A/N: This is a two-parter! Also, here's an ominous warning for this chapter. I'm not spoiling you on what is going to happen, but you should be afraid!

Oh, also! This one goes between chapters 11 and 12 of Afterlife.

"Husker, my closest, most amazing and talented friend!"

Husk set his cards down with a heavy sigh and looked in the direction of the front door, frowning in suspicion. Alastor was humming to himself and merrily hanging his coat on a coat hook like this was just a regular ass visit, which it was clearly not. Regular visits weren't prefaced with Alastor's shitty attempts at buttering him up.

No, this was a sketchy visit where Alastor would no doubt attempt to convince Husk into joining one of his bullshit projects. And by "bullshit projects" Husk meant the activities Alastor came up with in order to entertain himself or to gain something or both. Such as breaking into Vox's station to pull some kind of a prank that Husk had very purposefully refused to hear the details of, for plausible deniability, even though he had participated as a distraction. Or that time Alastor had decided to capture a bunch of monsters from the wilder parts of Hell – Husk had been bribed into helping – and then unleashed them all into the central part of the city, just so he could follow the story in the news and laugh himself sick. Or that time the two of them had made up a company that had been so obviously scammy sounding that it had gone right back around to "this is so fishy they have to be serious" and had pretended to be recruiting. The punchline had been that Husk had asked the most ridiculous how-is-this-even-relevant-to-the-job questions from the foolish applicants, with his best monotonous "I don't give a shit" voice and poker face, and Alastor had broadcasted the entire thing for all of Hell to hear. While laughing himself sick. ...That one had actually been fun. But most of the time Alastor's projects were complete motherfucking bullshit that were better avoided, if possible.

The fact that Alastor still thought laying on the friendliness with a heavy hand would somehow put Husk at ease was laughable. It had quite the opposite effect. Although maybe that was the point and Alastor just liked the stupid game of pretend. Perhaps it was even a purposeful way to get Husk prepared for what was to come. One never fucking knew with this jackass.

"What the hell do you want?" he asked, not bothering to pretend he didn't know what was up. He collected his cards into a neat deck and slipped the deck back into its compartment in his stage magician set.

Alastor appeared next to him and pulled him into a side-hug, which Husk returned by leaning his head against Alastor's shoulder.

"Not even a hello to your best friend? How cold of you!"

Husk grumbled a hello, and Alastor laughed.

Geez.

"So? What? My patience for bullshit is limited, so you may want to cut the fucking chase", Husk said with a healthy dose of grump. It was actually a lie, he could be plenty patient, but he did prefer to just get on with it.

Alastor nuzzled the edge of his ear in a very distracting manner and fucking hell, he would just give in again, wouldn't he? He already knew he would. Fucking lovely.

"If you insist", Alastor said cheerfully. "There is an item that I've been wanting for a while now, but unfortunately it fell into the wrong hands recently. She is quite the formidable enemy that I would prefer to not have to face head-on, so a sneak mission is in order. I will need to do it personally, as the item is… not easy for a weak-willed person to handle."

Husk could already see where this was going, and he pulled away from the prolonged embrace to glare at Alastor. "No fucking way! Have you already forgotten the damned disaster with Vox?"

Alastor laughed, and waved a dismissive hand. "What do you mean? It was a success!"

"For you, maybe! I almost died when the guards caught up to what was going on!"

"But you didn't! I rescued you, didn't I?" Alastor said, closed the distance between them again, and slung his arm around Husk's shoulders.

The jackass didn't know why it was, but he had figured out that Husk was easier to manipulate into agreeing with his bullshit if Alastor was touching him, so the clinginess wasn't a surprising turn in the least. And despite Husk knowing exactly what was going on, it wasn't any less effective.

He was too damn weak for this motherfucker.

"Almost is quite enough for me", Husk muttered, and was squished closer.

"But it wouldn't do for my partner in crime to be anyone other than you!" Alastor said, and oh fuck, why did he have to put it that way? Husk's poor heart was aching. "Oh, I know! You act as the distraction, and we'll celebrate the victory at a bar tonight. My treat."

…Fuck damn it.

ooooo

Husk approached the imposing gates of the bigass mansion with only half faked nervousness, and then stood there, occasionally lifting his hand to the door-phone but then dropping it in a show of hesitation. He pretended to not be aware of the security camera that was forwarding his every move to his target, even though in reality the camera was a vital point in his distraction plan.

He stalled like this for as long as possible without it being overdone – there was always a chance she would turn him away immediately after he told her his fake business here, so the longer he could manage to keep her busy watching him without having to directly interact with her, the better. It was safer, and he needed to buy Alastor as much time as he could.

