The one you two took me to on my deathday, remember? Will you meet Moxxie and I there? Tell him everything you just told me?"

Succeed or fail, this was your last attempt. You had one battle left in you.

"Of course! Of course, I will!"

You nod.

"See you then, Millie. Good night."

The door finally opens, and you step out into a dismal, rainy night.

***

You make it back to your shitty apartment, soaked from head to hoof; shivering, but alive.

As dangerous as downpours could be in Hell, you can't imagine having spent a minute more in Millie's home. Being mugged was a fair trade for some peace of mind. The walk does you some good, too. Your head feels clearer, and your heart is no longer threatening to beat out of your chest. But your night isn't over yet, is it? You step inside.

Moxxie is passed out on your bed. The imp is as easy to read as a book laid open - you can almost retrace his actions perfectly. He'd clearly sat himself at the end of your bed, facing the door, waiting anxiously for your return. The cold must have gotten to him, because he was still clutching on to your only pillow. Time had passed, and a weekend's worth of emotional exhaustion must have finally caught up to him, leaving him curled up at the foot of your bed like a cat.

You shake your head. It isn't easy doing the right thing.

You consider having a customary smoke and a bite to eat before bed, but you can finally feel your own weekend of debauchery knocking at your door, calling for its dues. The skin under your eyes is heavy, and you can feel the beginnings of a headache forming in your skull. Maybe Moxxie has the right idea. You need some rest of your own.

You take a power shower, freshen up, and change into your only pajama pants - some loose-fitting slacks, the one with the hole in them. You would jump right into bed if it wasn't for your little Moxxie problem. His breathing is steady, but the chill is raising goosebumps on his flesh, and he is still wearing his work clothes. You can't just leave him like that, can you?

You take a seat, the springless sponge that you call a mattress sinking dangerously low. The crater your ass makes causes Moxxie's feet to slip beside your shaggy thigh. As good a place to start as any, you suppose.

You lift his ankle with all the gentleness of a little girl with her teapot, refusing to look at his face the whole while. God, this was embarrassing. As you fumble with what should have been his shoes, you come to your first hurdle. There was no latch or loop or button to unfasten, for the imp didn't appear to be wearing socks or shoes at all. You can't believe you've never noticed this before - not that you look at people's feet too often, especially with your considerable height.

Moxxie appears to be sporting some kind of leggings, with two holes cut at the end to fit through his cloven hooves. The strip of fabric, wedged tightly in the gap, sends a shiver down your spine - like nails on chalkboard. You can't imagine that would be comfortable at all... would it? Permanent hoof wedgies... But, you realise, these thoughts are just a blustering distraction, aren't they? Because if he's not wearing any shoes, then the next step can only be...

You gently unravel Moxxie from your pillow, laying him flat on the mattress and trying desperately not to disturb him. Your hands come to rest on the waistband of his leggings. Is this inappropriate? He can sleep in his leggings, can't he? It might be a bit uncomfortable but... Lucifer, you hope he's wearing underwear.

You take a breath, hook your fingers through the fabric, and tug. Your moral panic is alleviated a touch by the presence of underwear - tighty-whities, of course, though he must have been wearing them for at least three days now. You tug them down bit by bit - well, it's more like rolling them down, as the fabric bunches up and curves around itself - even managing to slip it around his rear. You've got it to his thighs, and you're on the verge of congratulating yourself when you hear it.

"Mnnf... what are you doing?"

Your mind blanks. Moxxie yawns and rubs at his eyes.

"Taking your pants off." Shit. Shit fuck ass. That was, quite possibly, the single stupidest thing you could have said in that situation. Why did you say that?

"Huh?"

"Umm... go back to sleep?"

Moxxie groans. He rolls over, and you use the opportunity to rip his leggings the rest of the way off. Your heart is pounding - something you've had to get used to lately - but Moxxie doesn't react aside from a slightly annoyed grumble. You fling his pants away like a pair of poisonous snakes and decide that that was enough borderline morally questionable undressing for one day. No way you in Hell will you be going back for another round of that torture.

You lay your only blanket around his shoulders, a flimsy swaddling protection against the night's chill and unpleasant dreams - enough to stave off gooseflesh, but not exactly what you'd call 'comfortable'. Not that comfort was on your mind tonight. As you crawl into bed yourself, positioned as far from your temporary roommate, your colleague, your friend, as possible, back turned and arms crossed, curled in on yourself for warmth, your mind is unbound like a ball of rubber bands slit open. Thoughts spill out in all directions, queries and posturising leading to questions and interrogations, some unpleasant, some reassuring, and all encouraged by the steady prickling of an icy breeze that staved off the pleasant numbness of sleep with its annoying incessantness. It was going to be a long, cold night.

***

Fire - wild, untameable, consuming.

Flames plague your dreams as they do most nights; tongue-tips lashing, tasting, licking at your face, your fingertips, the burning stench of what they'd already consumed being inked into your skin; stinging, permanent reminders of your failure. You push through the wall of heat, ignoring the pain even as it crisps your form from the outside in, flesh cracking in splintered rivulets like fingers stretching for your heart, denying as it breaks down your clay and re-bakes you into something new - lesser. You break through, but for your effort the only reward awaiting you on the other side is ash; cold and grey...

Your snore catches in your throat, dragging you unceremoniously into the world of the waking through spluttering coughs and choking half-breaths that tease cheekily a second oblivion. Your eyes flutter, and in those first few moments of brain fog, spurred on by your common asphyxiation, you are left to stitch together old information as if it were new again: You are home, in bed, but not alone. Your pants are still on. There's something in your bed - someone? - warm, tiny, and worryingly close. Straight up uncomfortable, too. Who? Moxxie.

You take a steadying breath and look down. Yep, it's Moxxie. He's wedged himself between your arm and your chest, horns stabbed into your bicep, his arm flung over your torso (it would never be able to reach all the way over). His face, tilted up towards you, is the very picture of innocence: clear and creaseless in the peace only afforded the dead and untroubled. His breathing is steady, unburdened, and his mouth, so slightly ajar, is letting slip a steady tickling of drool to drip awkwardly down your side. Despite the numbness of your arm, and the pleasant-unpleasantness of the situation, you can't bring yourself to awake him. Not just yet, at least.

Laying your head back, you stare with dark-circled eyes at the stained, sinking ceiling of your apartment, blind but not sightless. Hadn't you slept at opposite sides of the bed? Why is he so close? Your brain fires off useless questions like cannon blasts of confetti, a helpful distraction from the growing pressure in your chest, and another lower still than that. You stuff your single, sweat-stained pillow between your thighs and groan. Another thought: is it immoral, to lay here, with his body pressed up so desperately against yours, knowing what the day had in store? You are doing this for them, aren't you? What would Millie think? Quite ironically, you are saved from your introspective burrowing by the very object of your obsession.

