A/N:

Prompt by Kitsushouten:
Charlie wants an aquarium in the hotel lobby. [Character] is surprised that [other character] knows so much about fish keeping.

This chapter, too, happens after they got together but before they leave the hotel.

Husk thinks of Charlie by her nickname mostly because I'm too lazy to go and edit her name to Charlotte in every instance it's used in Afterlife XD I mean, err, she's... so adamant about not being called Charlotte... that Husk totally respects her decision! Yes, that's canon now.

This was the most pointless meeting Husk had ever been to. Why was he wasting his time sitting here instead of doing literally anything else again?

Charlie was enthusiastically pointing at various details in a drawing of the hotel lobby with a giant aquarium on it – obviously drawn by Niffty, judging from the very distinctive style of it. She seemed to have everything planned out, except for the fact that none of it was going to be working in practice.

Husk rolled his eyes and leaned towards Alastor, who was naturally sitting next to him – he had even begun the meeting by scooting their chairs closer because he was feeling clingy today, and Husk's tail may have looped itself around Alastor's ankle to accommodate that.

"This is going to be a fucking mess", he whispered, once he had Alastor's attention. "Is she serious about the clownfishes and the butterfly fishes? She's clearly planning a freshwater tank, so she'll have some nice, bloated fishes floating belly up in no fucking time. Or exploding, even."

Alastor turned to look at him with a surprised, but intrigued smile. "Exploding?"

Husk huffed. "Figures you'd like that part. Yeah, them fuckers will absorb the non-salty water around them and it'll be bloated fish guts galore when their insides can no longer fit within their scale suits."

Alastor looked downright excited now, and his hand squeezed Husk's knee under the table. "You're not allowed to warn her! I want to see that!"

"Keep your voice down, then", Husk said, and rolled his eyes. He placed his paw on top of Alastor's hand and laced their fingers together. "She'll hear- Huh, hold that thought."

Husk turned his attention back to Charlie's babbling when she mentioned another spectacularly stupid idea. He wondered if he had some kind of a moral obligation to pipe up at this point or if being in Hell gave him a free pass to turn a blind eye. ...The latter, surely. He turned back to Alastor with a small smirk.

"I have more good news for you", he whispered, and Alastor let out an excited little noise that made Husk want to kiss the mouth it came from. Maybe he'd be permitted to do that later; Alastor was certainly clingy enough today to probably tolerate it. "She's getting Oscar fishes. You'd get along with those assholes, as they like eating other fish. Hah, her fucking Neon Tetras will disappear before she can blink."

Alastor's face was filled with glee and he leaned against Husk's shoulder briefly before bouncing back up to a more alert looking position. "I'm liking this aquarium idea more and more, thanks to your information! I didn't know you knew this much about fish keeping."

"We had a bunch of aquariums at the casino I grew up in", Husk said smugly. "I did my share taking care of them."

Alastor opened his mouth to reply when suddenly a dagger embedded itself on the table in front of them. They both startled and turned to look at a glaring Vagatha.

"Stop flirting and pay attention!" she said, and narrowed her eyes. "Especially you, Alastor. We'll need your help to make this happen."

Husk and Alastor looked at each other. Husk raised an eyebrow and Alastor's grin sharpened.

Once the aquarium was up and the saltwater fish started exploding, Alastor off-handedly blamed it on Vagatha being careless on her cleaning turn and poisoning the water. Yes, they should absolutely get a new batch of the same fishes, she just needed to learn to be more careful, that's all. Oh, such a mystery that the new fishes exploded, too. Whatever could have gone wrong this time?

After the clownfishes and the butterfly fishes were abandoned as an idea, Husk suggested to Charlie that they should buy an Arowana, and to get "a big one, that's a sign of them being healthy". Needless to say, most of the rest of the fishes disappeared in short order, much quicker than they had already been mysteriously vanishing.

Eventually the girls finally figured it all out and Vagatha went on a warpath. Husk wasn't certain if the struggle to get the bubblegums out of his fur was worth it or not, but at least Alastor looked damn handsome with bright orange hair and ears for a couple of weeks.