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Alastor’s sense of appropriate behavior is questionable at the best of times and downright worrying at the worst, but when he starts getting into actual physical altercations with fellow residents of the hotel, Charlie is, needless to say, baffled and concerned. She's had to mitigate his capricious moods plenty of times before, but this might be the first time since starting the hotel that he's done something worthy of an intervention. Oh, how she looks forward to that conversation…
To buy herself some time to choose her words wisely first, she tends to his latest victim, a very pissed off Husk who lost a fistful of tail fur and a few feathers to the recent fight. “This might sting a little,” she warns gently as she presses a swab to some scratches on his cheek. He grits his teeth but bears it well. A stormy look clouds his features.
“Something’s wrong with him,” he grumbles, not out of concern but of confusion. “I’ve been around him a long time and I have a pretty good sense of what’ll set him off. I didn’t say nothin’ that he’d normally get his tail in a twist over.”
“What were you guys talking about before he attacked you…?”
Evidently, it was harmless enough that Husk really struggles to remember what it was. Under his breath, he backtraces his chain of thoughts to find where the thread ended up. “Right. He was complainin’ about the lobby smelling bad. Said my… 'cat smell' was throwing him off or some insane shit like that."
Charlie leans forward and sniffs behind one of Husk's twitching ears. He protests with a small shout, but she's already gotten what she needed. "You smell perfectly fine to me. Good, even!"
Husk folds his arms and sulks, indignant despite the praise. "Well, I sure thought so too. But then we got into some kinda scuffle about it and he headbutted me."
Charlie has to stop herself from laughing out loud at that. The mental image is just too silly. Alastor's not above getting his hands dirty, but his attack style is typically indirect. It's always his little minions or those weird shadow tentacles. The thought of him headbutting someone in sincerity has her diaphragm in a twist. "That's—weird," is what she manages with a wobbly smile.
"Laugh it up, princess," he scoffs. "Won't be so funny when he catches you in his antlers."
Right as she finishes bandaging Husk up, Angel Dust comes caterwauling into the room, clutching one of his arms to his body. "Charlie!! I'm freakin' the fuck out!" He scampers to her side and throws himself at her, repositioning himself sporadically with his eyes darting around in fear.
"Angel…?? What happened?!"
Angel runs a hand through his mussed up hair. "He fuckin'... BIT ME!! And not in a fun, sexy way!!"
"Who did?" She suspects she knows the answer.
"Tall, dark, an' creepy!!!" Angel wails. Husk and Charlie raise eyebrows in synchronicity. "All I did was say mornin' to him when we crossed paths in the hallway, and he fuckin' BIT ME!"
"You sure that's all you said?" Husk asks. He believes it, given what he himself just experienced, but he also knows Alastor has an especially short fuse when it comes to the spider demon.
"You gotta believe me! There wasn't a single innuendo in sight! I was bein' a good boy!" He buries his face in Charlie's shoulder, less for comfort and more as a protective talisman in case Alastor decides to come back for seconds. Charlie pets his head consolingly, regardless.
"Okay, enough's enough. I get having a bad day, but Alastor's being a total prick. I'm gonna go talk to him—"
"DON'T!" Husk and Angel shout, each grabbing an arm of hers. Husk argues, "He's clearly pissed off at anything that moves today, princess. You do NOT wanna put yourself in his path. Trust me, that motherfucker's got a temper under all those fake smiles."
"Charlie, you know I like it rough, but I, like, actually think I need to go get a tetanus shot now," Angel Dust adds, uncovering his upper arm to show her the bloody circle beneath. "Or maybe a rabies shot."
"Both," Husk advises with a grim skew to his whiskers.
Charlie holds her hands out in a gesture of placation. "I appreciate it, guys, but I'm the one in charge here! I can't have Alastor just attacking the residents willy-nilly! What kind of example would that set? Besides, I'm sturdier than I look. If he wants to fight, I'll put him in his place."
The borderline promise of battle has Husk and Angel looking stupidly at each other, perhaps surprised to hear their usually pacifistic leader so willing to throw hands with her own business partner. Still, her breezy confidence imparts a bit of faith to them as she struts off without any apparent fear.
"...She might be the only person in Hell who wouldn't shit themselves at the thought of getting into conflict with Alastor on purpose," Husk says with a slight bit of awe, reaching for Charlie’s abandoned first aid kit to help clean Angel up.
