A/N:

this one is for Moon, who insisted that this be made into reality and then proceeded to enable me while i was writing it. thank you also to Kelly who gave ideas for tom's death threats

this one is kind of kinky? but not sexual? i don't know how to describe it ksdljgksldgjs so have fun with that

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How to Tame Your Boyfriend

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"Hello, baby."

Harry, who had been dozing on his bed, was warmly greeted by the full weight of a 300-pound demon materializing on top of him. The bed creaked beneath them in response to Tom's sudden appearance. "Get off me."

Pointy teeth scraped at the shell of Harry's ear. "You smell nice."

"You say that every day. Now roll over."

Tom sighed and rolled off to the side so that only half of his weight was pinning Harry to the bed. One arm and one leg remained firmly positioned over Harry's waist and thigh, though. "Did you have a good day?" Tom asked as he buried his nose into Harry's curly hair and inhaled deeply.

That was a dangerous question. "A great day," Harry said cautiously.

Tom's tail flopped back and forth, then curled around Harry's wrist, tickling the pulse point. The skin was warm and scaly to the touch. "Any problems?"

"No problems."

Tom sat up slightly so he could gaze with his ruby-red eyes at Harry's face. "Not even a mild inconvenience?"

Harry did his best to remain stoic. "Nope."

"Hmph." Tom flopped back down and proceeded to lick at Harry's jaw with his forked tongue. It tingled slightly, but Harry was used to that by now. "Shall I go torment your relatives then? Or your pretentious poli-sci professor? He has the most delicious reactions."

"You're leaving everyone alone today," Harry told him dryly.

"But that's not fun."

"We can have fun." Harry ran his hand up and down Tom's back, rubbing at the bumpy spine. Tom liked for them to be directly touching as much as possible. "Or did you not want to do that?"

Tom paused, his nose pressed to Harry's cheek. "I do like having fun with you."

"Good," Harry said, relieved.

"I'll take you with me," Tom amended. His breath fanned over Harry's face like a hot sauna. "You can watch."

"No," Harry protested, "that is not what I meant."

Tom nipped at Harry's lower lip, then said, "But I want to eat someone today."

"No eating."

Tom hummed. "I could remove their bones and make broth?"

"That is…" Harry wrinkled his nose. "Still a no from me."

"I can grow their bones back," Tom said off-handedly. "It would only be painful for a short while." He slid a hand under the hem of Harry's shirt and laid his palm against Harry's abdomen.

According to Tom, Harry's human skin was ridiculously soft, which meant Tom spent a lot of time running his hands all over Harry's body, often inappropriately because demons had no concept of modesty.

"The broth is very delicious," Tom added. "You would like it. Sometimes I salt it with human tears."

"It concerns me that this is the first time I've ever heard you mention cooking something yourself and it's to make broth out of human bones and tears."

"Don't worry. I wouldn't do that to you, baby." Tom pressed a tender kiss to Harry's forehead. The tail wrapped around Harry's wrist unwound, flailing in the air for a brief second before it joined Tom's hand under Harry's t-shirt. "You're mine."

"I'm going to confiscate Netflix if you keep calling me baby," Harry said grumpily. "You've been watching too many American shows." Tom's heavy weight on top of him, combined with all this touching, was highly arousing. This was not allowed, especially since Harry was pretty sure Tom was only trying to cuddle him right now.

"You wouldn't." Tom narrowed his eyes, then began pushing the hem of Harry's shirt up with his tail. Harry smacked Tom's elbow in response. The movement paused briefly, then continued. Harry sighed and relinquished custody of his shirt to Tom's wandering limbs.

Once the shirt was gone, Tom hummed under his breath, rubbing his free hand all over Harry's chest while Harry squirmed beneath him.

"Tickles," Harry protested.

Tom licked the tip of Harry's nose and curled his tail against Harry's lower ribs. "You are extra soft today. I like it."

Clearly, today was going to be a choice between two evils: indulging Tom's tactile kink or indulging Tom's murder kink. Harry lifted his hand to the nape of Tom's neck and tugged until Tom settled down, tucking his face into Harry's neck so that Harry could run a hand through Tom's hair and deliver head scritches.

