The procession of seasons inevitably brings with it fierce snows and a biting cold as the holidays come and go. Rare was the day you tread to the bakery without the crunch of snow beneath your feet and the chattering of somebody’s teeth as they hurried somewhere warmer.

In truth you were thankful for the chilly weather. When the world grew riddled in rime, humans had a tendency to bunker down and stay inside. You didn’t mind. The abysmal weather actually quite reminded you of the pit you call home.

That faint sense of nostalgia ultimately matters to nothing. Your body is only faintly touched by the world, be it the pleasant smells of the Bakery you took great pains to acquaint yourself with or the chill of winter. It would remain as unstained as your clothes unless you wished otherwise.

You still removed your jacket as a matter of course while you baked. You enjoyed the warmth of the ovens, and how toasty they made you feel, much better without an additional layer of insulation to trap the heat.

Just the same as the peace and solitude of the season has offered you unimpeded moments of self-reflection, so too has the time in your summoner’s kitchen, waiting in line for his coffee, and driving with him to that small church where he donates the food he makes and knows he cannot sell. All these extra little duties which you have been obliged to continue simply because your summoner has taken the care and the time to compensate you for even the smallest of kindnesses you offer him…

They are not unpleasant. Not when your summoner has stuck to his word.

The moment he realized he had been leaving you to take over a good deal of his work, he had spent less time behind the counter and much more time with you in the kitchens. Talking. Joking. Laughing. Earnestly and eagerly teaching you as he sought your help with the elaborate projects and commissions he had been unable to pursue on his lonesome.

He was not a greedy man, nor an envious one. He was in the slightest bit lustful, but he is but human. It would be remiss of you not to notice the truth of the matter after exposing yourself so thoroughly to his passions that his habit for unintentional innuendo was occasionally contaminating your own thoughts.

Your summoner was a good man. A good man who obliged his contracts and acted as altruistically as he could simply because he held the power to. Simply by being a good man he had entrapped a demon in the trappings of friendship and obedience.

It was delightful. Hilarious. Incredible. What was that sort of man even doing summoning a thing like you by accident?

This was why you had taken great care to memorize his name. He was no longer just another summoner with a soul ripe for devouring. He was Barry Quinn, amateur Dark Mage, and exceptionally skilled Baker.

A route you had walked so often leads you at last to the familiar doors of the Bakery, two cups of coffee in your hand. Barry is already standing behind the door, fumbling about as he unlocks the door just in time to hold it open for you.

"Morning, Candy!" He cheers in the brief moments before you pass him his coffee.

"Good afternoon, Barry." You shake your head. You really should do something about that nickname.

"Split it down the middle and call it even." He chuckled. You don't dignify that with a response, simply shrugging your suit's jacket off and flinging it onto the chair behind the counter.

So began another day at work.

The kitchen feels as hot and sweltering as the ovens gently filling them with the smell of baked goods. Some of the first wave of goods are already laid out on the counter, cooling, while the oven timer is moments from dinging when you silence it prematurely. Barry has already begun setting out that first wave of baked goods while you’re pulling the second out of the ovens. Once done with that you can begin to pull the supplies you needed for your own responsibilities out of the fridge and the pantry.

In the grand scheme of baking and cooking you are still a relative novice. You can prepare cookies both ornate and simple, lining up mixing machines and more to prepare the dough that they will become, but you were still dissatisfied with them just the same as those more complicated desserts you thought yourself merely passable at.

"I still think you make better food than I do." Barry had told you one day. You dismissed his compliments for what they were, and instead listened to the criticism and advice that followed. Especially as it pertained to what he, personally, enjoyed.

"I won't be satisfied until I could tempt an Angel to fall for them." You had scoffed back. High standards, perhaps, but to you nothing you'd made tasted as good as what Barry himself prepared. He had, in fact, made a cake for you one morning to show his appreciation for you.

It had tasted divine, tacky though the saying was. You had savored that cake, despite not strictly needing to eat. A gift made just for you, worthy of being jealously hoarded.

Barry joins you while you're hand-stirring some cake-batter, all the mixing machines taken up by the rest of what you're trying to make. It's an eclectic mix of brownies, cupcakes, and in one case the fluffier dough you're at last trying to make for a certain type of eclairs. You're busy flicking a bit of dough that's fallen onto your apron and tasting it when he pauses and walks in.

His pause gives you time to act. Your body doesn't need to sweat to regulate its heat. Indeed, you preferred you didn't, since that would mean spending time removing the sweat from your clothes later on and no longer feeling the warmth as pervasively as you preferred. Yet for the ability it gave you to pretend to be human, stretching, scratching, and yawning as you bent down to open cabinets or stood on stools to reach for things kept in tall cabinets - languidly staying in the posture long enough for Barry to get a good look - was more than worth the pain of cleaning. Thus you put on a little show while you knew he was watching, sucking a bit harder on your finger and stretching just a little more than was necessary.

