The light caress woke up my skin. It felt supremely nice. Not nearly as great as the time when he tickled the nerves directly, but still outstanding in a simple way. When even was the last time I was touched so tenderly? That’s what it was. I was simply starved. More importantly, he probably knew that. I caught his warm paw to stop it from brushing the cheek.

“Are you doing this because you want to or because you think I need this?” If the asshole was about to drop that bullshit about owning a pet, I would… do what, exactly? Lives of my friends hung in those claws. Everything did.

“Why can’t it be both?” he said, surprising me. I sputtered, having expected just one or the other. Mostly the other.

“That’s because… to begin with, you’re not interested in pleasure. And you also definitely refused that time…”

“I want you in ways you cannot appreciate, but that doesn’t make it any less valid.”

He… wasn’t wrong? Traitorous happiness of being wanted, really wanted, bloomed in my chest. I quelled it ruthlessly. For once the demon was correct – emotions were a needless distraction. I would not fall for nice words ever again. I wasn’t a dumb fourteen year old anymore, for fuck’s sake.

“So… you do just want to eat me,” I concluded tiredly but with a level-headed acceptance. He was a monster, what else is he going to do?

“I want you to live long past your human due date. To become great, rival me.”

I nodded along, “Yes, that sounds absolutely ghastly and objectionable. And why would I do that, also what’s that got to do with fucking?”

“Our vague equivalent of it is merging the organisms into single, superior being. Consuming you, as puny as you are now, would be waste. You’d disappear among my vastness.”

“So the endgame always was me getting shredded to bits, huh?” I huffed out. I mean, I have always known but confirmation was still disheartening, especially after those delightful flutters. Regardless of sweet demonic connotation, in human terms I was still to become fish food. Well, not anymore though. “And now that it’s impossible, you what? Want to play pretend and do it human way?”

“That was never a decided outcome. It cannot be forced, for one. Mere recollections of you caused a lot of internal damage without even meaning to. I just hoped to keep you safe long enough for you to decide otherwise. And if not, coexistence would be acceptable. I’m unsure anything else would have worked anyway. It’s hard to maintain the body as it is already.”

“Why not downsize?”

“Sure. You lob off your least favourite side of the head.”

“Okay, fair.” I relaxed back into the embrace to reflect on all this new information. Wasn’t entirely mollified, but not quietly raging either. It was comforting to know I wasn’t herded towards a dead-end. An illusion of choice felt great on my fingertips. “You’ve mouths though and they inhabit you just fine.”

“That’s not the same at all. They’re body parts, subject to control. Entirely unlike parallel existence within structure which issues the commands.”

“Right. So. Since all of that is off the table, you… What? Will be chilling out here for the remainder of my meagre lifespan?”

“Yes,” he hissed out but it felt angry. That cheered me right up.

“I love to foil your grandiose plans,” I tapped on his cheek blindly and might have hit an eye, too. He didn’t mind.

He wondered gruffly, “Was it really your idea? You were quite attached to your vessel. Now you’re no longer even human, regardless of it appearing so to rest of your kind. Your body might just rapidly deteriorate on purpose because its sole purpose was to incapacitate me. It might also happen simply due to unbalanced chemistry.”

“Oh.” I stared into the fire ahead. If eating one another equalled a fulfilling relationship over in hell, perhaps I wildly misjudged and mislabelled whatever was going on between them monsters. It was no lost child lashing out. I really knew very little of the world. Viewing it through my cracked up lens just made it more skewed. “I don’t remember that bit exactly… but I was ready to die. Probably still am. I… barely ever had a reason to hold on. It’s fine. I don’t mind.” As for the monster, and I really flattered myself by even thinking this, he’d be fine too. I was but a pet ant to that sprawling existence.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“I do.”

“That’s very… selfish of you,” I decided.

“You don’t want to die either,” he announced with conviction and I scoffed at the preposterous notion. But demon did have imprints of me to play with. And I really hated to see my monstrous cousin die. He actually didn’t want to go either. Implored me to live with the final conscious breath. There really has to be more to life than… just this.

“If you do start to break down I will do something about it,” monster promised in a whisper.

“Can you?” Should he?

“I don’t know. Anything I could try now would cause irreparable harm.”

I didn’t know which outcome I preferred. “And if I live for a very long time and die of natural causes?”

“Natural causes are merely inability to repair your tissue,” monster couldn’t have sounded any more condescending.

“Is that an admission of future guilt?” I wondered. “You know, a lot of people aspire to die a wrinkled raisin. Not me personally, because it’s plenty tedious already, but I hear it’s very human and all that.”

“You’re no longer human. But you are correct. You might have excessive regenerative abilities to inhibit all those corrosive agents in your flesh. It might take a long time.”

“So it’s a coin toss. Just as it should be.” Nothing about this was as it should be, let’s face it. Not being on an urgently ticking clock was still somehow a relief.

“It all depends on well-wishes of my deceased progeny and its abilities,” he said with undertones of growl. He was sceptical. I was satisfied, because regardless of all circumstances and reasons the snail demon has helped me. I was still here.

“What are you gonna do to it? Can you repair and just let it go? It’s not like you have a need for the excess meat.”