Tom made a pleased sound and wrapped himself more efficiently around Harry's body, like he was a persistent boa constrictor rather than a demon. They probably looked ridiculous like this. Tom was an entire foot taller than Harry and built like a tank. It was like cuddling a giant.

Harry rubbed at Tom's scalp where the leftmost demon horn began and was rewarded with Tom's deep rumble against his collarbone. It was loud enough that Harry would feel the vibrations in his chest. If he was lucky, Tom would give into the cuddling and fall asleep.

"Are you sure no one bothered you today?" Tom asked some moments later. Unfortunately, he sounded quite lucid. "Maybe you've forgotten. You tend to do that, you know."

Harry typically 'forgot' on purpose. "If I forgot, it can't have been that important."

Tom squeezed, gripping Harry's abdomen and pulling even closer. Then he hooked his leg around Harry's calf and kissed Harry's shoulder, black forked tongue flickering over the bone. "Everything about you is important, baby."

At this rate, they were definitely going to end up having sex. Tom was so needy, and sex was the best way of distracting him when he was this worked up. Harry was annoyed because this fanfiction was supposed to be safe for children to read and Tom was making that very difficult.

"You should not torture people for bothering me," Harry said. "It's…" He struggled to think of a word that would convince Tom of his point. "It's unattractive."

Tom lifted his head away from Harry's hand and tightened his grip around Harry's waist. "It isn't. I clean the blood off after." Quick as a flash, Tom rotated them both so that he was on the bottom and Harry was sprawled on top of him.

Harry couldn't lie—Tom's chest was pretty comfortable to lay on. Sometimes he liked to trace the faint silver lines that stretched in strange, lazy patterns across Tom's pale, greyish skin.

"It's not the blood." Harry huffed. "It's the action of, you know, torturing people."

"You like it," Tom accused. His large hands settled on Harry's lower back. "Sometimes you laugh."

"That's because you―" Harry broke off, unsure how to explain it. How to explain that a massive demon looming over his shoulder at the local buffet and declaring in a deep, ominous voice that 'Harry wanted those mashed potatoes, you utter pillock. Everything you eat will now taste like ash,' was utterly hysterical?

"Because I do what?"

Harry scowled. "If I explained it to you, you wouldn't understand."

"Wrong. I understand everything."

"Wrong," Harry said on automatic, then mentally smacked himself in the face for resorting to such a childish response.

"Not wrong." Tom swept his tongue over the scar on Harry's forehead, then kissed it. "I am only ever right."

"No murder today," Harry said firmly. "That's final."

"Fine." Tom drummed his fingers on the small of Harry's back, then said, "Murder tomorrow?"

"No."

"Yes."

"No," Harry said, pinching Tom's bicep for good measure.

"I will murder someone," Tom said dangerously, eyes flashing. Harry could feel the tips of Tom's clawed fingers poking at the delicate skin of his back. "Someone will inevitably upset you and I will end their miserable, pitiful existence."

Damn it. Tom was probably going to follow him around all day tomorrow. Harry sincerely hoped that no one decided to be an asshole that day because it would take a lot of head scritches to get Tom to back down from committing murder.

The next day, Harry took extra care to prevent accidents. He packed his own lunch so he could avoid interacting with possibly rude strangers and asked Tom to teleport them to campus so they didn't risk an incident on public transit.

Everything was going well until Harry arrived at his first class for the day. Tom was trailing invisibly beside him when Harry noticed someone had taken his usual seat.

Please don't notice, Harry thought in Tom's direction. Please do not notice.

It was too late. Tom had already narrowed his eyes at McLaggen, who was wearing headphones and scrolling through pictures of swimsuit models on his phone.

"That is Harry's seat," Tom snarled. Tendrils of dark smoke gathered around him as he drew himself to his full height, vanished, and reappeared right next to McLaggen, who could neither see nor hear the terrifying demon in front of him.

"I will shatter both of your kneecaps," Tom intoned, his voice filled with such menacing rage that the ceiling shook above them. "Or perhaps not, since that is far too kind a fate for the likes of you. I shall shatter your kneecaps, heal them, then shatter them again, then heal them again, then remove them from you. Permanently."

