Chapter Text
007n7 has been lonely for a long time. Long enough that it shouldn’t have surprised him anymore when he curled up in his cold empty bed in his cold empty house and felt the dull ache of it gnawing at him, but it never seemed to get any better. There was no relief to be found in its familiarity, only the slow erosion of whatever hope he still managed to cling to. He was lonely. And in all likelihood, he would die lonely.
It wasn’t like he could turn to the internet for advice. Make friends? What was he, a human? He couldn’t stand the sight of other people most of the time, let alone have them close enough to form any kind of bond with. What he really needed was a mate, but… he’d long since given up on that. He’d never seen another demon before. Never even picked up one’s scent. They were an endangered species, he knew that, but he’d never felt it so keenly before. He might never see another of his kind. And what, exactly, were his other options?
He had none. There were other hybrids with violent natures, of course, but none that quite matched his. The closest he’d come to any kind of relationship was with Elliot, a decade ago, with his seemingly endless patience and optimism, but that… hadn’t ended well.
He’d just been playing. Roughhousing like any demon would. He’d put a little pressure on Elliot’s shoulder and buried his nose against his neck and Elliot had screamed as his arm popped out of his socket-
He saw Elliot every now and then. He still favored his left arm.
Please, whoever is listening. If I’ve ever done anything good in my life, even just by accident, send me a demon. Just one other demon. I don’t want to be alone anymore.
...He’d taken to drugging himself just to fall asleep, recently. Demons were crepuscular, polyphasic sleepers- similar to cats, but that didn’t exactly lend itself to having a job. Some brute-forcing was required if he wanted to keep the same hours as humans. He hated it, the pills always made him feel like he’d just been knocked upside the head, but he still had to eat.
He took two, ignoring the warning on the bottle, and laid back on a bed that only carried his own scent. He was tired. So, so tired, a weariness that went bone-deep, stomach curdling with the inescapable knowledge that this was wrong. This wasn’t what he was made for. But it was all he had.
Hours passed in a daze. He was teetering on the edge of a sick, paralysing sleep when he heard his own bedroom door creak open.
His addled brain was only capable of feeling a ghost of the fear he should have been struck with. His limbs couldn’t move at all. When careful footsteps padded towards him he couldn’t so much as turn his head to look at them
But his sense of smell was as good as ever.
It had to be a hallucination, or a dream, or- something. Some kind of trick. The stranger’s scent was muffled almost to nonexistence, but the closer they came the stronger the bite of acid became.
Please. Pleasepleaseplease-
Clawed, calloused hands brushed over his half-sleeping form, hesitating over his skin before they hooked under him and lifted him. High. Very high. And with an ease that threatened to make him blush even in this state.
They held him like he was made of glass, settling his head over their shoulder, and now he could smell them properly. Whatever they’d done to render themselves almost scentless didn’t hold up this close. The sour, stinging scent of acid filled his mouth when he parted his lips, and it was the best thing he’d ever tasted.
He looked down. A spaded tail twitched nervously around the stranger’s legs, the tip longer and sharper than his own, a gorgeous pitch-black that was almost invisible in the darkness.
007n7’s lips twitched into the shadow of a smile as he slipped into a dreamless sleep.
He’s so soft.
1x1x1x1 is finding it difficult to think of anything else. The demon in her arms isn’t waking anytime soon, heartbeat slow and even in his chest, and so she can’t even distract herself by being overly careful. The only thing in her mind is the press of his stomach against her chest, her claws denting his plush thighs, the warm, sweet scent that carpets the room. Even his hair is soft, long messy brown tufts tickling her neck.
He’s perfect. And now he’s hers.
He mumbles in his sleep and 1x freezes dead, still as carved stone, but his heartrate doesn’t change. Instead, he nuzzles her. Burying his nose in her neck sleepily like- like he’s scenting her. She can feel his slow, warm breaths against her skin.
1x1x1x1 stalks from the room with the straight-backed posture of a soldier and her tail wagging incessantly behind her.
007n7 woke up slowly, which was a surprise. Usually he jerked out of sleep like he’d been shot. But he was warm, and lying on something soft, and he could still pick up a trace of that scent from last night…
Last night.
The thought should have alarmed him, made his eyes snap open in terror, but… he wasn’t ready for this dream to end. If it was a dream. He couldn’t trust his hazy memories, he’d been praying for this for too long to just believe it.
I can’t have gotten this lucky.
He stretches lazily against the sheets, tail swaying in languid motions behind him, and hears a sharp intake of breath from somewhere in the room. By the time he opens his eyes, he can only catch the end of a black tail disappearing through a doorframe.
“Hello?”
