Christ on a cracker, he was actually right.

He definitely did not need to know what Charlie had been thinking.

After the pair of demonesses had walked away, Husk drowned himself in alcohol and amused himself with a few games of solitaire. When most of the day has passed uneventfully (he still chewed out Angel for ratting him out), he was getting ready to lock up the bar when he heard the sound of a clatter from behind him. Nerves immediately on high alert, he whirled around only to spot little Niffty with a cart full of cleaning supplies. On the floor, at her feet, a broom lay innocently—possibly the culprit of the sound.

"Hey." The demon hybrid trudged over to the smaller demoness before giving her a cursory once over. "You're not hurt, are you? It's not like you to drop things on duty."

The young woman giggled in childlike delight as Husk handed the broom back into her waiting hand. "Aww! You're such a sweetie when no one else is around!"

A small hiss escaped his muzzle, but the small twinkle in his eye negated any ill will the sound may have conjured.

"Nah, I'm, as Alastor would like to call it—" He punctuated his statement with air quotes. "—putting on a show." He leaned forward so that his much taller figure loomed menacingly at Niffty. "These claws, though, ain't." For a moment, Husk allowed his claws to flint in the dim lighting.

Whatever reaction Husk wanted to elicit had fallen to the wayside as Niffty had the audacity to take one long look at his paws before pointing out that he had 'beans on his paws'.

Husk rolled his eyes as he stepped away from the young woman. "Stop. Just stop. I'm pretty sure there are scientific terms for these boys—" He pointed out the pads of his paws. "—not that it's any of your business, anyway."

Niffty hummed before her single eye lit up with an idea. She scuttled over to Husk's figure and grasped one of his paws and began dragging him towards her cart filled with cleaning supplies.

"Come with me and get some exercise!"

"Yeah," he shrugged her hands away. "No. I'm a bit tuckered out, so nah."

She rolled her eye and placed both of her too thin arms on her hips. "But you've been doing nothing but drinking! A lady like me gets tired, ya know."

"You? Tired?" He feigned a look of despair. "Looks like the apocalypse is upon us."

Niffty giggled at his antics before gently nudging him forward again. This time, Husk humored her.

"Where to, Niffty?"

"Your room!"

Honestly, Niffty could have said that they were off to the King of Hell's house to clean the bowels of his toilet and he wouldn't have been as surprised. If it weren't for Niffty prancing down the hall at breakneck speed, Husk would have stopped dead in his tracks. What was she getting at? She usually never asked about cleaning his room; she just did it.

"What about my room?"

Instead of answering, the young woman ran on ahead.

Husk shook his head. Clearly, he would have to find out later.

After some time of walking through the empty hallways and passing several inconspicuous doors, the pair finally made it to Husk's room. At that point, Husk would have thought that Niffty would have run out of energy, but she hurried over to the door and eagerly keyed the lock.

"Are you coming inside?"

"Yup! Don't forget the cart!" With that, she skipped into Husks's den.

Husk allowed himself to groan at her childish antics. She had far too much energy for her own good and he was way too old to deal with her—nevermind the fact that she technically existed before he was a twinkle in parents' eyes. He liked the girl, he did, but there was only so much that he could take—and that was before adding Alastor into the mix!

When he finally pushed the cart inside, the demon hybrid noticed that it was completely dark. Well, it would have been completely dark except for a pair of glowing red eyes.

Oh, that can't be good.

Just when Husk was about to edge closer to the wall (both as a beginning of an escape route and the means to get some light), a staticky sound immediately filled the room.

Jesus Christ! Husk's ears reflexively came close to his head as he tried to stop the jarring noise from completely ruining his hearing.

"Well, hello there, dear Husker! I'm so glad that you decided to join us!" Alastor clapped his hands once and in the resulting bright fluorescence, Husk saw that in the middle of his room, there was a gigantic, porcelain tub filled to the brim with steaming water.

Hell no.

Husk immediately backtracked to the door, but to his horror, he found that a handful of tendrils of darkness had bound his legs and arms from moving.

"Well now, can't have you running away can we?" Alastor hummed as he pranced over to Husk. His eerie red eyes sized up the demon hybrid, a knowing smile growing wider on his face. He leaned slightly over Husk—a cheap tactic to establish dominance, but one that definitely worked in the Radio Demon's favor. The creepy bastard was always smiling! "You've been getting really negligent."

Husk growled. "Oh, yeah? What the fuck is all of this for?" If he still had the use of his hands, he would have gestured towards the bathtub, but just resorted to glaring at Alastor. "Don't tell me that the Princess set you up for this!"

Alastor's grin, already wide and sneering, grew so huge, it stretched out the corners of his lips to almost reaching his ears.

"Damn it…"

"Come on, dear Husker!" Alastor snapped his fingers and within a second, an assortment of cleaning supplies lay in his hand. Upon closer inspection, Husk saw that the cleaning supplies were actually items that had been innocently standing inside Niffty's cart. That little—! "We can't have a wonderful feline such as yourself living with matted fur and loose feathers."