“I will not repair it. It will just try something again. I’ve began dissolving its memory, splitting to small parts and releasing.”

“What about its mouths? The sister… was nice.”

“It tried eating you.”

“Oh, as if you hadn’t. A common mistake.”

“I had not.”

“Right, right. Your fat ass is on a diet.”

“Precisely.”

“So?” I didn’t let up.

“Connection to mouths was cut during the clash. I don’t know whether on purpose. It could be I damaged the organs maintaining it. One way or the other, the mouth you refer to as sister will no longer be able to find any other form. It’s just a low rung creature now. I did want to dissect it for the leftovers of your flesh. We will find it.”

“Uh. Let her keep them. Unless you could…” I fell silent midway my suggestion. What if she didn’t want to be able to transform back into human? It didn’t appear overly so. The former woman was content to be a danger grass most of her days. “Never mind.”

“I’ll adhere to your wishes,” he suggested amicably but unconvincingly.

I laughed out loud, “Clearly not. You literally dismiss my plans to die.”

“Perhaps I’ll listen when they’re sincere.”

“Hey, some of the time I was sincere.”

“Given a choice between lashing out and simply disappearing, which is preferable?” monster cleverly proposed the options. I knew that was the despair. Powerlessness. States of being which will become distant concepts if I was to believe the hulking demon and stuck around him. He went on, “Everybody dies, but those living desire to remain so. Each cell of your body screams for you not to end them.”

“Whose side are you even on? I thought you like me for my amazing personality, not the flirty mitochondria.” Power house of something or another and that’s all I remembered from kids’ homework.

“They kept you alive long enough for me to find you, so I owe them a lot.”

I elbowed him in response but the oaf did not react even out of politeness. He had no manners. I settled back to watch coals disappearing some more. I almost felt unthawed if not for the general chill in the bones. Thoughts threatened to drown me again.

So monsters fucked by consuming one another. Weird, but perhaps it made sense in some distant place.

“So. Hey. When I came onto you that time in the woods you thought I wanted to get eaten?”

“You did jump right into my maw.”

“Well, isn’t all of this is a maw, technically?” I gesticulated up and down in his general direction.

“Technically that’s an arm,” monster said overly seriously and I couldn’t judge whether that was meant as a joke.

When in doubt, turn it into one. “So… does that mean I’ll be having a lot of handjobs in my future? That’s pretty bleak prospective.”

“Only if you insist on using your own hands,” monster’s lips pressed to my temple to whisper as if he’d been making denizens of this plane swoon daily for twenty thousand years straight. I felt my temperature rise and the cheeks burn. I was far too old to fall for this.

But then again, I was far too old to have any reservations either. This was – would be – purely physical interaction. I’ve had tons of those. I didn’t need to like the guy. Most of the times I loathed the people who paid me for this. And I didn’t even feel all that negatively about him anymore.

I swirled around to join our lips… my lips and his imitational flabs of such? It felt just how I hoped and wanted it to be - intimate and reciprocated. He swirled his tongue around in time with mine, pressed in as close as our human jaws permitted. That was by far most jarring thing in this interaction. I did not expect to be kissing a human. I wanted to insist he quit pretending but it felt too nice to stop and get right back into bickering.

His eyes watched me as we tasted each other and I wondered what was going on behind them and way in another dimension. He was obviously analysing this in some monstrous way. Although he said taste was superfluous and beneath him, so probably not. To him this exchange of fluids was… what, exactly? A little snack before a big eat?

He showed no discernable sign of any sort of hunger either. Sure, there was enthusiasm, but that was easy enough to fake. Whilst my fingers dug into the supposedly-leather jacket, his just lain on my back taut. He was embracing me but not constricting in any way. It was another thing I did not anticipate of this mighty ruler of high seas. He was being passive, just letting it happen. Did he lie? Flaring anger, along with his docility prompted me to grab him by the throat and see just how pliant he’s really going to be. Squeezing, I shoved him downwards with intention to leave some brain on the floor. Alas, there was neither – not good ole reliable concrete nor the brains. Darn plush carpets.

Somebody coughed nearby and I got distinct feeling it wasn’t for the first time. Neither I nor demon looked away. So indifferent. What was I even expecting to accomplish here? He’s fucking immortal. Humbled, I let go of the soft throat which didn’t even bother to resume pulling oxygen in to show off inborn superiority.

“If you’re about done eating each other’s faces, there’s this old guy who keeps…”

“Tell him,” monster went on in the foreign language and Dentist struggled to keep all of it in, if the panicked eyes were of any indication. Red-eyed creature repeated it again, slower. Disgruntled child scampered off whilst muttering bits of the mysterious speech. I didn’t care enough to ask. Other people were handling it and they were all immensely competent.

I turned away to be alone with the fire and my thoughts. There were scrapings under my fingernails. He would just let me do it. Indifference or indulgence, but I could really hurt him. This insignificant piece of him. It scared me greatly. I didn’t want to be like them. But that was the only thing I knew. Before long, those same nails were resting on my face, trying to remove the images one way or the other.

Before turning into a complete psycho in front of the people I tried to appear trustworthy and reliable to, I stood up and trudged upstairs. I didn’t ask nor looked to check but I knew shadow trailed after me. Shadows were reliable like that.