Page 29 of Hellfire & Bowties
Oren saw the exact moment it clicked in Luc’s mind that Oren wasn’t as innocent and nice as he seemed. No, he hadn’t ever done anything to deserve Hell…but he wasn’t exactly a saint either.
“Noted.” Luc said it with finality, like he really was logging that away. He gave the list in his hands a little shake. “I’ll get right on ordering these things, and I’ll have Zorun rally some help while I run some other errands. I’ll take Beast with me to get him out from underfoot.”
“Perfect. Send them my way. I’ll start in on this… well, all of this. I need things sorted before I can even begin figuring out a system.”
“I really didn’t mean to let it get this bad.” Luc rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed again.
“Don’t worry,” Oren said with a smile. “Gives me something to do.”
Luc returned his smile before exiting the room with Beast on his heels, and Oren wanted to melt at how sweet it looked. He had no idea what was happening to him. He’d spent his entire adult life looking for someone who fit him. People saw him and immediately thought he was sweet, fragile, breakable. They learned about his heart and wanted to wrap him up in cotton and keep him safe.
Oren wanted to be dismantled. He wanted to burn and shake and scream in pleasure. Pleasure nobody was willing to give him.
And now he was dead, in the last place he’d expected to be, and he’d found someone who ticked every box Oren had. The infamous butterflies everyone talked about had entered stage left and refused to leave. The devil made his faulty heart stutter, and for the first time, Oren wasn’t afraid of the skipped beats.
Shaking his head to get those thoughts out of his mind, he sat cross-legged on the floor and grabbed the first file he put his hands on.
He had work to do.
He made some space around himself and started piling documents into stacks based on what they were. Pretty soon, he got into his usual groove and lost himself in the work. He was elbow-deep in what looked to be centuries-old complaint forms when he heard the knock at the office door.
“Yes?” he called out, and Zorun’s scowly face and quadruple horns poked in. “Zorun, hi! How are you?”
Oren was determined to make a friend out of Zorun. He hadn’t had many of those while alive, and he clearly wasn’t any better at it dead, but he had hope. Zorun seemed prickly and mean most of the time, but he also looked lonely to Oren.
“Boss said there’s stuff to take out of the old storage room,” Zorun said, ignoring Oren’s friendly greeting completely.
“I’m also great, thank you for asking,” he said with a wide smile, raising his eyebrows at Zorun expectantly.
The demon stared at him for the longest time, left eyelid twitching. Oren kept his gaze steady, refusing to be the first to blink. Zorun huffed and looked away.
“I’m fine,” he grunted.
Oren beamed. “That’s good to hear.”
“I’d be better if there weren’t four hands trying to get into my pants right now,” he continued, looking back over his shoulder.
Oren raised his brows, ducking his head to spot four identical, bare legs behind Zorun’s.
“We just wanted to cheer you up,” Azoth said, slipping into view on Zorun’s left looking unrepentant.
“We just want to make you happy,” Tarik said, appearing on the right and pouting.
Oren dug around himself. “I think I saw a harassment form here somewhere…”
“No need.” Zorun snaked an arm around each tiny waist and picked the two of them up. They squealed in delight, which probably wasn’t Zorun’s goal, as he placed them ahead of him inside the room.
“Hi, Azoth. Hi, Tarik,” Oren said, waving happily.
“Pinkie,” they chorused, before looking around the office and turning their noses up. “Did the boss throw a tantrum in the last century that we didn’t know about?”
“Not a single tantrum. Probably multiple. But this is a buildup of years of neglect,” Oren said. “Surely you saw some of it at one point?”
“They refuse to come by the office,” Zorun said. “So I have to track them down.”
Azoth smiled wickedly. “But isn’t that so much more fun?”
“We like playing games with you better than listening to boring old Luc,” Tarik said.