As much as Harry hated McLaggen, he didn't deserve to die like that. Probably. Harry sat down at the nearest desk, pulled out his binder, plucked out a sheet of paper, and gave himself a papercut.

Tom was next to him in an instant. "You're hurt?"

"A papercut." Harry held up his finger, which was now spotted with a bit of blood.

"I'll make it better," Tom promised.

The paper in Harry's hand burst into flames and fell into a pile of ash on his desk. Then the cut on Harry's fingertip healed over, leaving nothing behind, not even a shiny pink scar.

Harry stared at the ashes of his paper. "Tom, we've talked about this. You can't destroy all the inanimate objects that have wronged me."

"But it cut you."

"That was my homework. I kind of need it."

"...Fine." The paper reappeared in Harry's hand, thankfully in one piece and sans scorch marks.

"Good morning, class!"

Tom's nasty glare shifted from the evil, evil homework assignment to the front of the classroom, which was where Professor Albus Dumbledore was standing.

"Please hand last week's assignment to the student in front of you so I can collect them."

Harry did so and watched as Tom followed the paper trail all the way to Dumbledore's hands. Once Harry's homework had been safely delivered, Tom circled Dumbledore like a vulture for a few minutes before returning to Harry's side.

"I do not like him," Tom said darkly. "Are you sure I shouldn't make him into broth? It would be the best use for old bones like those."

Harry rubbed at his temples. It was going to be a long morning.

The walk to Harry's next class was not any better.

"You bumped into Harry and you did not say sorry. I will rip your tongue from your throat and set it to clean the floor of public restrooms while your sense of taste remains intact, you spineless cretin―"

Harry grabbed Tom's hand and attempted to drag him away. It was pretty much a hopeless cause; Tom was nearly two times heavier than he was. "Tom," Harry said, trying to sound reasonable, "I'm going to be late for class."

"I will catch up with you," Tom said distractedly, craning his neck to see above the crowd of students in the stairwell. "They will not get away with knocking into you, Harry. I will punish them."

"But who will protect me if you're off… removing that person's tongue?"

Tom scowled, but his eyes flickered reluctantly back to Harry. "No one told me that protecting a human would be so much more difficult than murdering them."

"Living on earth is tough like that," Harry said quickly. "You'll get used to it."

Tom slipped an arm around Harry's shoulder like the overprotective boyfriend he very much was and guided them to Harry's next class.

Thankfully, Harry and Tom made it to the end of the school day without any further incidents. Harry's plan had been to go home directly after classes ended, but Hermione had insisted they go to the library. Sadly, Harry had been unable to dissuade her.

"Baby," said Tom, tugging on Harry's hand, "it's time to go home."

"I said to call me something else," Harry said, exasperated. "And we'll go home after Hermione and I work on our project some more." Tom would have known that if he hadn't been plotting the downfall of everyone who so much as breathed in Harry's direction.

"I could finish it for you," Tom suggested. "It would only take a moment." He snapped his fingers to demonstrate.

"Hermione wouldn't like that."

Tom grumbled under his breath about how human friends were useless, then said to Harry at normal volume, "But I want to cuddle. You smell nice today."

"We'll cuddle later."

Hermione located a table and led them all over to it. Harry set his bag down and hoped that Tom wouldn't be too distracting. Bad enough that he had to keep track of two conversations at once.

"Then I want more than just cuddling," Tom declared.

"I wasn't aware that we were bargaining," Harry replied in an even tone. It would be remiss of him if he didn't try to wrangle at least one promise out of Tom in exchange for a snogging session.

Tom's eyes narrowed to dark slits. "What do you want?"

"What I always want." Harry glanced over at Hermione to check in on her. She seemed to be occupied with something and didn't expect to start a conversation just yet.

"What you want is boring. I could be making deals with humans who will let me kill their enemies, you know."

"You could," Harry said, "but they wouldn't be snogging you, would they?"

"I could snog them."

Harry opened his laptop up and turned it on. "They wouldn't be me."

Tom fell silent, which was how Harry knew the argument was won. Even if Tom found another human that smelled and tasted as nice as Harry did, they both knew that those were not the only reasons why Tom hung around.