Angel rolls his sleeve up and reaches for some vodka with a spare arm. "Better her than me. I can't go on camera lookin' like a pitbull chewed me up. At least, not in advance."
Charlie really, really isn't looking forward to sorting out whatever has Alastor in a mood this bad. She still feels like she owes him one for helping her out with her embarrassing succubus heat not even a week ago, and the atmosphere between them since has been a fragile glass plane of outward normalcy that seems like it could break at any moment. She isn't sure if she's developing some kind of deranged crush on him, or if her greed for affection is making her mistake the favor he paid for something meaningful. Either way, it's going to make telling him off even more awkward than it already would have been.
"Alastor? You there?" She raps her knuckles on his bedroom door. At first, it's so quiet, she thinks maybe he's elsewhere, but then violent thrashing meets her ears from the other side. Immediately, she conjures an image of someone springing a sneak attack on him. One of the Vees? Another resident?? "Al!?" She bangs on the door desperately now, but the crashing and scraping continues, so she does something she almost never does: she braces herself to use one of her powers.
She calls upon her ability to phase through solid objects so rarely that she isn't even sure if she remembers how to do it. The last time she tried, she'd gotten herself stuck partway through a wall like an idiot and had to call her dad and get him to come free her. He'd been good-humored about it, but it was humiliating enough that she hasn't tried it since. Her efforts to lower herself to the level of an average sinner — so as not to intimidate anyone with her power as Lucifer's daughter — have mostly benefited her efforts, but it's times like these she regrets letting her ability atrophy so severely.
Her breath stays caged in her chest until she feels every inch of herself pull free from the plane of intangibility. She pats herself down quickly to make sure all of her made it through the door unscathed, breathing a sigh of relief.
The relief is, of course, replaced with newfound anxiety when she sees the state of Alastor's bedroom. A flashback to the state of her own room during her succubus heat flashes into her mind's eye. She's only been in his room extensively a few times before, usually to chat Alastor up about some sort of hotel business late in the evening when an idea sprung into her mind and she couldn't wait until the morning to share it. But each of those few times, she noted how meticulously organized everything was. Alastor was certainly a good choice for co-running a hotel with; his managerial skills were on full display, to a degree one might almost consider neurotic. And now… Now his quarters are in shambles, looking like a tornado ripped through. Shelves are knocked onto the floor, books askew and unalphabetized. Knick knacks, no longer recognizable for whatever they once were, have been reduced to a field of shrapnel across the floor. Deep gashes of unknown origin marr the walls and furniture. His bed is unmade, blankets and sheets and shed clothes twisted up and spilling onto the floor like guts from a carcass.
And at the center of it all stands Alastor himself, hunched over slightly, hands clenched and antlers spiraling into a knotted canopy over him. Static hisses around him so cacophonously, it almost feels like a physical wall of thorns. Charlie's heart lightens ever so slightly to see that he doesn't appear to be injured, but she still approaches with caution, as if he were a skittish doe in the forest clearing.
"Alastor," she beseeches quietly, maybe too quietly, but she doesn't want to startle him. The static wavers slightly, but he doesn't turn around.
"Leave," he bites out.
"What?"
"Leave, Charlie. I'm fine. You need to leave me be."
Charlie puts her hands on her hips and straightens. Even if he can't see her entering her Not Taking Shit pose, it helps her voice come out more confidently. "Nuh-uh, I don't think so! You don't get off the hook that easily, even if you are my business partner. Why the hell have you been picking fights with everyone in the hotel?? If something's upsetting you, let's talk about it like civilized demons!"
"Charlie…" he hisses warningly, but she steps over the shrapnel, right through his inhospitable aura, and touches his shoulder. The force with which he slaps her hand away and ejects himself from her presence knocks him to the floor. He scrambles, frantic and uncoordinated in a way Charlie's never seen him, scooting himself back until he hits the wall. He curls over himself protectively, claws digging into his bent knees.
Charlie covers her mouth. "Oh…"
Alastor's face is flushed a dark, feverish scarlet, beads of sweat trickling from his forehead down his chin. His hair's askew, and his shirt is half-untucked, overcoat absent, harness squeezing restrictively against his belabored panting. His eyes are black, pupils little more than pin pricks of red, and he glares up at her like something hunted. A strange, surreal look for the Radio Demon. Every part of him is tightly wound — brow furrowed, tendons flexed hard enough to snap. It occurs to Charlie that he seems scared. Pity is quick to overwrite any impatience she felt towards him as she dips down into a crouch and tries to get closer, but Alastor crumples away from her with distortion burning at his edges, so she halts.