Lust was something that must be germinated the same as attempts to break his pride or fill him with envy, after all, and you knew without a doubt that these shows where your body strained against the well-fitting formal-wear you wore kept his gaze on you. It had never hurt to show off a little, after all.

"You look like a snake basking in the sun, Candy." He decides. It's not an incorrect comparison, given how you bask in the heat of the kitchens, enjoying the warm and fuzzy feeling in your chest that flickered and faded through the day.

"Keep it up and I'll certainly try to swallow you whole." You threaten. He laughs like you were joking, which from a certain perspective you might've been.

The largest obstacle Barry presented you with was the limited time the two of you spent together. You had taken on more and more duties as time went on, and so, had less and less time to do more than subtly plant him and lay seeds which might just reward you his soul in time. There are far too few excuses you could reasonably present him with if you tried to spend more time with him outside of work than you already did. Within your contract, however, and within the sliver of pride that Barry possessed for his abilities as an employer?

There is potential.

That doesn’t translate into an opportunity for you to poke and prod at Barry’s pride while the two of you work, least of all because it would bring an interruption to the workflow. Before either of you realize the day is over you're cleaning the counter and packing away the normal donations, and by the time you've dropped everything off, Barry only looks vaguely surprised when you actually get back in his car with him.

"Barry, would you mind driving me home tonight?" you ask at last.

"Oh? Of course I will - where are you staying? I don't think you've even told me where you stay." Barry nods, pulling out of the Church's parking lot. As he rounds a corner and starts to approach a four way intersection, he makes a little noise of realization. "Ah - I started driving home by instinct. My bad."

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"Hm?" You hum, trying to figure out what he meant. "Ah. No, I believe I misspoke - I meant to ask if you would mind driving me to your home. I'd like to request that you house me for a short while. I haven't found a place to stay simply because I haven't looked." You explain.

"You what?" Barry slams on the brakes as he approaches a yellow light, his head jolting against his headrest as he coughs in surprise. You are unaffected, simply sitting back comfortably in your chair, legs comfortably folded.

"I've been staying in the Park. It is getting colder, however, and it's become less pleasant to spend the nights outside." You elaborate. Barry turns to stare at you, leaving the car to idle in the middle of the street.

"It hailed last night. It snowed all weekend." He draws out slowly. His stare is so blank that you wonder if you've finally, accidentally, broken him somehow.

"It did, that's correct. Is that a no?" You blink. He wasn't contractually obligated to let you stay with him, merely find you suitable housing if you asked for it, but you had thought him kinder than this. A car behind you honks like an angry goose. "The light is green." You point out.

Barry's only reply is a distressed, strangled grunt.

For a short while you're left to wonder if you've accidentally prompted Barry to at last break his contract with you via attempted murder. He drives you back to his small, one-story house without another word, only occasionally looking your way with anger clear in his face. When he pulls into his driveway, pinches his brow, and gestures for you to follow, you do so with a frown as you prepare to finally take his soul in response to his attack.

Instead of an attack greeting you when he shows you inside, however, Barry merely points down the hall and towards the right.

"That's my Bedroom. You'll be staying there, since you apparently haven't slept in an actual bed since I summoned you." He sighs. "Across the hall is the bathroom, to the left of the living room is the kitchen, and there's a basement downstairs I'm sure you're familiar with."

"Ordinarily a woman sees the bedroom she sleeps in before she's ritualistically summoned in the basement." You muse. It's a nonsense phrase that you violently pluck out of the air and murder before it reaches Barry's ears, leaving him blissfully unaware of the fact you'd even tried to say something as he shows you around his home.

"I will be sleeping on the couch." Barry illustrates his point by reaching into the covers and pulling a lever, making the seating lightly pop up before he throws the couch's cushions aside and pulls out a bed. "You... don't have pajamas or nightwear, do you?" He looks up and realizes.

"It's fine. I'll simply sleep in the nude." You dismiss. When Barry chokes on himself once more, you simply bite your tongue in consideration. "I can borrow your bedclothes?" You suggest.

That just makes the noise worse.

Barry's bedroom is disappointingly plain. It consists of a bed shoved against the side of the room, a closet full of nice clothes and long, dark ominous robes you had never seen him wear, a long dresser full of the much more casual clothes he showed up to work in every day, a mirror just above that, and two bookshelves filled with a mixture of cookbooks and unlabeled leatherbound journals centuries older than Barry himself and undoubtedly filled with the sort of arcane secrets he had used to summon you.

Barry hadn't had the strength to argue with you, especially not once you had suggestively begun to remove your jacket. It had made him so flustered that reassuring him that you would be fine had worked like a charm.

It was a bit frustrating, frankly. You had practically stripped before him and all he had been was a bit flustered.

So here you were. Living up to your promise, stripped down to nothing at all, your clothes plainly folded and put at the base of the bed so you could change into them in the morning and tucked into Barry's bed.