Alastor clicked his tongue against his teeth as he regarded his associate. Husk didn't like the look on his face at all. It was reminiscent of a predator seconds away from catching their prey. Which was strange. Alastor was a deer and the last time Husk checked, deer were prey animals. Weird animals that liked to throw themselves headlong into headlights, but prey animals nonetheless.

Husk sucked in a breath and interjected before Alastor could spout some more nonsense about whatever crap happened to be in his brain. "Look, if you want me to clean up, just tell me. There's no need for all of—" Husk gestured towards the entire setup, his face pinching into a look of utter mortification when he saw that there was a bubble bath of solution that was supposed to smell like strawberries or some girly shit. "—this. Seriously, just leave all of this… considerate stuff here and I'll do it myself." Husk brought his wings up in an attempt to make himself look bigger, to make it look like he had some sort of power in this situation.

Perhaps Husk's small attempt at independence worked. Alastor's eyes had narrowed and his grin seemed to lose its maniacal gleam as he processed Husk's request. That moment, however sweet and hopeful it was, quickly passed.

"Ha!" Alastor's tendrils of darkness bodily wrapped themselves around Husk's form and hauled him into the bathtub. "No, thank you, Husker! I'd rather supervise and make sure that you don't endanger the hotel's reputation any further. Darling Charlie was so worried this morning!" He chuckled lowly to himself as he began to divest himself of his signature coat and draped it onto a nearby chair. "She thought that she was overworking yourself so much, you were neglecting personal hygiene. It's too bad that you're always somewhat like this…"

Husk was too busy trying not to struggle too much in the water lest he run the risk of drowning in the unnecessarily hot temperature of the water. As he flailed about, Husk heard Alastor order Niffty to grab a few more items to aid them in their endeavor to pretty up Husk.

Ugh, this was a nightmare.

Once that conversation ended ("Will do, Alastor!" "Thank you, dear!"), Husk found that the tendrils had slowly left his figure and that Husk was free to arrange himself in the tub in any manner that he pleased. With a sigh, the demon hybrid allowed himself to sit up straight within the tub, carefully brushing the sopping fur that hung in front of his face onto the sides of his head. Already, as Husk could see from trying not to get too disgusted with his reflection, there were hints of dirt and debris lazily floating around the surface of the clear water. A few feathers, stark red against the clear pristine waters began to fall to the bottom of the tub once it began to bear more water than it could manage.

Husk was brought out of his thoughts when he felt a gloved hand run their digits through the fur on his scalp. Call it animal instinct or Husk's perpetual impatience with the demon, but his wings reared up and his mouth reflexively curled back into a hiss. Unfortunately, due to his bedraggled appearance, he only looked like a wet kitty with—

Fuck. That bastard!

"You left my hat on!" Husk turned towards Alastor and looked up at him with a glare that could rival all the fires of Hell. "Kidnap me from a casino, sure! Make me do your dirty work at this shit job, okay! But you don't just dump me into a tub with my favorite hat on!" Husk's paws tentatively took his hat off and tried to wring it out, but that only caused the hat to crumple and look even more forlorn than it already was.

So, Husk settled for the next best thing to happen to that hat at the moment.

With a wickedness usually reserved for the most powerful of overlords, Husk opened up his hat, dunked it down as far as possible, and brought it back out in a speed that was best described as Mach 1 plus a little bit more in Alastor's direction.

And by direction, directly at Alastor's face.

For a moment, Alastor's eyes were wide; his smile was even wider. For a moment, all Husk could do was internally crow in delight at the sight of Alastor looking for all the world like a deer caught in the headlights.

A very wet deer in the headlights.

This.

This was probably one of the reasons why he worked for Alastor.

And then, just as quickly as Husk reveled in his supposed victory, he began to feel a slight chill of apprehension up and down his spine. It was at that moment, Husk looked behind him and—

Well, shit.

One of Alastor's shadow minions held a bucket that seemed too large and too unwieldy for such a shadow to manage, but that wasn't what bothered Husk. No, what really got to Husk was that there was a gigantic bucket of liquid (water or something else, he didn't know, didn't want to know) and it was poised right on top of him.

Terrified for his life, Husk tried to climb out of the tub, but whether it was because he was too slippery or Alastor managed to summon more of his friends, Husk found that he couldn't.

It took a millisecond, but within that one second, Husk was not only assaulted by the temperature of pure ice, he was also assaulted by the scent of strawberries, blueberries, and vanilla. What was he? A fucking yogurt?

As he closed his eyes to keep them safe from the sting of shampoo and soap, Husk could feel Alastor's claws rake against his fur in order to bring the soap into his coat. Great, now Alastor had taken off his gloves, like he needed his employer to have another excuse to get closer to him.

Between shivers, gasps of breath, and trying to squirm away from Alastor's soothing touches, Husk spoke. "You and I are going to have words later."

Alastor chuckled. "We can have words right now, dear friend! Tell me, are you enjoying your long awaited bath and preening?"

"Enjoying? You call this enjoy—" Alastor pushed Husk's face into the water, cutting him off. "What the hell! You can't just—" Alastor dumped a bucket of even more ice cold whatever straight into Husk's face. "—right! Alright! I'm doing just peachy! You can sto—" Husk was hit with a deluge of water hitting his open mouth.