"Where am I?"

His words are half-mumbled and half-muffled, but you catch their general gist. You flick your tongue against your teeth, run it along the grooves of your palate, and think. Quick thinking, as it turns out, is not your strong suit.

"In my bed... uhh, in my apartment. With me. Remember, Mox?"

The little imp sighs - the kind of worldly inhalation that was at once in denial and resignation of the day and its burdens to come, as if by breathing them in one might digest, reconstitute, and spit them back out wholly unrecognisable and much more approachable. Pointless, but not without purpose: forget-me-not scintillations, the last guardians of the transition between the mindless sweet dreams and the mindful Kafkaesque. He lays there a while more, long enough that you are sure he must be awake, aware, just gathering his energy about him like a lizard on a warm rock.

He gets up at last, rubbing his eyes, and allowing the weakness of a single yawn. You have a brief flare of panic that is extinguished almost as quickly, for Moxxie does not react as you expect. Given what you know of Moxxie, this is the exact moment he should be jumping away from you, gathering blankets around himself for modesty, and apologising profusely for 'invading' your personal space. But in those eyes there lies a tiredness that sleep will not fix, and he instead calmly untangles himself from your protective arm and slides off the bed. He sets about calmly gathering his outfit from where you had tossed it and putting it back on.

"Uhh, Mox?" you say, unable to observe the self-wallowing pity any longer. It was making you uncomfortable in more ways than one. He responds with a grunt. "You do remember what I did last night, right? You and I are meeting Millie today, at uhh--" you look over at your barely-functioning digital alarm clock, '7:03AM', "well, I guess I should have clarified with her. I just said 'morning', whatever that means."

"YOU WHAT!?" Moxxie, with one leg halfway slid into his leggings, is overcome by a sudden energy. Unbalanced, he jump-hops once, twice, three times, then yelps as he tumbles to the floor. You would have laughed if it wasn't for the demonic speed with which he then skittered along the floor, up your bed, and onto your chest. Panting, pant-less, and wide-eyed, the intensity of his looming reminds you of your sleep-paralysis demons -- the ones that make you uncomfortable, at least. "You-you-you-you... explain, you!" He demands, finger pointing and eyes narrowing, untrusting but hopeful.

"Alright, Mox, just... relax. I mean what I said, okay?" You bring your arms up slowly, raising them behind his vision as one handles a cobra. Grabbing gently around his waist, you lift him with you as you sit up, and set him to the side. His eyes don't leave yours the whole time, but at least his nervous rumbling subsides a little. "Mils and I had a... conversation. She wants to talk to you. So, I said you would." He's stopped looking at you now, eyes darting this way and that, clearly lost inside his own head -- something you can empathise with more than most.

"Mox..." you drop your voice lower, a disarming whisper, and take his trembling hand in yours, engulfing it completely. "I'll be there with you. Don't panic, okay?" He looks up at you. You squeeze his hand. He takes a breath, and nods.

"Oh crumbs. What if--what if I... stuff it up?" You smile, and pat his knee.

"What if you don't? Besides, the only thing you're stuffing up right now is my nose. You stink, Mox. Go have a shower, at least, then we can talk a bit more." The imp gives a wary sniff of his pits and recoils.

"Right... right! Oh gosh," he says, leaping from your side once more. Gathering his things with a skittish energy that could not possibly have belonged to the weary creature of a few sentences prior, Moxxie rushes to your bathroom, muttering to himself the whole while. It was like the flicking of a switch, one that may flick back at any moment, sure, but it like night and day, nonetheless. You find yourself being swept up in the imp's verve, called to action by great purpose and even greater enthusiasm - a weightless energy oozing through your bones like smoke; Moxxie's Moxie, drug of choice for the modern sinner!

"Uhh, Newbie?" Moxxie says, his little head peaking out from behind your ensuite door. He holds a single finger up in polite query. "I am in need of a towel. And... perchance, some clean clothes?" You try to hold back but can't help but laugh at his face, flushed and sheepish, and the thought of such a tiny thing in your clothes. Embarrassed, he begins to retreat back behind the bathroom door, but you forestall him with a waving hand.

"No, no, it's fine. I'll find something. You might look a little... silly, but I guess that's better than smelly." A grin, dorky but honest; a quick thumbs up, and the half-nude imp clicks the door shut. You lay back, charred-skin hands tucked comfortably behind your head, and indulge in a dorky grin of your own.

As hard as it is to describe to somebody else - Hell, even to yourself - this, this feeling, this unravelling ball of warmth in your chest, the flame without thorns, this is what you think you were trying to say to Moxxie earlier: the truth that Hell needs to hear; the proof that it needs so desperately to hold on to. Or at least it's close enough for you - Hope adjacent; a sunflower bud threatening to flourish, to swallow the light, be nourished by it, and in turn throw it back out to the world for others to witness, and be reminded of what was there, what had always been there, but that we were too busy looking at our feet to notice. It, too, is an inhalation you suppose, just like Moxxie's before, but this one is different. Not just an illusion, a mask, because it's true; it works. Because it has to work. Because you need it to - and, maybe, that's okay.

***

"Ugh, I can hardly see out of this thing!"

Moxxie's grumbling has become background noise to you by now - some parts frustrated muttering, especially when he stumbles on an empty booze bottle or the outflung limbs of some strung-out sinner; some parts self-diverting murmuring, distracting detours down paths of pointless query: "Very cold out this morning, maybe we should turn back and get another coat?", "I'm actually quite famished. Can we stop by the bakery first? Maybe for a while?", "Do I look okay to you?"

That last one makes you laugh. No, Mox, you look like a boiled frog in a blanket. You assure him that it's fine, that Millie isn't going to care what he comes dressed in, that she'll be there for him and him alone, and besides, you've got no other options anyway. The two of you make an interesting picture - he, a squat, jittery child, swaddled head-to-toe in your boring grey hoodie and nothing else, the one with the spaghetti stain near the hem, and the hood that he can't quite disentangle from his horns and so let's sit over his face, leaving just enough of a gap in the fabric to see through; and you, beside him, the giant in grey-brown slacks and suspenders, a tie, and no shirt -- a little goofy, but in a way that is hopefully charming, rather than disconcerting. You get a few strange looks as you walk, but thankfully Moxxie doesn't seem to notice - he's got enough to deal with right now.

