My introspective voice was replaced by mania, screaming out at the void, and occasional crazed laughter. How much of this was part of a fevered yet empty dreamscape, or how much I had potentially frightened the neighbors, I did not know. At the end of the day, I felt contented. Sure, I had overindulged on ice cream and thrown the cool, creamy stuff back up all over myself. But I had known it was going to happen - accepted the inevitability and consequence.

My eyes flickered back open to the soft blues of the basement. Not dead yet.

“Arrrgh,” I groaned and sat up. In the attempt to rub my sore eye sockets, I was confused as to why pillows were duct taped around my hands. Maybe these were my new hands now?

“We didn’t want you getting up to trouble with the ability to… grasp…” Rodney’s voice came from over by the chairs. Two chairs - the recliner was now down here.

I tried to blink the sleep from my eyes, feeling like more of a living corpse than the blue pigmen. Everything was slightly wavy, as if someone was gently shaking my eyes and everything was made of…

“Can I smell pancakes?” My dry tongue scraped against my teeth like sandpaper.

The Blank got up from his seat and brought a plate over. Sweet, succulent circles of pure joy lay about the dish. They wanted me as much as I wanted them.

“I’m a mediocre chef, but much better than Wight. You shouldn’t allow him in that kitchen unattended.”

I looked up at the young man. Half hoping he would free my hands so I didn’t have to peck at the food like a bird-demon, the other half gauging how tired he was. He looked pale and withdrawn.

“How long has it been? Are you okay?” I wiggled my imprisoned appendages.

“It’s been a day. Like, literally. You’ve been asleep for eighteen hours or so. I could do with a nap, myself.” He put the plate atop the washer so that he could attend to the tape. As he kneeled beside me, he paused. “No more trying to gouge your eyes out, promise?”

Slowly, I nodded. “I’m sorry, Rodney.” Divines only knew what he had to put up with, as I struggled with unconscious insanity.

“Ehhh, it’s not all bad.” He cut through the tape and the pillow flopped away from me. “I’m sure I’ll make some therapist either very rich, or very disturbed.”

My fingers were sore, and it looked as though my nails had been removed and were slowly regrowing. Rodney caught my glare, partially pensive about what I was about to do or say. If I had been attempting to pop my little peepers from their housing, then perhaps Wight had declawed me.

I sighed and leaned back against the hard metal surface of the washer. The Blank freed my second hand, which had the same feel as the first. All things equal, I internally rolled my eyes. Without wanting to remove them.

“Where is Wight?”

“He went to the Org for a bit. It was difficult for him to leave you, but he needed some rest, too. You both went through a lot, despite how awesome it looked.”

“Right?” I grinned and closed my eyes before remembering the pancakes above me. “Oh, but you were amazing, too. You got his true name? From here?”

Rodney helped me retrieve the plate and sat on the floor opposite me.

“Yeah, it was weird. I guess we don’t see many Mid demons, but when he showed up, there was just this slight… tendril of energy I found I could grasp onto.”

“And you reeled that big ass whale in,” I said between mouthfuls. “How do you feel about it?”

He bit his lip and looked off at the wall in thought. “Is it bad to say I feel good about it?”

“You’re basically a demonic assassin that can peg targets from across different planes.” I shook my head in disbelief. “That’s almost as cool as I am.”

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He snorted and rolled his eyes. “You did all the heavy lifting, Mr. Last Lantern.”

“Hey,” I pointed the fork at him, “every lantern needs like a pole thing to help illuminate the way - no, not a pole - a Rod!”

Rodney sighed and rubbed at his face, eventually standing so that he could move over to his chair. “Such a cliche, Eric.”

It was, and I loved it. Wight was the depths of darkness, I was the light to contrast against it, and Rodney pointed us in the right direction. If the Org truly knew what we had going on, they’d either worship the ground we bled across, or try to kill us in our sleep. I much preferred the former.

With the pancakes finished, I stood on shaky legs, put the plate on the washer, and gingerly stumbled over to the recliner. It soaked me in and immediately I felt more relaxed. My skin was red raw where it wasn’t wrapped with bandage, my demonic regeneration constantly fighting off the corruption from turning me into pulled pork. Tempered in the fire of conflict once more, I wondered when the true consequences would come home to roost.