Eventually, though, he needed to fake getting a grip, and he pressed the door-phone button.

"Yes, who is this, what do you want?" a female voice answered, sounding thoroughly unimpressed already. However, she had answered immediately, which meant he had had her attention for a while now, which in turn meant Alastor was off the spotlight. Good.

"Umm, hello", he said, very deliberately playing hesitant. "I'm Kevin, and uh, a friend told me there was maybe an open spot for work here? I got a recommendation letter, hold on."

He made a show of digging through a messenger bag full of random noisy things, and produced a piece of paper after a sufficiently long while. He held it out towards the fucking door-phone instead of the camera he still pretended to be unaware of, and then made a show of slapping his own forehead for his perceived silliness.

"Oh, oops, right. Um, can I come in or something to show you?"

He didn't actually want to go in. Too risky. No, she needed to come out and get stuck here with him while Alastor got an almost free reign of her mansion in her absence.

By all logic she should either refuse him, tell him about the camera, or come out herself. Surely she wouldn't let a random stranger like him in just like that, no matter how dumb he seemed.

"That won't be necessary. I don't really need any more hired help. But admittedly I'm now curious about this recommendation of yours. I'll come down."

Huh. That was actually easier than he had thought. He had figured he'd have to beg a little to get her to pity him enough to give him any time of her day. That, or she could have informed him about the camera and he could have bought even more time with that bullshit.

...This was too easy. The fur on the back of his neck stood up as a cold shiver of dread ran up his spine.

Shit. Maybe he should let Alastor know that things were going south. Alastor was tuned in to the Walkman that was strapped to a belt Husk wore for the occasion – that way it was in constant physical contact with Husk – so all he had to do was say the word and Alastor would instantly hear him.

But… He had no real, tangible reason to give to Alastor if he was asked why he thought this wasn't working, when by all means things seemed to be going excellently. Only a gut-feeling.

Besides, Alastor could very well be done any moment now. Maybe all he needed was a few more seconds. Surely things wouldn't have the time to escalate before that, and Husk could hold up on his own very well when he had to. Sure, Alastor himself didn't want to fight this lady unless he had to, so Husk had no chance of actually winning any fights here, but a powerful demon like her would probably toy with him first. All he had to do was hold on and buy Alastor the time to show up and rescue him, which he could do almost instantly with the Walkman. That wasn't too tall an order.

The gate opened and a tall tigress in vaguely eastern looking robes stepped out. Her fingers were covered in rings, which was what brought Husk's attention to the fact that her hands were backwards.

Shit. A fucking rakshasa. No wonder Alastor wasn't keen on fighting her.

On that note, the fucker should have warned him! He only mentioned that she was "a fellow feline", not that she was a fucking sorceress demon!

Husk certainly didn't need to fake his nervousness now. If anything, he needed to fake being any amount of okay with this.

The tigress – fuck yes he was going to think of her as a tiger rather than the more terrifying option – slowly dragged her gaze up and down Husk's figure, an intrigued smile on her painted lips.

Oh.

Okay, he could actually work with that. He would prefer not to, but it gave him a less alarming explanation for her readiness to come down here so quickly, and he would much rather flirt with her than fight her, thank you very much.

On that note, he would fucking murder Alastor after this.

"Hmm, you're shorter than I thought, but it's not every day I meet another cat. Our kind is really rare around here", she said with a purr, and leaned down into his personal space, fluttering her eyelashes.

Was that a fucking thing with powerful demons? Not giving a single damn about other peoples' personal bubbles?

He put on a grin that he hoped was more suave than nervous. "Wow, if I had known you'd be such a fine feline, I would have worn my better bow tie. I own a striped one. We could have matched."

Not one of his best pick-up lines, but he was too anxious to wax poetics. It would have to do.

She laughed, and ran a manicured finger over one of his ears – he fought the urge to turn it back to avoid the touch – and then down his forehead to rest between his eyebrows in a teasing manner. She massaged the spot with the tip of her finger, keeping her claw carefully pointed downwards.

"How sweet. It's really too bad that such a handsome man works for the enemy", she said with a widening smile, and the claw dug slightly in. Right between his eyes.

Wait. Hold the hell on!

He froze in pure panic, the cold dread from earlier returning tenfold.

Shit. Fuck! He needed to-

"There really aren't many felines around these parts", she continued, and her smile turned cruel. "I'd tell you to say hi to Alastor, but I'm afraid you won't be able to."

A magical lightning bolt shot from her fingertip and Husk only had a split-second to feel immeasurable pain as his brain literally fried to a crisp. Then his world went black and he dropped dead on the ground.