He calls out, voice soft at the edges with weariness. There’s no answer. Standing up is a task that takes him several minutes and no small amount of grumbling, but he knows his curiosity wouldn’t let him fall back asleep.
The room he’s been placed in is gorgeous. It’s old-fashioned, the furniture carrying the comforting woody smell of proper old-growth oak, the wallpaper dark and richly patterned. There’s no draft, either, which tips him off to how expensive the place is more than anything. He can see the pale expanse of a snowy forest beyond the windows, but he’s perfectly toasty in nothing but a thin shirt and pants and the patchy warmth of his sweater vest.
And the bed. He has a sneaking suspicion that his kidnapper has given him the best room in the house, because the canopy bed is ridiculously large and practically swamped in sheets more comfortable than anything he’s ever felt. It wouldn’t be a stretch at all to call it the perfect place to build a nest, and a bashful smile tugs at the corner of his lips.
They really went to all this trouble for him?
He pads to the doorway, but there’s still no demon in sight. He can smell them, though. His mouth stings more when he scents to the left, so he goes that way.
Him! Tracking down a scent like a bloodhound! He hasn’t had this much fun in years!
Giddiness makes his tail swing behind him. He remembers very little from the previous night, but he wracks his brain for any details about his mysterious kidnapper. They’d been tall. Not just tall by human standards, either, if they could heft a man who stood over six feet tall on their shoulder and have the floor be a dizzying distance from his face. He’d heard that some half-demons can get to over nine feet, but he’d never believed it before.
And their tail was a beautiful pitch black, not at all like his embarrassingly bright red. That was all he knew. Which was unacceptable. If they were going to abduct him in the middle of the night they should at least leave a note!
…Maybe they regretted it? They had seemed in an awful hurry to leave. Sudden anxiety hits him like a truck and his scent sours in an instant.
I couldn’t have ruined things already, could I? I assumed they’d be as desperate as I am, but-
What if he was the only demon struggling this badly to find a mate? What if everyone else coped with it just fine, and he was just terrible at relationships?
Oh, God, what if his kidnapper was already taken?!
He picks at his cuticles, worrying the skin until it gives way with a tiny stinging snap, and doesn’t even realise how distressed his scent is getting until he hears someone stomping in his direction.
He’s halfway through a strangled yelp of surprise when the other demon fills his vision.
She’s huge, is his first thought. He doesn’t really have a second thought. His brain is too stuck on the fact that she’s over three feet taller than him, sweet Telamon he didn’t know demons got that big-
He’s a large man. At least he thought he was. He’s never been shorter than someone in his life, and now he’s being stared down by what looks like a living obsidian statue. She’s got more muscle in one arm than he has in his entire body. She’s not wearing a shirt, either.
Uh oh.
He tries extremely hard to keep his eyes on her face, which is a little difficult when it's so far away. Her torso is a toxic, translucent green, which is… not a demonic trait? At least he doesn’t think so. It might be linked to the huge, half-ruined wings that are tucked closely against her back, which his eyes get dragged to next.
I wonder what they feel like…
“What are you upset about.” She asks brusquely, and he almost swoons. Her voice is low and perfectly monotone, a little gravelly, and, well- 007n7 has always had a thing for nice voices. Though he isn’t sure how the hell he’s supposed to answer that question.
“Um- nothing?”
He tries, and the demon’s face may well have been carved from stone for all the emotion she gives him. Somehow, he still manages to sense that she’s unimpressed.
“It’s stupid.” He continues. She doesn’t even blink.
“You- probably don’t want to hear about it…” He’s horrified by the little whining note that slips into his voice. His tail is already curled pitifully around his ankle, scent souring again, and the demon’s nose wrinkles. He tries again.
“Just- um- why am I here..?”
The demon gives him another long impassive look, and he’s wondering if he’s going to get anything out of her at all before her tail twitches and she speaks.
“You will love me.”
It’s not a question. It’s also delivered with the exact same flat inflection as before, which makes it impossible to tell if she’s even feeling anything. But it’s a confirmation. 007n7’s scent sweetens abruptly, tail flicking coyly before he can stop it.
“Oh!”
Then she’s marching down the hallway at a pace too quick for him to follow, tail lashing behind her in what he’s starting to suspect is a very rare show of emotion. She’s out of sight before he can blink. Which is probably for the best, because his eyes had been starting to wander. In his defense, she’d kidnapped him, so surely he was allowed to be a little discourteous too.
His tail starts flicking behind him and he doesn’t even try to still it this time. His prayers have been answered with interest. He'd been hoping for just any demon, and he’d gotten one with the figure of a Greek god and tall enough to manhandle him like a doll.
She’s perfect.