"We're nearly there, Mox," you say with a practiced nonchalance, an attempt to alchemise the massive into the manageable. He doesn't respond, becomes very noticeably quiet instead. "Are you ready?"

The imp stops in his tracks and you, patient, stop beside him.

"No," he whispers.

You take his hand in yours (or, at least whatever of it you could grab through the floor-dragging length of the hoodie's sleeve) and pull him over to a bench on the side of the street. You lift him up and sit him down despite his protestations, then stand right beside him. Lighting up a cigarette, you start puffing away - half to signal to Moxxie that it was okay to relax for a minute, and half because you just really needed a cigarette.

"That's okay," you promise him, "we can just stay here until you are. We've got time."

"Are you sure?" You aren't, actually, because you forgot to give an actual time to Millie before you left her house, but that isn't what Moxxie needs to hear right now, so you just nod. Millie won't just leave, even if she has to wait a little bit. She is patient enough for that and besides, you only have one shot at this - you need Moxxie to be at his best; Millie, too, but she's beyond your help right now. So: you breathe, and wait, and your friend does the same.

"Newbie?"

Moxxie's scratchy voice tugs you back into the present, a minute or ten later, you cannot guess. Your reply -- a noncommittal grunt - hopefully does not come across as rude or disinterested, it is merely the best that you can do in that moment.

"Why are you doing this? And for me?" That 'me' he says with a kind of bewilderment: less self-pity, more genuine curiosity, though both inextricably linked. You frown; why did you want to do this? Your reasoning won't make any sense to Moxxie, and for what it's worth, you're still figuring out the finer details yourself anyway.

"Because I want to."

Moxxie pouts.

"But w-?"

"Because you're very special to me, Mox. Millie, too. And I want you to be happy. Because you're worth it - this is... worth doing." Waving vaguely at the air, you pretend your gesture might convey all the nuance and complex machinations of meaning that you yourself are only beginning to comprehend. The imp goes quiet again, and in those silent minutes you just enjoy, for a while, simply being in each other's company. Eventually he hops off the bench and starts walking. You flick your cigarette to the curb and grind it under hoof, annoyed that it hasn't helped to settle your nerves at all, and follow.

The café is as you remember it, yet somehow dourer and more muted, as if bowed by the gravitas of its oncoming purpose - it is just a simple café, after all, not well equipped to facilitate such spiritual anamnesis. Strolling on through, pushing Moxxie ahead of you, you emerge out into the private, hedge-lined and bird-filled garden that serves as the crowning jewel of an otherwise unimpressive establishment. Millie isn't here, though whether that's a blessing or an omen you can't be certain of just yet.

Moxxie climbs up into a chair too big for him, and you hunch down into a chair too small for you, and you start chatting with the nervous-looking, blue-gilled waiter that has come to take your order. It's in the midst of requesting a triple-shot long black that you're struck by a sudden sense of melancholy, so you shoo him away instead and he acquiesces all too eagerly. Sitting there, on this cold morning, in this quiet little garden paradise, you realise that this may well be the last chance you'll ever get to do this - just enjoy Moxxie's company, or Millie's for that matter, alone, as friends, so you sit back in your seat and just breathe in the fairy garden tea-party atmosphere; breathe in the smell and sight of Moxxie, eyes glazing over as he reads from a menu; breathe in the world as it is in this moment, siphon it into a vial with a wax-stamped cork and red-ribbon label, and place it on a shelf in the void-bound bookshelves of your mind, where neither time nor reality could rob you of it.

Half an hour or more passes and Moxxie's spoon-tapping, sugar-shaking, menu-flicking mania reaches a boiling point, the bubbling over of anticipation mixed carelessly with anxiety. It's a little hard to take his agitation, what with how hampered he is by your borrowed outfit, making him look more like a pile of animated clothing, a witch's prank, than anything approaching a heartbroken imp. You reach out with a verbal prod, a tactically placed counter-curse to unravel this unfunny spell.

"Hey, Mox, remember why you're here."

The imp's flighty vibrations slow, and he tilts his head up to look at you, chin jutting just so from the overhang of the hood.

"For Millie?" he says, as if even he isn't quite sure. You reach over and casually pull back the fabric that shields him, unleashing the fullness of his innocence upon Hell once more - the spiralling, earthy brown florets that made up the centre of one precious, light swallowing sunflower.

"No, for me!"

Your grin is wide, disarming - humour can often ease the weight that stoicism's square shoulders aren't wide enough to bare. The old you would never joke in serious situations like this, and especially not during a session, but the old you is dead and, besides, you never liked that guy anyway. You've no time to discover if the ploy works, however. It is precisely then that the garden sanctum, which had become by now a timeless sanctuary for you and Moxxie, protecting a moment between the yearned-for past and an unknowable future, finally has its tremulous peace shattered.

"Moxxie?"

She stands there, dressed down in the inoffensive beige of a fashionably simple outfit, her black hair hanging in a cultured chaos, and her bottom lip depressed by the worrying of her teeth. A gust of wind gives outside motion to her otherwise unmoving form, and carries closed the door to the garden behind her. With its soft click shut, so too does the noise and unpleasantness of the outside world recede, returning the sanctuary once more to a safe place, though one changed from here forward - tainted, or merely touched, you cannot tell.

The moment passes and, where you expect them to rush into each other's arms, to kiss and connect and divulge and, in that blessed contact, reassure, they instead stay still. A silence settles over the space, uncomfortable, and perhaps strangling if you were to let it continue. You pat the seat beside you, gesturing Millie to come and sit, which she does, though with a sluggishness that was unlike her. You try to think fast - an ice breaker? A compliment? Do you just jump right into it? - but Millie saves you the effort.

"Mox, Sweetie, you... alright?"

Moxxie shrugs, mumbles, regresses to the state he'd been in before, as if the presence of Millie's physicality had drained him in a way the image of her hadn't. Millie looks at you, frowns, blaming you, requesting help, or sharing her distress, you aren't sure. She straightens her back, leans forward, even as Moxxie retreats, curling into himself. "Please come home, Hon. I've been worried sick about you."

"Why?"

She flinches, stung, wincing.

"Why... because I care about you, Mox. You're my husband! The house is lonely without you..."

"Well," he says, not even daring to look at her, not looking at anyone, anything, "you'll find someone else. Someone better. You won't be lonely long."

That one hurt, you can see it in the lurch of her chest, and the gathering of wetness in her eyes, threatening to spill at just the suggestion of further pain. Hand on her chest, a shield for her heart, Millie's pleading is difficult to listen to.

"I don't want someone else, Mox. I want you."