"Alastor," she coos with all the gentle caution in the world, "are you…"
His teeth snap together. "Don't."
"But this…"
"Charlie, I'm begging you to leave," he hisses, and the fact that he's been lowered to begging is enough to prove his sincere desperation. Too bad for him the princess can't be moved once she's set her sights on something.
"Alastor, you're in heat!! Aren't you?" It comes out like more of an accusation than she meant for it to, but it has the effect, all the same, of making him squeeze his eyes shut and heave a sigh of begrudging acceptance.
"...A rut… is the proper term." Perhaps being pedantic gives him some semblance of control over the situation. "...For a stag such as myself."
"Oh my goodness! That's crazy," she says, far too enthusiastic about the source of Alastor's miserable state. "And right after my heat! Is it just a weird coincidence? Or is it the time of year??"
Alastor's shadow swirls in uncertainty behind him like he's willing it to swallow him, but perhaps he's either unwilling or unable to due to his condition. His teeth grind together before he mutters, "I believe your heat triggered my rut. I haven't experienced one of these in several years." Every word comes out with great difficulty, like he needs to reach into some deep, tangled part of himself and pry them free.
Charlie puzzles pragmatically over this information. It makes sense; she's still not as educated on the logistics of beast-like demons as she'd like to be, but he was exposed, pretty directly, to her influx of pheromones. "Oh! Ohhh! This is why you've been so cranky!" Every scientific discovery she has about this whole thing makes Alastor curl into a tighter ball. "Just towards other guys? Or will you attack me too? Is that why you want me to leave?"
From her kneeling position, she leans forward and crawls towards him with a placating slant to her brow, causing Alastor to flatten his ears as he regards her with something approaching dread. "Charlie…"
She crowds into his personal space. Heat pulses off of him in waves, thick and potent. He visibly swallows, nearly trembling, with fear? Want? Not even he knows. He rasps, "Charlie, please, don't touch me. I don't know if I can hold myself back if you do. Your presence… your smell is tormenting me."
The heir to Hell quirks her pretty lips before saying calmly, "You helped me through my heat, remember? I want to help you in return. It's okay if you don't hold back."
So as not to burden him with the responsibility of choice, she takes him by the shoulder and pushes herself against his anxious lips. His response time is impressive, almost instantaneous, and with a disorienting speed, he's on top of her, pressing her hard against the floor, kissing her with an aggression that knocks all the wind out of her lungs. She stifles a victorious smile as she allows him to lick and nip freely, relieved that he didn't put up more of a fight against being helped than he did. He's salivating so profusely, she nearly feels like she's drowning in it as she swallows and gasps for air around his insistent tongue. Alastor was a serviceable kisser when she'd been in heat, but the way he kisses her now has her feeling like she's never kissed before, at least, not really. Not with this degree of want powering it. Never before has she been tasted like her mouth is an oasis in a desert, like her saliva is the sweetest relief. Drool slips from the corner of her mouth, and he laps it up dutifully, as if not to waste. Perhaps his fever is spreading to her; she feels like she's burning alive.
She's so preoccupied with the totality of his mouth that she almost neglects his hands fumbling with the buttons of her shirt. It's not until he's on the verge of ripping it open in frustration that she bats him away and unbuttons it herself. Without missing a beat, he dives into the pulse on her throat like he means to rip open it, but his biting is measured for the most part — a careful push and pull between the delirium of the rut and his need to treat her with delicacy. Charlie hastens to unhook her bra because it just so happens to be her favorite one, and Alastor doesn't seem to have the presence of mind to not tear apart any further barriers between himself and her skin. She puts the tracks in front of him, so to speak, rushing to remove articles before they get in his way.
"Ahhh… Alastor," she gets caught up in a moan as he lavishes her breasts with particular interest. She doesn't remember him lingering too long on them during her heat, marking them up about as equally as any other part of her body, to her private disappointment as she thought they were a rather nice part of her figure. But now, he seems to be endeavoring to dissuade her of any notions of his disinterest, suckling and fondling her with a thoroughness that starts to contradictorily make her self-conscious. In a brief window of gentleness, he manages to lightly drag his teeth against a pert nipple, making goosebumps erupt all over her body, a pleasant chill skittering up her spine.
