Zac rolled his eyes, leaning back against the door. "That middle head is the only honest one," he muttered to the empty room. "If only the other two could be honest with what they wanted."
Zac slumped down against the door, his leopard-print tail pooling around him. Fucking demons. Fucking Hell. Fucking Truck-kun killing people and sending them to weird other worlds. This wasn't what the stories said eternal damnation was.
His mind conjured the classic images: rivers of boiling blood where the greedy were stewed like cheap beef; forests of razor-sharp knives where the violent were shredded; raining fire that burned the skin from the bones of the treacherous; barren, icy glaciers where the cold bit deeper than regret. They all seemed so awful, so visceral, so painful… And Zac was truly grateful that he did not have to experience that sort of physical torture. But…
Zac looked around his little room. The stone walls, the narrow bed, the single window looking out onto... nothing. What he got was just a continuation of the torture of his mortal life. A tiny room that cost him every hour of labor he could muster. A total lack of agency, where his days were dictated by other people's plans and neuroses. Seeing exactly what he wanted but being told he couldn't reach out and grab it. Being surrounded by hypocrites who denied that getting spit-roasted by a knight in shining armor and a nudist brute would be peak as fuck.
He sighed as he stood up and let out a deep, rattling breath. He had dealt with this pain for years. The constant, gnawing hunger for something more, something real. And as shitty as it was, he never gave up on the hope that one day it might change. That there would be someone out there who could understand his point of view. Always looking through a window at the things he couldn't have, pressing his nose against the glass until it hurt.
"It is easy for the demons to want to cut back on their gluttony," he whispered to the empty air, pacing aimlessly around the small room. "But here I've been starving for something and I've never even gotten to taste it."
He kicked at the stone floor. "They've all tried everything that they've wanted to. So being able to choose to not do it just means that they've realized they don't want it anymore. I feel bad that Bune was addicted to gold or whatever, but if he wants to be sober from precious metals then at least he is able to do what he wishes. He had his fill. He got to dive into the coin pit like Scrooge McDuck. And now he's able to make the choice, to decide what he really wants."
Zac stopped, staring at his reflection in the dark red window. A scrawny human in a leopard onesie, looking tired and frustrated.
"How is that even nearly as bad as me wanting my V-card torn to shreds but not having anyone help me out with that?" he asked his reflection. "It's like... everyone's gone skydiving so much that they're numb to it and they are telling me that it is fine if I don't do it because it's boring. I want to make that decision for myself after I try it."
Something caught Zac's eye during his self-loathing virginity lament. Gleaming softly in the dim red light on the bureau was the bottle of Celestial Silk conditioner.
"Thought this got left in the shower," Zac muttered, reaching out and picking it up. "Bune had to have known this wasn't mine. Guess he expects me to return it to Nock myself."
He turned the bottle over. The rear label was written in elegant, flowing script: Restores luster and volume to even the most battle-weary manes. Stimulates regrowth in patchy and dead follicles. Effective on all coats, from the most stubborn hide to decaying zombie flesh. Medical Grade. Spiritual Grade. Miracle Grade. Keep out of the reach of non-mammals.
Zac sat on the edge of his demonically comfortable cot, rolling the bottle from hand to hand. For decaying zombies. He thought back to how Nock looked when he had been soaked in the hot tub, the matted fur falling out, the golden hue turning into a sickly grey and white. He had been too worked up at the time, too consumed by the ferocious aesthetic, to really think about what it meant. The hyper-vain lion was completely covering himself in concealer every day.
The memory of Nock trying to slink away on all fours, broken and ashamed, flashed through his mind. Zac frowned. Was Bune not bullshitting him? Was the warband not a found family, but one big therapy session with an overworked single wolf dad trying to keep everyone on the straight and narrow?
"Well, fuck that," he snarled to the empty room. "It's not my problem. All they want from me is to use me as some stealth plane to recon their enemies." He raised the bottle, his arm tensed to throw it against the wall. "Why the fuck should I care? Demons are the bad guys, right? I don't have to do what they say."
The image of Andras, snarling and protective, his cutlass at Gremory's throat after she had choked him.
The memory of Skarg, triumphant and proud, bringing him out for a lunch date, even if it ended in a massacre.
The sight of Halphas, a cocky grin on his face, conjuring him waffles and coffee just because he asked.
Nock's performing CPR after he had pulled Zac from the boiling pool.
And finally, Marchosias, his celestial angel wings burning holes into his own shoulders as he held a sobbing Bune in a desperate, comforting embrace.
Zac's arm went limp. He sighed, a long, rattling breath that seemed to carry all the frustration and loneliness out with it. He placed the bottle gently on his bedside table.
"At least the nightly entertainment is better than scrolling through gifs on monsterfucker.com," he muttered.
He let out a final, frustrated huff and lay back on the bed. He was asleep the instant his head hit the pillow.
…