Moxxie growls, slamming his hands on the table, palms flat and fangs bared. His claw tips tease splintered divots in the wood of the tabletop, turmoil made external.

"Why!?"

His hurt, his confusion, is so genuine that it sits Millie back in her seat, and even you flinch away. Millie blinks. She looks over at you, asking for guidance, and you nod in gentle reassurance.

"Go on," you say, placing a hand over hers, strength lent to one in need, "tell him. Just like we practiced." But even as the words leave your mouth, they lose their essence, for you realise your dreadful mistake. Your hand envelops Millie's completely, a charred black-and-red dome, a battle-scarred wall of protection against the outside world, emanating strength, and, at least as others see it, a calm self-assurance. Moxxie takes one look at that - an insulting reminder of everything he aspires to be, but isn't; the masculine hand, the constricting symbol - and turns to leave.

"Moxxie, wait!"

You grab his hand as he twists away from you and in that moment, the three of you linked hand to hand, flesh to flesh, it happens.

It only takes a heartbeat.

There is no trickling, no warning, but rather a receding of heat from your body, as the waves before a tsunami, pulled out of you but not gone, gathering elsewhere, building, building, promising to return. And of course it does, all at once, fire from both ends, flooding into you, storming, passing through you. These are cleansing flames, pure and unblemished and not angry, but not without the necessary pain of scouring, of being rubbed raw.

But the heat isn't here to burn, is it? You know that now, remembering Moxxie's spark passing to you at the butcher's, Millie's spark passing to you in her house, the seeds implanted of a message that was now sprouting to fruition. This communication, an embrace, a conversation, speaks to you even as it speaks through you.

You can see it now, understand it, the extent of Moxxie's lack of self-worth, the logic of his discontent, because you can see Millie now as he sees her, and how can any man be worthy of one such as she? She is a ball of fire, a sun, The Sun, a goddess, shining upon the world so effortlessly, so freely, revealing to him all he cared to see and making sense of a world that was otherwise senseless. But staring so directly into that light was blinding, had blinded him, had spotted his vision in a pleasant, soothing, but unhelpful way.

Because behind each sunbeam ray lay a fragility that he hadn't noticed, a need to be grounded, guided towards the earth or else they would disperse unfulfilled, unfulfilling. And what earth was there to she but Moxxie? That light that he saw as revelatory was, to her, rather searching, seeking to understand the world not for the world itself, but for his presence within it, for the way it moulded around him each and every time, because he could not help but impress himself upon it, even accidentally.

It's in that rush of images, the rapid film reel replay of emotions and moments lost or incomplete that were now given new life and context, that you realise the truth of Millie and Moxxie - they were not two separate beings joined, but rather one being split in two; they were sun and sunflower both, existing in that exact moment that the light touches the ground, and its rays bend and warp around it, forming in the space between the outline of Them.

You blink.

Your head is empty, your body exhausted, and you're sitting in the quiet little garden of a quiet little café with your two friends, tangible and real, who you have come to love very much. The imps are facing each other, mouths slightly agape, wordless, for there was nothing left to say; crying, but only because their physical bodies lacked a response more appropriate. It's Moxxie, at last, who carries this scene into the next.

"Really?" he says, voice choked up, scratchy, recovering from the passage of his burdens which had leapt their way up and out of his chest all at once, "even the bad ones?"

Millie, even through her tears, laughs so sweetly, and with that laughter all is bright in the world again.

"Yes, Mox, even the bad ones." Leaping from her seat, Millie leaps towards her husband and they embrace, forehead to forehead, tails entwined, still crying, still laughing, just enjoying each other and the creation of a memory that would never be forgotten.

If, however it had happened, Moxxie now knows of the conversation you'd had with Millie in their house, enough to know what she'd said to you, does that mean he also knows of the kiss you'd shared with her? Does that mean, too, that Millie knows you had slept in the same bed as him, and woken in each other's arms, even if unintentionally? How much had they seen, and does it even matter? Would you be discarded now, job done, having betrayed their trust? Does that matter? Are you okay with that - will it have all been worth it?

"Newbie?" By her tone of voice, it must have been the second or third time she'd called your name. How long had you been sitting there thinking? Millie, still entwined with her other half, appraises you now with new eyes -- curious. "How in Hell did ya do that?"

You look at your hands -- the angry red lines seared into the palms, the claws singed black at their tips; big hands, killing hands - and place them in your lap. Whatever you've done, you're pretty sure it isn't going to happen again any time soon, but still better to keep your hands to yourself for a while just in case.

"I... don't know."

Millie and Moxxie give each other a look you can't decode - she smiles, and his cheeks redden, but he nods with enthusiasm.

"Well... words can't explain what you've done for us. Mox and I... we owe you a lot. So, we were thinkin'... as a way of showin' thanks, maybe you could come to our place tonight? Late."

Her lashes flutter and she licks her upper lip, tongue running its complete length. Moxxie, beside her, uses her hand like a shield to hide his face, but even so he can't hide the nervous excitement in his bouncing.

"Why would you want t-," you begin, but then it hits you. "Oh."

Oh! Are they really... but you can't, can you? They're so... so tiny! And your colleagues! Would it make things awkward at the office? What, exactly, do they have in store for you? A silly memory resurfaces: you aren't supposed to fraternise with your clients. It's unprofessional. And immoral! Another thought: you're in Hell; who cares? You bury your face in your hands.

"Yes," you groan, "I'll be there."

"Oh crumbs," says Moxxie, and you don't have to look to picture him adjusting his neckline. "Newbie, Millie and I are going to take the day off... could you cover for us?"

You wave at them without looking up.

"Sure, sure. Have fun."

The pair practically skip over to you, arms looped together, exuberant in the Spring manner of a new relationship all over again. As they pass, Moxxie places a hand on your arm, tugging you from your embarrassed retreat.

"Thank you," he whispers, "for everything."

But it's not you who needs to be thanked.

***

You arrive at Moxxie and Millie's house at around ten o' clock - you assume that's what 'late' meant. You really should get into the habit of getting concrete times when promising to meet someone. You are tired - dead tired - but nothing a line of blow, a few slaps in the face, and a long, hot shower couldn't fix. You are a corpse, sure, but one reanimated by drugs, sheer willpower, and a libido you that had surprised even you. You are determined - you're going to get through tonight or die trying. Even Blitzo's manic slave driving earlier today (is that what it feels like to be Moxxie for a day?) hadn't been enough to stop you. Because you are here. You've made it.