Even through layers of clothes, she can distinctly feel the outline of his arousal as he grinds his hips against hers, and she's honestly a little surprised he's managed to hold himself off for as long as he has. She can feel him twitch and flinch with a primal need to move on to the main course, and yet he continues to linger on her chest like he's stalling. Or is he just actually enjoying it that much? It's hard to tell from his undone expression, still burning a dark color, eyes still blackened and wild. He seems to enjoy each taste as fiercely as the next; it's hard to guess what he likes or wants the most right now. Charlie forces herself into lucidity, even though his mouth is making that very hard to do. She pets his head with affection and slides her hands down to gently lift his chin.
"Hey, hey. That feels really good, but what about you? We've gotta take care of you, right?"
His lips part slightly like he wants to answer, but only faint interference can be heard, and from the way his ear twitches slightly, she almost wonders if he even understood what she said.
"Alastor? Can you tell me what you want?" she asks patiently.
The idle rolling of his hips slows to a stop for a moment as he clicks his teeth closed, swallows, and opens his mouth again. When his voice is forced out, it's distant, crushed into a poor quality, low and jagged. "Darling, the things I want aren't appropriate for polite company."
She lowers her lids as a crooked smile tugs at her. "I'm hardly polite company. Try me."
The long sigh he lets out is more like shrill feedback than a breath. He leans down onto his elbows and whispers in a narrow frequency band, "I want to fuck you until your voice runs ragged, pretty thing. I want to fill you to the brim and have you beg for more even still. I want to make you so utterly mine that it ruins you for the touch of another. No one else will compare." He strokes her hair, a kind contrast to his possessive words.
Yet Charlie can't hide the way her heart leaps into her throat, her eyes blown wide and cheeks ablaze. She expected him to say something dirty, but nothing could have braced her for… that. A dozen different thoughts battle for dominance over her mindscape. This is moving too fast. It isn't moving fast enough. Is he sincere in his want for her, or is it baser instinct talking? Does she care if it is? If it isn't?
He's continued pressing himself against her, resting his forehead on her shoulder like he doesn't expect an answer from her, and maybe it's better to put a pin in this conversation anyway. It's easy to make hasty decisions when the majority of one's blood isn't making it to their brain. She brings herself back into the moment, into returning the favor as best she can. "Alastor, sit back for a minute."
Either he doesn't hear her or doesn't care to obey, so she has to maneuver him off of her by force. The surface tension of restraining him ripples dangerously, but she coaxes him into standing. "Come on, your bed is right there. It'll be nicer than fucking on the floor."
"I wasn't complaining," he manages to say. Charlie just laughs at that and sits him on the edge of his mattress. She undoes the clasp and zipper of his trousers as he watches with narrow eyes and a thundering heartbeat nearly deafening all of his other senses. The cool air on his length is as much a relief as it is a shock, even the smallest handling from Charlie's tender fingers amplified by the much-coveted skin-on-skin contact.
The princess wets her lips and sinks to her knees. Even taking him in a highly receptive state had been something of a challenge, last time they'd fucked, and now that she's facing it directly, she loses a bit of nerve. She was never the greatest at giving head, and it's been a good, long while since she's had any practice, and on top of that, Alastor is maybe twice the size of her last boyfriend. She kisses and licks at the dribbling tip to buy her some time for problem-solving; she's pretty sure if she tries to suck him off in this state, he's not going to have the self-control to hold himself back from thrusting into her throat, and as hot as that sounds, she also doesn't want to risk fucking vomiting while giving him head. That's a hurdle for them to cross another time — another time? Whatever, she'll contend with that thought later.
A clever compromise occurs to her. She isn't a business woman for nothing. Tucking loose hair behind an ear, she leans forward to lick him clean, circling his arousal messily with just her tongue, even though she can tell how badly he wants her around him properly. Once satisfied, she sits on her heels and lets her tongue loll languidly from her mouth, an excess of drool pooling onto her breasts. Alastor watches the dirty display with a bit of awe, eyes wide and pupils dilated. He doesn't seem to comprehend her aim until she inches forward on her knees and rests herself on either side of his cock with a shy smile.
Even though he's shock-still, she sweeps her hair back again, nervous, and tries to justify herself. "I think it'll… be a little easier for me. This way." He clearly isn't any closer to understanding the situation, so she decides to show rather than tell. She kisses his tip again, supporting her tits with firm hands, taking a moment to figure out how to coordinate everything, but once she falls into a good rhythm, it works out about as well as she hoped it would. Her mouth is free to take in as much as is comfortable, and her tits can work the rest. Additional saliva dribbles from top to bottom, ensuring the friction stays pleasantly minimal.