It smelled like him. His scent, of course, being a distinct mixture of baked goods and sweat you had come to associate with the warmth of the Bakery's kitchen. It made the warmth that came from tucking yourself into the blankets feel like his - his hands gripping your own, his side pressed against your own...

You didn't sleep, of course. You closed your eyes and began to meditate, and think, as you always and often did.

Many times that night, and in every night to follow, it struck you that the bed felt empty and colder than it should, no matter how much it reminded you of its owner.

The move into Barry's home brought with it changes to your daily schedule. They were necessary changes, shifts brought about by the many observations you made about Barry - particularly those nights where you slipped out of his bed and loomed over him in the night, memorizing his sleeping face better so as to ensure you wouldn't forget it.

It was easy, for example, to learn about his eating habits - all the little preferences he had outside of baked goods - when you were free to rummage through his kitchen. To learn the exact time he got up in the morning, or woke up late at night to grunt atop the toilet across the hall, or even the exact length of his morning shower. He's quite a hurried man in the mornings - so hurried he barely even remembered you were there when he lazily shuffled into his bedroom to dig through his dresser for a change of clothes the first morning you stayed with him.

He hadn't even reacted to you sitting naked upon his bed. It's entirely possible he thought he was dreaming, though he didn't repeat that mistake in the future.

It makes things more convenient for you as well. Barry keeps a small office in his living room, complete with a more modern computer than those you used at the library - thus permitting you time to research whatever aspect of the world you wished and to further disseminate information about how to summon you and humiliate fools who deserved their public embarrassment for longer and more conveniently than ever.

The most important realization relates to how rushed Barry is each and every morning, barely taking the time to eat before rushing out the door with you in tow. That is, in its own way, unforgivable, and more than explains how unquestioningly he accepted the coffee you brought him each morning.

He has the tools to make coffee on his own. He had the grinds, the sugar, the machine, the specific creamer he mentioned when you first overheard him describe his poison - he simply feels he doesn't have the time in the morning to make it. Walking to a coffee store to purchase it in the mornings isn't in the cards any more when Barry insists on driving you to the Bakery with him.

From the second morning on, you begin your day roughly an hour before Barry does, rising and dressing yourself before entering the kitchen. Barry is a deep sleeper, and so none of the clatter of you making him a steaming cup of his favorite coffee wakes him up. Nor does the clattering of pots and pans as you dig through his shelves and begin to make pancakes from scratch, a task not terribly difficult compared to some of the things you've baked at this point. The pancakes aren't necessary. You aren't quite sure why you even make them. It just feels like a shame to not make sure he's eaten something more than a protein bar in the morning.

He can't pay you back for the coffee and food when he bought himself, after all. A perfect way to alleviate the debt you owed him.

The smell seems to do more to wake Barry than the noise of preparing it. He blearily wanders into the kitchen in nothing more than a pair of plaid pajamas and an undershirt, rubbing at his eyes and squinting at the meal you've just finished laying out on the table. "Did you... make breakfast?" He wonders.

"I had the time." You dismiss, quickly pulling out a chair and ushering him into it before he could say anything in protest. "Now eat up, yes? I don't want you to think it's not important to neglect your stomach like some college student when your job is feeding others."

"We'll be late - " He tries to protest.

"We will have plenty of time to do everything you ordinarily do and more when I'm there to help, no?" You interrupt. Barry looks up at you, and then back down at the meal you've made him.

"You're the best thing I've ever done with magic." He decides.

Life progresses at a simple and enjoyable pace. Putting aside your plots and your schemes, simply fulfilling your contract with Barry as best you can, the two of you become creatures of your new habits.

Every morning, after Barry has eaten the breakfast you've prepared for him, he drives you to the Bakery many hours earlier than you ordinarily begin working. You stay true to your word, joining him in the kitchens and preparing the many goods he has to have fresh and ready to go by the time he unlocks the doors and the first customer comes in. Indeed, with the two of you working side by side, you get a great deal more done in less time than he could by himself - thus allowing him ample time in the morning to enjoy the meals you make for him.

The two of you spend time shuffling in and out of the kitchens as necessary, quickly reaching an agreement about who spends time at the counter instead of baking during rush hours, and often alternating who manned the register when the bells above the door rang. When the day was over and the spare food donated, Barry would drive the two of you back to his home, where you would spend time either online, reading, or watching whatever show interested him.

He has yet to forget to pay you correctly for every hour of work you put in. It has grown to be less annoying than it is charming, even if your only use for the money is still to throw it in a decades-old account.

Barry was also rather insistent about cooking you dinner. He was somehow unobservant of the fact you neither needed nor wanted to eat, never taking a break for lunch like he did, but he was insistent on paying you back for the breakfast you cooked him each morning.

It rather defeated the point of the whole thing, but his cooking - done just for you - was rather special, and tasted good enough you enjoyed the wasteful pleasure of eating for its own sake. It was worth giving up a bit of leverage on him.

So the days continued, and so you kept learning more and more about Barry, and he did the same with you - whether or not you were willing to admit it.