You scratch at your beard, run a hand through your brushed-back mop of hair, give a reassuring tug of your suspenders, and adjust your tie - the nice red one. This is, as far as you're concerned, as dressed up as you're ever going to get. Still no shirt, of course (do you even own any?), and your striped slacks can maybe use a wash, but otherwise you're looking pretty smick.

The door thuds under your knocking hand and you pull back. You'd knocked harder than you meant to. Excited, or nervous? Both? Standing there, alone in the cold and framed by the light coming from the imp's front window, you feel naked and not in the good way - it was too early for that. Should you have brought something? Roses? Beer? Condoms? Shit. They'd have imp-sized condoms, of course, nothing of any help to you.

"And here I thought you might not make it."

You almost jump at the voice, and then you really do jump at the sight. Millie, standing in the doorway, leaning against it with one arm above her head, casually but not, as if she didn't care if you came right in, but still cared enough to make the idea as inviting as possible. She's wearing a dressing gown, a fluffy white thing, left unfastened such that you can glimpse, here and there, ruffles of black lace. She smiles coyly, and you realise you've just been standing there like an idiot, slack-jawed and hunched over.

"Umm. What's up, Millie?"

'What's up, Millie?' What, exactly, do you mean by that? Said so plainly, like you'd passed by her in the break room at work. She rolls her eyes and takes your hand, and before you know it, she's dragging you into her home. Don't forget to duck!

"You, shortly," she snorts, and if any more sweat could have sprung so suddenly and profusely from your forehead you might have died of dehydration right there. She talks while she takes you to the back of the home, past the kitchen, past the lounge, and you realise quite quickly that there isn't even going to be an attempt at a preamble - no 'how do you do?', or, 'care for a few drinks?'. "Moxxie's hasn't been able to sit still all afternoon. Tryin' on outfits, practicing techniques, preparin' an' all. He's been asking me when you're gonna get here as if I would know. We really should work on that, huh...?" She stops, taps her lip in thought, then looks up at you and you can see quite clearly down her dressing gown. "Newbie, if I didn't know any better, I'd say he has a bit of a crush on you. Don't go getting' any ideas, of course, but, well... don't forget to have fun, too. This is for you, remember." She pulls you closer and you can't resist her, tugged over double so she can place a hand on your cheek, lift up on the tips of her hooves, and kiss the other one.

"Thanks, Mils, it means a lot to me," you say, and you mean it. She laughs again.

"Don't thank me, thank Mox. It was his idea. Speakin' of..." Millie kicks the open the door to her bedroom much like you'd seen her do at work - all sass and presence with no fucks to give. "Mox! He's here, ready or not!"

You forget to duck this time, almost splitting your head open on the door frame as you step into their bedroom, distracted by a cheeky tail that had snuck its way around your thigh. You're pretty sure she doesn't notice your idiocy. She's too busy stepping out of her dressing gown or, rather, letting it slip slowly from her shoulders and spilling out about her waist before dropping to the floor. She's sporting a mouth-watering ensemble, all black lace and spiralling floral patterns: a bra that billows out into a sort of chemise, stopping just short of the hips upon which it rode and splitting at the back to reveal the lithe, subtle musculature afforded to a woman of her profession; panties with designated, heart-shaped hole through which the tail could slip through; arm sleeves, thigh-high stockings customised for imp feet, and a single garter belt, on the right leg.

Her back is to you, but the way her hip juts out, hand placed just so, tells you that she knows you're looking, not that you could have helped yourself regardless.

"Oh crumbs. C-can you keep him busy?"

Moxxie's voice comes somewhere from the ensuite, punctuated by the occasional panicked grunt, as if he was still in the middle of something. Changing, you assume.

"Keep him busy?" She yells, throwing her hands in the air. "He's in our fucking bedroom! If you don't get out here right now, then I'm gonna start without you. I'll tucker him out before you can say 'hold your horses!'" She half turns to face you, gives an amused wink as if you two were in on some joke, but you've past the point of understanding jokes. You're past the point of understanding anything, really. Your thinking self is fading, murdered by your horny ape brain.

"All right! One moment, please!" There comes a loud thump followed by an incomprehensible Moxxism, and for a second even Millie looks legitimately worried, but then he is standing there in the doorway to the ensuite, one arm rubbing at the other, face taken on an even brighter shade of red, trying to look at anywhere else but you, but clearly desperate for you to look at him. And you do - how could you not?

He's dressed to match his wife, but with enough to differentiate: lacey choker, thigh-length stockings and garter belt, his mirrored on the left leg; panties, too, though these clearly designed for men, given the space at the front and, perhaps most bizarrely, and yet bizarrely arousing, the twin black crosses taped over each nipple. Where had he even got the idea? Perhaps Moxxie isn't quite as innocent as you'd previously assumed him to be. Aside from the hips and chest, of course, Moxxie is rounder than his wife, softer around the stomach and thighs, and with splashes of groomed white fuzz around his chest and armpits.

Under your unblinking stare, Moxxie shyly makes his way to Millie's side, still struggling to look at you, but grinning now. He takes her hand, squeezes it, then finally holds your gaze directly.

"Well? Is this... to your liking?"

"You're hot," you say, before you can stop yourself. "You're both fucking hot. Christ!"

Husband and wife alike take a step forward then, each grabbing a hand and leading you over to their just-barely-big-enough-to-fit-you bed.

"Ah, ah, watch your language, Newbie. Now take a seat, breathe deep, relax, and let Mox and I take care of ya. How does that sound?" As nice as she'd put it, it hadn't been a request. You are forced to sit down and just like that Moxxie is crawling into your lap, into your arms, forcing you to lay back further still until he's on top of you, straddling your chest, hands gripping your clavicle. You breathe, as you were told to do, and blink, and then he is pressed to you, lips locked, and eyes closed.

The imp's softness is warm, but hungry, taking more from you than you gave - not that you wouldn't give him anything he wants right now; you are his to drink from. You find the strength to lift your hands and place them on his body, one on his hip, another around the back of his neck - just your hands, because if you'd wrapped your arms around him you might just smother him - and you become lulled, disarmed by the closeness of flesh, the intermingling of breath, the intertwining of soul. You might have ascended right then and there were it not for the unholy things going on between your legs, keeping you grounded.

Your legs are forced apart without ceremony, and excitable hands dart up and over your thighs. With your focus having been taken by this brand-new side of your two friends, you haven't yet had time to turn that gaze inward and so you realise only now that you are quite thoroughly, incredibly, erect. Quite harder than you've ever been, in fact. Enough to tent the fabric of your pants such that your suspenders stretch uncomfortably far.