As if hearing my internal monologue, Wight began to pool from my wrist into his bird form across from the two of us.

[Eric, you looked like you have pulled through the worst of it.]

He made the show of stretching his back out and yawning, his beak opening uncomfortably wide in the process.

“As is my destiny, I suppose. How are you holding up, Wight?” Despite his bloodied appearance before, he looked good as new currently.

[Mostly recovered. I find it easier to draw back my power back at the Org, and you were tiring.]

I wrinkled up my face and shrugged. It was certainly imaginable. “What did you say to the Org - they didn’t see any of that, right?” Sometimes it was easy to forget they liked to spy on us, especially if they had hung around waiting for us to return home after completing the Helper demon situation.

[They did not. I gave them some of the names we were given.]

“Only some of them? How did you mention that we came into possession of those?”

[I told them you were a good detective.]

I believe my heart grew three sizes that day. Although, that was probably close to the literal truth with the power and corruption I had swirled around inside myself like an amateur cocktail shaker gone mad. With a grin across my face, I turned to Rodney. “Hear that? I’m the world's greatest detective.”

“That’s not exactly what he said.” He returned a smile that seemed to be mostly humoring me - which was fine. I liked humor.

“I may be a little sloopy with the sanity stuff still,” I sighed. I had thought myself a little beyond the reaches of the stuff these days, but given that I was practically inviting it in and giving it a little tour of all my nooks and crannies, it shouldn’t be such a surprise.

[You haven’t had any meds yet, so it is understandable.]

I nodded and regained some composure. Once again proving myself that even if the Org gave me shit Quests, I’d find a way to do even worse to myself and still survive barely. “What names did you keep?”

[The Kraxa and the Claude. One demon and one Hunter.]

Rodney slunk in his chair, deflating. “Ugh, you know for sure it’s a Hunter? We already have them eying us up over Gunther - we’ll look even more like a problem if we start more fights.”

[I checked the records whilst I was at the Org.]

“You can just do that?” I furrowed my brow.

[We can do a lot that the Org does not know about, Eric.]

That was a valid point. They still thought I’d offed Pearl in a coerced lover’s tiff, and just had a little Wight power in me to fire my gun when he wasn’t around. That I could now briefly absorb energy and convert its type, or turn into some avatar of radiant light… wow, they were really missing out.

It had been a couple of days without Pearl, and I had been busying myself with the whole Hell thing to not be too worried about her. It was only folly, as she wasn’t going to be in any danger and could handle herself just fine. If danger became a thing, it wasn’t as though I could just pop up to High Hells and bust her out of demon jail.

Instead, I found myself just settling for being happy by myself. Living for myself. It hadn’t exactly been a solid venture thus far, but something about dragging my bloodied form across the finish line had that taste of nostalgia to it. Easy wins might be good for the old bones, but it had left my soul wanting.

“We’re taking today off as well, right?” Rodney broke my train of thought with a sledgehammer of sobriety.

“Yeah.” I was surprised my voice agreed. “As much as I’d like to get back into things… I’m half fried still.”

[Shame, the Hunter is currently in Hell at present.]

I worked my jaw. Something about breaking the portals didn’t make sense. Despite the looming demise shadowing the mortal plane, the demons weren’t in a rush to set them off and hadn’t really been sore about the three or so that had been destroyed. There was another plot hiding behind this obvious one, and we weren’t privy to it.

Perhaps some of the names that Joxx’un gave up would lead us to the truth.

Either way, a Hunter that allied with demons working against the balance of humanity and the various planes deserved to get their just desserts.

“Let’s go for a little work outing.” I grinned, trying to push my glasses up when I wasn’t wearing them.

“You’re not meant to be a bad influence, Wight.” Rodney sighed.

[Why not? I am an evil as fuck demon, the Rodney.]

“You wish,” I snorted as I got out of the recliner, immediately almost collapsing back into it. “You’re barely a… barely a…”

I paused and grimaced. “I’m not sure you’re really a demon at all.”