Alastor breathes harshly. It's all he can do to stop himself from unraveling on the spot, and even in the haze of his rut, he can't stand the idea of falling apart so unceremoniously. He still has some small shred of dignity to protect. But, he thinks distantly as he struggles to unclench his rigid legs, it's hard to focus on anything other than the wet reprieve of her mouth and the plush give of her cleavage, and he snarls at himself for having such lowly thoughts. It takes every leftover atom of civility he has to draw in air through his nose, to get his fluttering heart under control. And still, his body chases after her touch, acting without his permission, the damned uncooperative vessel, so greedy for more of her that he'd even betray himself for it. Her horns have sprouted in the time he had his eyes screwed shut, so he wraps his hands tightly around them for something to expend his strength on. For an illusion of control.
Even as control teeters at a cliff's edge.
Charlie hasn't realized her horns and tail emerged until Alastor starts using his grip to dominate her pace. He fucks into her as much as he's able to, and she's so glad she decided to pair her mouth with a titjob because even with the extra assistance on his length, he still seems to get impossibly far down her throat. Her eyes sting with tears, but she accepts him with enthusiasm all the same, motivated by the hopes of alleviating his discomfort.
It startles her out of a reverie she didn't realize she'd fallen into when he speaks: "I can't take this anymore." He steers her up and into his spot on the edge of the bed, trading places with her so seamlessly, all she can do is blink stupidly. She wants to ask what's wrong, did she do something, but that too-long, too-articulate tongue of his slips into her wet folds without any preamble. He did this before — ate her out during her heat, even though it was explicitly unnecessary — so she had to assume he simply wanted to. He definitely wants to this time as well, licking into her with all the same perverse intensity as he did with her mouth. She throws her head back in a wrecked moan, feeling the dangerous suggestion of climax casting a shadow over her. She whines and makes a few half-hearted attempts to push him off, but he anchors himself to her knees with a ferocity she wasn't anticipating. The message is clear: he's not moving from that spot until he's done with her. She huffs in vexation, but she can only be so frustrated when he's curling into her, hell-bent on pulling gratification out of her, even if she fights him on it.
Why delay the inevitable, she supposes. She takes a breath that turns into a shuddering moan as pleasure crashes into her, starting from the base of her tail and tearing a path all the way up to the back of her neck. She gasps through it before pressing a pale wrist to her mouth to silence herself.
Alastor gives no regard to where she's at in her release, and if anything, doubles his efforts once she's over the hill. Her attempts to wriggle away could be mistaken for lustful writhing, but his claws dig threateningly into her hips and pull her further onto his tongue. The girl whines with overstimulation, pleading for her freedom, but it falls on unwilling ears. He drags his teeth — once again, light and careful, thank god — around her clit until she shivers, then resumes pumping into her quivering heat. He works her until the expended discomfort comes back around to pleasure again. Charlie stays quiet, expecting at first that he'll move on once he's had his fill of lapping up her slick release, but his claws stay firmly planted and his cruel ministrations continue at the same fervent rate. It slowly dawns on her that he intends to get her off a second time like this.
"Alastor, please!!" she implores shrilly, even as she finds herself bucking into his touch. "We need to get you off, too! At least let me sixty-nine with you or something!!!"
He looks at her with big eyes before he begrudgingly pries himself away from her like she's a quickly melting ice cream cone he needs to attend to. "Sixty-what-now?"
Charlie stifles the urge to laugh. "Lie on the bed," she says as authoritatively as she can, hoping it will make him comply without a fight. At the same time, she closes her thighs like she's locking the pantry up from being ravaged by a wild animal, and his ears flatten in irritation. She can't make any damn sense of it; what kind of animal in a rut busies themselves with the pleasure of their partner? Shouldn't he be mounting her and acting upon all the filthy urges he confessed to her earlier? This isn't how she imagined this whole thing playing out. She's not UPSET about it, but definitely confused.
When his defiant stare doesn't budge, she can't help but frown. "Alastor, come on! Don't you want to cum?? Work with me here!"
In return, his mirthless smile twitches at the corners. "It's not that I don't want to…" His gaze falls to the side as he relents to admitting his shameful thoughts, since Charlie seems so determined to torment them out of him one way or another, anyway. The disconsolate sinner licks his lips, and even the faintest trace of her tastes like absolution. He lets himself be sated by it for the moment. "I just can't help it. You smell divine."