"How many days?" Tom demanded after a few seconds of sulking.

"A week."

"Two days."

"Two days is not a compromise from a week," Harry retorted. Then he asked Hermione, "Do you need me to do anything specific?"

"No," Hermione said absently. "Just keep gathering data on the second company."

"Alright." Harry turned back to Tom. "Five days."

Tom folded his arms across his broad chest. "Four."

Four was pretty good, actually. "Four days and you stop calling me baby," Harry decided.

"Then no shirt," Tom threw back. "And no trousers. And we go for as long as I want."

"Fine. But no sex." If they ended up having sex, Harry would be screwed for the rest of the week. Tom would mark him up with hickeys and bite marks then refuse to cover them. Not to mention the difficulty Harry would have with walking straight. Or speaking normally, depending on what they did.

Tom's lips twisted. Harry could tell he was already trying to think of ways around the stipulation.

"Deal?" Harry asked, ready for it to be settled.

Tom's tail thumped twice on the floor. He stuck out his hand. "Deal."

They shook on it. Tom's magic washed over them, sealing the bargain in place. Now neither of them could back out.

For their walk home, Tom had decided he was tired of being invisible and swapped forms so he could trail beside Harry.

"Almost home," Harry said as they waited for the light to change. He made sure to keep up a steady stream of conversation and scratch Tom behind the ears every time they stopped at a crosswalk. It was fun to watch Tom's fluffy dog tail flop on the pavement whenever he got head scritches.

Tom nudged at Harry's leg with his cold nose. He was larger than a golden retriever realistically could be, but so far no one had questioned it, which was good. Harry thought dog Tom was utterly adorable. He worried for the day when Tom realized he could just take on a human form. It was just so much easier to manage Tom when he was a dog.

The closer they got to Harry's building, the more Tom's tail wagged. To Harry's distress, they were stopped by a pair of kids on their way into the building. The kids wanted to pet Tom. Harry gave hesitant permission and braced himself for Tom to growl after getting irritated by the children, but after receiving several head pats, Tom's mood seemed to have brightened considerably.

"His name is Trouble," Harry told the wide-eyed kids. "He only bites if he thinks you're going to hurt me."

"Good boy," said the smaller child, rubbing Tom behind his floppy ears. "Good doggie."

Tom's tail thumped so hard that Harry could feel it generate a breeze against his legs.

As soon as Harry locked the door, Tom was seven feet tall again and crowding him against the wall. "Time for cuddling," Tom said in a deep, sultry voice. If Tom hadn't been a large, drooling fluffy boy just a moment ago, Harry might have gone weak in the knees. But since Tom had been a large fluffy boy only moments ago, there was merely an absurd rush of fondness in Harry's heart in response to Tom's innocent request.

"Let me put my things away first," Harry said. He patted Tom on the shoulder, nudging him aside.

Tom appeared to have an internal struggle with wanting to disagree and not wanting to push his luck, then said, "I'll wait on the bed," and moved out of the way.

Harry refrained from saying 'good boy' and unloaded his school bag, washed his lunch container, and plugged in his laptop to charge.

During all of this, Tom lounged on the bed and tapped a large clawed foot on the floor. Tom was always shirtless, his face and hair pristine. When he lazed about on Harry's cheap mattress, he looked like a Greek god.

"Done?" Tom asked hopefully when Harry finally came over and sat on his lap.

Harry wrapped his arms around Tom's torso and nodded.

"Excellent." Tom proceeded to peel Harry's jacket off, then his shirt, then his trousers. Once all the clothes were out of the way, they laid down with Harry as the little spoon while Tom tucked his chin over Harry's head and worked at tangling their limbs together as much as possible.

Tom was very big and warm, like a giant weighted blanket. It did feel very nice to cuddle when it was cuddling. The trouble (hah) began once Tom started running hands over Harry's thighs, stomach, and chest. That was when the intentions grew... questionable. Sometimes, Tom liked touching because 'soft human skin'. Other times, Tom liked it for less than virtuous reasons.