Millie seems perfectly content, at least for a while, in touching just about everything and everywhere that doesn't need to be touched. Her hands - and was that her body, too? - run the whole track from your ankles up to the arch of your crotch, teasing dangerously close but never quite making contact. She lays upon your thigh, straddled like a cat on a branch, and her fingers dip below your waistband.

"My, you're even fuzzier than I expected! It's like runnin' fingers through carpet. Sweaty carpet."

You groan, try to defend yourself, apologise, say something, anything, but Moxxie takes the opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth and you are defeated again. He only feeds from your submission, gaining strength as you give in, sliding fingers through your hair and guiding your hip-grabbing hand down to an ass-grabbing hand. You happily oblige.

"Oops," you hear, just as one of your suspenders, un-clipped, goes flying up past your head. Moxxie doesn't notice, and neither would you have if you weren't so attuned to avoiding further head injuries tonight. Millie gives an apologetic pat of your stomach and takes much more care with the next one. The relief is instant, and the anticipation of further contact has you leaking already, fills you with that same primal hunger that makes you pull Moxxie closer to you, fight back against his intruding tongue with your own. He breathes in sharply, but doesn't pull back, or change course.

Millie's fingers hook around your waistband and slowly, but surely, tug down, down. You raise your hips, easily lifting both imps, help her pull them off. Your length is carried with the fabric, only to spring back up and smack into the clump of hair around your navel, free at last. Her gasp, genuinely impressed, has you feeling like you could take on the whole world. And, if not the whole world, at least you could take these two - that would be more than enough for you.

"Mox," she says, "c'mere. I'm gonna need your help, honey." But Moxxie isn't listening, too wrapped up in you to take much notice. Millie rolls her eyes and ascends your body, climbing up behind her husband and undressing herself as she goes - her bra and chemise unclasped and flung who cares where. "Mox," she whispers, kissing a line up the back of his thigh and over your fingers, too. "Oh Moxxie," drifting over to the other cheek she grins, kisses it, then bites. Moxxie yelps, squirms, and you have to loosen your grasp of him so he can pull away.

"What?" he asks, turning to look back at his wife, who raises an eyebrow, and gestures for him to come hither. His gaze slips past her, to your crotch, eyes widening, blush returning, and he nods. The two of them meet up between your legs, admiring you for a few seconds, and then each other, and, as if you deserve to be teased any further, their hands roam not to you, but each other. Millie digs into Moxxie's lingerie, playing with his own not-unimpressive length, and he wraps his arms around her, one to pull her close, one to fondle her exposed breasts. They're looking at you even as they touch each other, both of them, leaning close to swap breath, tongues darting into each other's mouth.

You're so hard it hurts, and the hair around your navel is already slick with sweat and pre-orgasmic fluids. You're not sure what to do - just watch? Jerk off? Join in? Leave? Your struggle must have been plain on your face, because the two of them suddenly collapse into a fit of giggles.

"Sorry, Newbie," says Millie, "we had a little bet. I thought you'd have pounced on us with a little teasin', but Moxxie said you were too much of a gentleman for that. Guess he wins that one."

Moxxie winks, his raised thumb bordering on the absurd. How do you even respond to that?

"Uhh, thanks?" You might have said more but they are already upon you. Roaming fingers and greedy lips, pressing upon your dick in a flurry of attention. They work in tandem, both reaching up to grasp around your head, thumbs smearing your wetness around your most sensitive parts as their lips begin at your base, taking turns kissing and licking from the bottom of your shaft to the top. Meeting there, your drooling head caught between two sets of suckling lips, chests pressed to your shaft, hands slipping adoringly up and down its length, they look up at you. They want you to watch, and watch you do, as they passionately kiss each other again, your cock still held between them, though this time they make sure to return their wet lips to your crown regularly.

You attempt to regather some control of the situation by placing a hand on the back of their heads, a gently scrunched grip of hair in each: one black, one white. Following no particular logic, it's Moxxie's head that you place pressure upon, guiding him slowly but surely back down your shaft. He resists only slightly, but quickly surrenders to your control, dragging his tongue along your pillar as he descends. Hopefully, he doesn't mind the fuzz around your nuts. You sharply inhale - no, he doesn't seem to mind at all, has one sucked into his mouth, in fact, tugging on it playfully.

With her husband out of the way, Millie pulls herself up closer, eyeing your slick tool greedily. One hand on her breast, the other holding you still, the imp runs her tongue up along the frenulum, swirls it once around the eye of your cock, and then, all at once, takes your entire head into her mouth. You half sit up, almost reaching your orgasm on the spot, only held back by the borderline ridiculous image. Clearly having to focus to swallow your sizeable thickness, Millie reminds you of those videos of hamster's eating much-too-large phallic vegetables.

Now past the biggest hurdle of your crown, she regains her momentum, packing more of you into her mouth, tapping at her palate... she's looking at you, eyelashes fluttering, saying: "watch this." She grabs a hold of your mast with two hands for greater control, one near the top, one near the bottom. She shuffles closer, closes her eyes and drops her head lower, lower... you tip slides to the back of her mouth, taps at her throat, lodges there, pauses, pushes in further. You can practically track your entry by the slight bulging of her throat. Knowing she had you locked in place, she risks dropping a hand to her crotch, dipping it behind her lingerie, fingers inching towards her own pleasure.

You lay back and close your eyes, try to turn your thoughts to something or nothing, anything less arousing, lest you risk sailing right over the edge. It doesn't work very well - you're fast approaching your limit. The tandem attention isn't something you're used to, pulling your focus back and forth, overloading your senses: Millie taking a respectable length at a steady pace, her tongue running figure eights; Moxxie rooting around between your demon goat-legs, playing with one fuzz-covered testicle, and then both, and then darting in to kiss at the sensitive creases of your groin, threatening to go even lower still. That's it, you're about to cum, and you're not sure if Millie is going to survive it. Should you say something, or would she take offence, thinking you were doubting her capabilities?

An audible, wet 'pop' follows as Millie pulls away from you, lips unsealing from your drooling stiffness, leaving a swiftly diminishing bridge of saliva still connecting you. Sucking in a hard-earned breath, her tongue running a triumphant arc over her upper lip, she gives you a much-needed reprieve.

"Alright, Mox, he's all ready for ya," she says, devilish grin turning to a pout when he doesn't respond. "Mox? Honey? C'mon, get up here, will ya." The imp reaches down, grabs Moxxie by the back of his choker and lifts him up. Paralysed, shoulders hunched, he looks like a kitten being carried by its mother, face sheepish.