007n7 soon comes to realise that his new home is closer to a mansion than a house. He’d followed the other demon’s trail and soon gotten lost, though he’d dipped into some fantastically interesting rooms. No other demonic scents, too, which he was privately extremely pleased about.
Good lord. He was already getting territorial.
He finds the exit, which is where the other demon’s scent trail ends. He doubts she’s gone far. He also doubts that the doors are unlocked. She doesn’t seem like the type to let him go just because he asked nicely.
He doesn’t even bother to test the doors.
Instead, he heads in a different direction, and he plans to explore the place more, he really does, but then he comes to a wide corridor lined with towering glass windows that let in the sunlight so nicely…
The carpet is soft. He stretches out, turning belly-up, and basks in the morning sun, tail flicking with contentment. He’s not used to being able to sleep when he wants to. He feels like he’s walking through sludge, most days, thoughts thick and heavy with fatigue. It still dogs his steps now- he needs a lot more than one good night to be anywhere close to healthy- but it’s a start.
The other demon’s scent hangs loosely in the air, crossing over itself over and over in the web of activity that marks territory. His territory too, now, since there was no way he was leaving. He rubbed his cheek absentmindedly against the floor, enjoying how his scent mingled with the stranger’s a little too much.
He dozes for a few blissful hours, slipping in and out of consciousness, warm from the inside out. Every time he wakes he has to pinch himself to make sure he’s not dreaming. More than once, his thoughts slide to… more unsavory matters.
He’s not a virgin, but he somehow still feels like one. Every sexual encounter he’s ever had has been an anxious, nauseatingly uncomfortable event, obsessively checking that his claws were retracted, that his teeth weren’t anywhere near his partner’s skin. It left him feeling hollow inside. Not because it was bad- his partners were perfectly respectful. It just… wasn’t very good.
If his captor is determined to claim him as a mate, though…
His tail flicks shyly under him at the thought. He isn’t used to being seen as desirable. The demon’s face had been utterly unreadable, so he couldn’t say if she found him attractive or not, but he couldn’t be that ugly if she was willing to abduct him, right?
He might have some seducing to do. Not that he’d know where to start. He’s worse at interacting with his own kind than he is with humans- at least humans he has experience with. The instincts are there, but he doesn’t know how to read subtle shifts in scent, or the constant agitated jolting of the other demon’s tail. He’s hoping that she can teach him before he makes too much of a fool out of himself.
He flips himself again and basks. The sun is too warm to be worried about anything, right now.
She finds him in the foyer corridor.
He’s splayed out on the carpet, looking incredibly content and smelling divine and she ignores the foreign sense of warmth that pulls at her. It is a new thing, to have something nice to come home to. She still can’t quite believe that she caught him. She would have taken any demon, but she wasn’t expecting a demon so soft and sweet-smelling. Hoping for it, yes, but not considering it a possibility, not really.
He does not react when she walks closer except to flick his tail, and it surprises her. Some measure of terror is to be expected, she thinks, when one is removed from their home without their consent or knowledge.
But the terror she keeps looking for is not present in the serene way he holds himself. He hasn’t even tried to escape. The doors (which are locked) are untouched. The windows (which are reinforced) are undisturbed. Resignation, perhaps? She will take resignation.
She stops walking when she stands right above him. His limbs are lax with a feline quality, plush and warm, looking so perfectly suited to curling up in sleep. As if he belongs there, on her floor, bathed in the golden morning light that makes his pale skin look luminous.
And soft. She knows how soft his skin is.
She would like to know again.
“You are not leaving.”
She says, then steels her heart, bracing for pleading, begging, those pretty red eyes- rounder and darker in color than her own- welling with tears while that sweet scent sours with distress. This is what must be done. He will love her eventually.
She isn’t expecting him to blink at her placidly, expression still gentle with sleep, and say, “Okay.”
“...Okay?”
“Okay.” He repeats, and turns over so he can sun his back. His scent doesn’t waver, still warm and thick with contentment, and she stares at him in blank shock. He’s lying. He has to be. He’s playing the part until she takes her eyes off of him, and then he’ll be gone with the wind.
“Mmh, can you move a little? You’re blocking my sunlight.”
She steps aside obediently, and gets a grateful sleepy murmur in return before his tail stills and his breathing slows.
…Did he just fall asleep?
A cursory check reveals that he did, in fact, fall asleep. His face is slack, body limp and unguarded, and 1x1x1x1 itches. There’s a terrible restlessness eating her from the inside. She needs to hit something. She needs to squeeze him until his chest caves in. She’s no stranger to violence borne of hatred, but this… isn’t that.
She goes out hunting to clear her head.