Typically, Tom's skin was a little rough and a little scaly. Harry often ran his fingertips over it and marvelled at the texture. Tom didn't mind being touched and he enjoyed having Harry's attention. They often spent time wrapped up in each other like this, just touching.

"What do I call you now?" Tom asked, nosing at Harry's head. "You said not to call you baby. And you said I couldn't call you honey. Or spanky, or cuddle bear, or schnookums."

Harry really was going to have to keep Tom away from the internet. "You could just call me Harry."

"Everyone calls you Harry." Tom traced a line up Harry's chest to the bottom of his clavicle. "I get to call you something else."

Harry didn't think a pet name was necessary, but Tom kept on insisting. "I don't call you any other name," he pointed out. "Did you want one?"

"You already call me Trouble," Tom said. He sounded a tad grumpy as he laid his hand on Harry's hip and readjusted their position so he could lick and nibble at Harry's neck.

"You are trouble," Harry said fondly. He took Tom's free hand in his and brushed a kiss over the back of it. "Did you forget that you almost killed several people today?"

Tom's kisses trailed up to Harry's jaw, pausing at the corner of his mouth. "Hardly troublesome. They would have been clean murders. You humans are wonderful at explaining away your own ignorance. I doubt anyone would have traced anything back to you, and if they did, I would simply kill them." Tom ran his tongue over Harry's bottom lip. "Hmm. Sweet."

Tom always said that. Harry was half-convinced that Tom had made up the idea that Harry was the demon equivalent of a fancy sweet, but after their broth conversation yesterday, Harry was reconsidering his current worldview.

They shared a few slow, lazy kisses before Tom pulled back to scrutinize Harry's face. "You didn't pick a new name."

Harry licked his lips and nearly laughed when he saw Tom's attentive gaze drop to watch the motion. If demons could be addicted to things, Tom was probably addicted to him. "I don't need one."

Tom rubbed at Harry's shoulder then parked his chin on it. "Are you sure?" he purred. "I know I can think of something you'd like."

Harry sincerely doubted that. "Go ahead and try."

"Lambchop?"

"No."

"Sugar muffin. Peaches. Buttercup. Lovebird."

Where was Tom getting all these ridiculous names from? "No to all of those. Definitely no to anything food related."

"Beloved?" Tom asked. "Sunshine."

"Better," Harry allowed. These, at least, were names he could see himself hearing in public and not immediately wanting to die.

Tom kissed him again, so sweetly and tenderly that Harry could have sworn he actually tasted sugar. "Soulmate," Tom murmured against Harry's lips.

Harry felt his cheeks flush. "Are there soulmates?" He couldn't help but ask. Tom would know the answer better than he would.

Tom seemed very pleased with himself as he cradled Harry's face with both hands, then kissed each of Harry's cheeks in turn. "Does it matter?" he asked. "If there were not, I would claim you as mine all the same."

Later that evening, Harry had some new bite marks on his neck while he scrolled on his phone.

Tom was curled up behind him, occasionally nibbling and licking at one of Harry's earlobes, taking full advantage of Harry's promise to let them cuddle for as long as he wanted. Every time Harry was sure that Tom must have gotten bored, they would change positions and Tom would find a new part of Harry's body to occupy himself with.

After a few minutes of being gnawed on, Harry paused in his scrolling and stared at the screen. "Tom?"

"Yes, soulmate?"

Harry held his phone up. The news headline read 'Queen's Wood Mysterious Fire'. "Did you or did you not cause a significant portion of their trees to catch on fire?"

"Trees make paper," Tom said after a long, guilty pause.

"I don't even have my papercut anymore," Harry groused.

Tom lifted Harry's hand to his mouth and swallowed up the index finger, swirling his tongue around the tip. When Harry made a noise of complaint, Tom released the finger with a wet pop, then latched his mouth onto Harry's jaw instead.

"You can't burn down trees just because they make paper," Harry said, unwilling to be distracted.

Tom made an incomprehensible noise against the side of Harry's face, then pulled away and said flatly, "It was either the trees or Cormac McLaggen's life."

Harry sighed.

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END.

A/N:

thank you for reading! there will probably be additional one-shots for this, but i have marked the work complete for now.