"Sorry, dear." He's talking to her but looking at you. Or your dick, rather. His eyes drinking your sex in its entirety, eager, a predator waiting for his moment to pounce. Millie lets him go, the both of them now standing between your legs, which you've had to spread wider to accommodate.

"Honey?" says Millie.

"Mhmm," replies Moxxie, still only half listening.

"Bend over."

"Huh?" His lack of attention costs him - his wife grabs his tail and a handful of hip and spins him around, eliciting a surprised, parrot-like squawk. She forces his head down, bending him over at the waist, and whatever resistance he puts up is only minor and quickly dissolved. His willingness - not to submit, exactly, but to be guided - proves such activity to be more than just the occasional misadventure. There is practiced synchronicity to their dance; a give and take, limbs pulled by strings so faint and habitual that you cannot see them, but that you appreciate nonetheless, because their performance has been put on for your direct and interactive viewing. A duet for three; there is no better description of it.

Millie rests her bosom on her husband's lower back, and he dutifully supports her weight, even as her reaching hands snake across his exposed skin, plucking from his flesh an anticipatory shiver. Her hands slip into his lingerie and then fan out to either side, hooking a thumb through each leg hole and lifting the fabric up. The manoeuvre exposes a few tantalising inches of bare imp ass and its then -- Moxxie doubled over, facing away from you, hands on his knees, tail oscillating in distracting sine waves like a charmed snake; Millie smirking, draped over him, threatening with just a flick of her thumbs to expose him - that you realise what is to come.

"Oh," you say, and sit up, "no. No, I would break him. Uhh, I mean, I don't want to hurt him."

Millie scoffs - she almost looks offended.

"Newbie, are you doubtin' my training? No offence intended, but my man's taken bigger than you. Not by much, maybe, but still... you can take it, isn't that right, honey?"

Moxxie's response, a vague noise in the affirmative, is accompanied by a faint wobbling of his legs - eagerness, or soreness from supporting the awkward position, you cannot tell. Millie seems to think that answer is good enough, however, and winks at you.

"Observe," she says, and begins rolling her husband's panties back over his hips. And observe you do - his ass spills out at her invitation, thick and round and very red, and completely smooth, too, and there, towards the top of each cheek, a cluster of three white dots. As above so below, you suppose. But what really grabs your attention, as the panties finally drop past his thighs, is the base of a plug, slotted snugly into his back entrance. The imp has gone suddenly very still, and even from back here you can almost sense the warm redness radiating from his cheeks - the other cheeks. He seems to be waiting for your comment or approval, Millie too, but what is there to say? You don't think -- 'please sit on my cock' -- would go down very well... or would it?

"Christ, Mox," is what you manage to eke out, and that seems enough to satisfy them both: Moxxie resumes his swaying, and Millie grins even wider.

"Oh, we ain't finished yet - and watch your language."

Her hand runs a lazy path down her husband's rear, trailing in roundabout circles that tease towards his backdoor, but slip passed it instead. Fingertips draw delicate lines across the expanse of his taint, and you can see their immediate effect in his slight flinching and the contraction of sensitive skin. She dips lower still, grabbing a handful of his pair, tight yet full, her palm resting against his perineum, but it's not him she's paying attention to - it's you.

Millie leans further forward, speaks in a hushed whisper, eyebrow raised but voice lowered, as if she were conspiring against her other half.

"Care to do the honours of uncorking your present, Newbie?"

She's got two handfuls of ass now, kneading them, fingers plying flesh for further groans and other meek utterances - she'd discovered the secrets of his weaknesses long ago, and she plays to them expertly. You feel ridiculous, out of your depth, but it's not like you're going to say no - you nod and reach out, latch on to the plug base, fingers splayed, like grasping a shower tap. Even just that slight touch elicits an embarrassingly satisfying sound from Moxxie, one Millie clearly enjoys just as much as you do.

Tugging, your efforts are resisted, so you get a better grip and try again. Still the plug holds, barely giving even at your insistence, placing you in a challenging predicament - with a bigger partner, you might pull harder, but Moxxie is small and, despite Millie's claims, rather delicate.

"Relax, Mox!" she demands, bringing an open palm to slap hard upon his exposed cheek. He yelps, stung, but doesn't jerk away - in fact, once he's controlled his breathing again, you see that it seems to have worked. The toy rocks slightly, and you take that as your cue, guiding it out on your end as the imp pushes it out from his. The plug - much larger than you initially realised - slips free unexpectedly fast: you fumble, and drop it, but that's okay.

Moxxie is panting and Millie, squealing in delight, has his cheeks spread wide apart, now fully exposed for your viewing pleasure. His entrance, though recently flustered, is a dainty pink blossom, about as cute and clean and tight as you'd expected it to be. It's a beautiful ass - but you're done with looking.

It takes only a second for you to wedge your face in there, and this time it's Moxxie's turn to squeal. Your tongue darts out to flick against his button, run over the tightly wrinkled flesh, and slide down to run along his balls all without moving your face - the benefits of a demonic tongue. There is the tang of lube, but it doesn't bother you - not when you're this horny. Your degenerated mind is too far gone for very much teasing, and it does not take you long to enter, tongue pushing passed his ring with ease.

You're not sure how long you stay there for, lost in a rolling, primal pleasure - you digging deep as you can, tongue thrashing, and Moxxie responding, always responding, to your indelicate, greedy ministrations. At some point you feel lips pressed to your forehead, and your eyes pop open.

"I think it's about time you fuck my husband, Newbie," says Millie.

You pull back, trying to stifle your gasping, desperate for a lungful of air that you hadn't realised you'd been neglecting. You look at your monstrously stiff mast, drooling more than you've ever seen it do.

"I... won't last very long," you admit. Millie laughs.

"Don't worry, neither will he."

Moxxie is finally allowed to stand up by his wife, his unamused glower still playful. He spends a few seconds recovering his stamina and you take the time to both admire his form and consider the logistics. Assuming he can take you - you still have your doubts - should you be the one in control, or he? Or does none of that matter, because it seems Millie's the one with all the control tonight - she's eyeing you both, biting her lip, touching herself. Moxxie takes a deep breath, pats down his taped-over nipples as if he were about to enter a business meeting and needed to look his best.

"All right," he finally says, looking over his shoulder at you - or, rather, what was between your legs. "Just... keep it still." You do as you're told, grabbing your shaft by the base and holding it steady as Moxxie backs up a little. Another steadying breath, this one more for nerves, you think, and he's got his ass about as close as it's going to get without penetration. You hunch your head lower, allowing him to reach up and grab your horn, giving him greater control as he half squats. Even with him standing, and you sitting, he doesn't have to lower himself very far.