At that point, Husk was struggling to maintain his anger. The most that he could do was feel irritated and tired. Instead of fighting back, Husk merely resigned himself to leaning against the surface of the bathtub, his head lolling against the porcelain. There was a hum of pleased static before Husk felt the telltale feel of Alastor's hands—human and not clawed—gently scratch between his ears and at the nape of his neck.

"I am not enjoying this."

Alastor hummed. "Well, I certainly am!" More petting before Husk could feel the telltale feel of a damp washcloth on his face.

"Are you seriously—?"

"Oh hush, if I'm going to bathe you, then I'm going to do it right!"

And so it went. Husk found himself being pampered and treated right—well, as right as one could be when faced with the Radio Demon. Aside from the areas that Husk didn't want Alastor to touch, he allowed his employer to rub the shampoo all over his back and to pluck the stray feathers away from the rest of his wings. Pretty soon, the bathtub was left in a disarray of whatever had been taking up house in his wings and fur. As Husk clambered out of the tub, Alastor draped a towel over his shoulders.

Husk raised a brow. "You're not going to dry me up?"

Alastor shrugged. "I think you have more important problems to worry about."

"Like…" And that's when Husk's day went from somewhat tolerable to horrifically worse.

Seated on the edge of his bed, toying with a few brushes and an assortment of bows and sparkly colored objects, Niffty sat. A bright grin, brighter and wider than Alastor's had been throughout their entire ordeal, dominated the entirety of her small face.

"Oh, Husk!" Her singsong voice belied the way she zipped up to him in a predatory manner and got up in his face without a care for the way he reflexively froze and tried to brandish his claws in an effort to keep her at bay. Yet, just like it was between him and Al, Niffty was more than used to him.

God above, they must have hung around each other too long for them to take each other seriously anymore.

"Ready for your makeover?"

"This—!" Husk tried to hide behind Alastor, but that stupid overlord with his bullshit powers disappeared into a puff of shadow before reappearing at the only viable exit in the hotel room. "This wasn't part of the deal!"

Alastor kept his hands clasped behind his back, his expression the typical one that he used to make sure that his clients understood that his deals were always loophole proof.

"Considering that there was no deal, you have no right to say anything."

"You bast—"

Before Husk could fly into another tirade, Niffty hauled him over to the bed where she gleefully sat behind him and began brushing his fur and wings with a tenacity that would have slightly concerned Husk if it weren't for the fact that he was still angry at Alastor.

God, he hated being part of things that he didn't know the extent of his own participation in.

"Mark my words, Alastor," Husk shouted as he tried to shoo away Niffty from his sensitive ears, "we are definitely going to have words later!"

With a parting wave, Alastor promised that, yes, he was definitely going to honor that.

Husk had a feeling that he wouldn't.

And then, Niffty went to work.

It wasn't all that bad. In fact, Husk could have sworn that he was busy arguing with her or something, but then, out of nowhere, he had fallen asleep. The soothing strokes of a brush alongside the idle prattle of Niffty actually lulled him to sleep.

In retrospect, Husk should have kept his guard up.

When he had awoken, Husk noticed three things.

One, he was seated at the bar.

Two, Angel Dust and a handful of patrons were staring at him in fascination.

Three, when he caught his reflection in the liquor cabinet's glass, he saw that his fur was unbelievable fluffy, his ears and fur were clipped back on his head to look like pigtails, and was that—

Was that a bow hanging from his tail and a collar with a bell around his throat?

Oh, when he was going to get Alastor and Niffty alone he was going—

"So," Angel Dust leaned against the counter, getting uncomfortably close to Husk for the umpteenth time that week. "You want to go dragging with me next week? With some eyeliner and shadow, you can definitely pull off a femme fatale sort of look if you're interested."

Angel winked at him.

An anger took hold of Husk's being so hard, his fur stood on end, his fangs were prominent as he bared his teeth, and his wings rose up in a hasty rush that Husk didn't account for the fact that he was standing next to a series of bottles.

Which meant—

Crash!

All of the bottles that were lined up in a pretty row happened to come crashing down onto the floor. The cacophony of sound assaulted his ears while he stared in horror at the sight.

His cheap booze!

"Shucks," Angel commented. He brushed his hands off as if cleaning his hands clean of the matter—that stupid spider!—and began to leave. "You look pretty by the way!"

Alastor banged his newly fluffed up face onto the counter and screamed to high heaven.

Once Husk finally stopped, he noticed that there was a small post it note next to a new bottle of liquor that stood innocently on the bar's countertop. It was new and bright red, Alastor's signature aura was practically radiating from it.

It read:

With all due respect, none of which you actually have or deserve, I hope that you understand that what Niffty and I had to do was completely necessary. Perhaps next time you should be far more up to date with your hygienic practice.

—Alastor

Husk crumpled that stupid note in his paw.

"We are still having words about this!"

The note flared red in his paw and Husk hurriedly unfurled it.

These are your words. Enjoy.

Fuck it. Fuck all of this.

Husk needed a drink.

God, he hated being an animal demon.