Your outrageously stiff cock, coated in pre-ejaculate, grind-slips against the imp's saliva-slathered crevice, unable to find purchase. Despite your promise to remain still you can't help but hump up against him, rolling your hips. Moxxie tries to say something but his words are robbed, overwhelmed by the winking of his hole and the shaking of his thighs. He tries to reach back but you stop him, trapping his wrist to his hip. You guide yourself in, lodging the tip at his entrance and, grabbing Moxxie's wrist and hip both in one hand, gently push him down.

His tunnel resists, and the imp squirms in your grasp. A brief stab of panic: he may be experienced, sure, but your dick is still half the length of his torso. You are going to hurt him, and that would be a sin unforgivable. But, God, you're so close. You need to stop; no amount of gratification is worth his pain. You release your downward pressure and then...

Your crown sinks in, swallowed in its entirety. A sharp intake of breath from him, and then a deep, endlessly satisfied groan from the both of you, pulled from your very bones. You fit even more snugly than that toy had, his velvet walls gripping tightly, but not uncomfortably to your mast. Not daring to move, letting him adjust, you simply enjoy the intimacy you're sharing with a man you love very much. His heartbeat, felt through your connection, is slower and steadier than you expect. He is comfortable, in control, knows what he's doing.

Placing your head over his, tucking his head into your neck, you pull him back into your chest and wrap your arms around him. Your vantage point reveals his uncovered shaft to you, looking about as stiff and eager as you are, and above it a small, neat square of white hair - a twin, you assume, to Millie's. Should you give him a helping hand? No, he seems to have other ideas.

The determined imp reaches up now with both hands, a horn gripped in each, and uses your head like a counterbalance as he lowers himself further. Even through your crossed eyes you can tell he's putting in the effort, eyes shut, teeth clenched, but not to be dissuaded. You don't even have to do anything, Moxxie more than happy to take the initiative, using your horns to pull himself, push himself, fucking himself against you, using you like gym equipment. And you love it.

Though he quite clearly has his limits, seemingly around when the barest outline of your shaft can be seen pressed up against his tummy, he's still giving you more than you could have expected from someone his size. His tunnel, so tightly conformed to your thickness, is milking you from half-mast to cock-tip, one continuous, sensual experience. Your groan again, close your eyes, and breathe.

"Hey!" begins Moxxie, but his complaints are muffled by his wife's breasts, his face now firmly planted between them. She has your face in her hands. She looks at you, not quite with arousal, or playfulness, but something more. She tilts her head, frowns.

"I meant it... earlier, I mean. Words can't express..." Her eyes dip, nothing but genuine love in her eyes as she looks at her husband, who's focus was too wrapped up in her tits to be able to hear her. She playfully musses his white hair, barely dishevelled even now, and when she looks at you again, she's smiling. "You've saved us. This isn't just for you; it's because of you."

"I would do it all again," you say, and you mean it. All the hurt, the heartbreak, the sleepless nights, the awkwardness - it was all worth it, and always will be. She kisses you, softly, sweetly, and when she pulls back her eyes are once more playful.

"I know you would, Newbie. Now flood Moxxie's guts. That ain't a request."

She lowers herself, straddles Moxxie, and throws her arms around his neck even as he's still holding on to you. He looks deliriously boob-happy, a horny stupor, only brought to lucidity as his wife, having discarded her underwear, envelops his stiffness with well-rehearsed efficacy. His moan is low, drawn out, but cut short by her finger upon his lips.

"Hear that, Mox? Newbie's gonna blow in your ass!"

He tips his head back a little, just enough to look at you, and he's redder now than ever before.

"O-oh, c-crumbs," he mutters and, absurdly, that is your trigger. You could have - should have - came any number of times already, so why not now, to that ever-classic Moxxism, 'Oh crumbs!'? With a last burst of will you squeeze him tight against you and thrust a few more times, your momentum carrying up into him and carrying over into Millie, who looks to be having the time of her life - like riding a bull at the rodeo.

Fuck.

You clamp your eyes clamp shut, grit your teeth, and that's all it takes. Your orgasm pulls from wells of sexual frustration long since filled to overflowing -- and flow they do, in long, hard pumps, rope after rope flung deep into the imp's backend, only to spill back out around you even as you keep going. Moxxie, too, hits his peak right on cue, his body trembling as it's assaulted from both ends, being filled and emptied at the same time. His finishing moan, loud where yours is quiet, is swallowed by his wife's lips, locked together in passion, his manhood pulsing inside of her, in tandem with yours. For a second, just a second, you feel a closeness akin to the one you'd felt back at the café - three souls in sync, harmonised.

And then you collapse, exhausted, and the imps fall into place on your chest, one cradled in each arm. Moxxie complains at the sudden unplugging, gone from full to hollow in a second, but you silence him with some extra affection. You honestly can't give a single fuck about the mess at the moment, and judging by the contented sighs and cuddling into your torso, you doubt they care much either. Because Moxxie and Millie have each other, and you have them, and that's the only thing that matters right now. That's the only thing that ever really mattered.

You close your eyes, feeling that at any moment the three of you might melt into the bed, a fused puddle of sex-smelling goo.

"Fuck nuggets!"

Blitzo crashes to the floor, fallen from his perch atop an armoire. He lays there, a tangle of limbs and the blankets he'd been using as camouflage, and from his jutting hand protrudes a portable camera. His head sprouts up, tongue stuck out, and he grins. "Aaaand cut. Now this... is gonna be one saucy ad."

"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?"

You can't even react before Moxxie has sprung from your arms, a flying red ball of outrage and flapping dong - he doesn't seem to care that he was butt-naked or still leaking cum. He launches himself at Blitzo, who rolls out of the way. Your voyeur boss stands up, dusts himself off.

"Lookin' lively, Mox. You took Newbie's schlong like a champ. If that's all you needed to get you pepped up, you should have just asked me earlier."

"I'll kill you!" screams the enraged imp.

"Wouldn't be the first to want me-," he begins, but whatever Blitzo was going to say is cut short as Moxxie chases him out of the room and, presumedly, the front door, out on to the streets.

What the fuck just happened?

"What the fuck just happened?" you ask Millie, who's sat up but still by your side. She rolls her eyes, giving you a look that just says 'boys-will-be-boys', which you find ridiculous considering your nudity and cum-drenched groin.

"Oh, they like to play around..." She sighs, wistful, and then perks up. "Say, could I grab you a tea? Juice?"

You lay your head back and laugh like you've never laughed before, in life or death.

"A tea would be lovely, thank you."