"Alastorrr…" she scolds like it's the wrong answer, though she can't help the pride she feels upon hearing it.
"I've got it, doll, I'm doing it!" He gives a mischievous, devil-may-care shrug, the most he's looked like his usual self all evening. Something about it brings Charlie relief she didn't even know she craved — a confirmation that he's still himself underneath the thrall of biological drive. A sign that he's present and aware, even if acting outside of his usual parameters. Once he's lying down, she crawls to his side and kisses him, a simple peck of affection, though he immediately tries to pull her deeper.
"Hmphmgh—hey!" She laughs and pries herself free. "Later, okay? Let's take some of the edge off first." He just stares, ears flicking in impatience, hands twitching like he wants to grab her, but he narrowly reins in the urge.
Charlie has to chuck some discarded clothes off the bed to make room for herself to turn around and frame Alastor's head with her calves. "What's with all the clothes, anyway?"
He takes a moment to realize he was asked a question, too preoccupied with staring up at the transcendental sight hovering tantalizingly over him. "Ah. Kept… clawing them all off, then thinking better of it. I felt like I was burning up. Still do."
"Ohh," she utters with sympathy. "Come on, let's take care of you. I'm going to lower myself, okay? You can do whatever you want to me. Just tap my thigh if you want me to get up." She takes one of his hands and helps him practice the tapping motion. "Like that. Got it?"
"Yes," he says, not sounding too sure of himself, but happy to say whatever will get him what he wants faster. And get it he does and then some, a hum of sheer relief escaping him as the immaculate flavor of her womanhood graces his palate once again. He picks up where he left off, smiling wolfishly against her soft, damp flesh.
Charlie tries to momentarily ignore the delicious sensations twisting her up inside, draping herself over Alastor's lithe body, tucking her hair behind an ear again (she really should have brought a hair tie, but now she knows for next time — and there she goes again with next time, and every time she says it to herself, it feels a little more hopeful than she wants to admit). She supports herself on her elbows, relishing the skill of his delving tongue for a selfish interlude before forcing her attention back to the task at hand. His poor cock is flushed and straining from the lack of attention. She wonders if he got himself off at all before she showed up, or if part of his starving need was born from withholding. In any case, she doesn't intend to let him suffer for much longer. She pushes his clothes further down his hips, mentally cursing herself for not getting him more undressed first, but he doesn't seem beleaguered by it. Then, curling her fingers snugly around the base, she works him into her mouth with bracing inhales and exhales through her nose, relaxing her throat while flexing her tongue to pin him against the roof of her mouth. She lets her neck and shoulders do most of the mechanical work, lifting and lowering, trying to take him a little deeper each round, pumping whatever she can't swallow with her hands.
She can tell she's doing well when he stills at her entrance, miraculously halted from his single-minded task. With a swell of confidence, Charlie picks up the pace, perhaps taking him further than is comfortable, but he hits the back of her throat so fast that he's gone just as soon, too, so she just continues to breathe carefully. In this position, she's at least able to ensure a quick escape if she needs a breather, and no matter how much he arches his hips into her, she has the final say on how deep he gets to go.
A thought crashes into her all at once: she's in total control here. For once, she has the upperhand over the Radio Demon, a thought that gives her something of a head rush, and she's not even the type to savor power. Yet knowing that the leash for his reprieve is firmly in her grasp makes something innate, perhaps demonic, curl up warm and satisfied inside of her. Some foreign emotion, fond yet unkind, tugs at her heart. If she’s to put it into words, she wants him under her thumb.
Her tail flicks in excitement. That’s the only warning Alastor gets before Charlie sinks around him, taking him as deeply as she can stand. She feels him tense, a whimper muffled against her pussy, and that’s all the encouragement she needs to do it again, and again, and she makes short work of him. He snaps up into her and releases in a hot spurt that she might have choked on if she hadn’t been so prepared for it. The sheer amount does surprise her slightly, stoking her suspicion he hadn’t gotten off properly before she intervened, but she does her best to swallow the majority. Some of it overflows and dribbles down her chin, down his shaft, but all things considered, it’s a clean job. She holds her mouth in place, waiting for the throbbing to subside, and once he stills, she slides off with a pop of her lips. Alastor groans at the sensation, remembering all at once that he needs air, so he taps her thigh and she hoists herself off of him.
Charlie wipes her face on a corner of his blanket; the thing is going to need to either get laundered or set on fire when they’re done here, anyway. “Was that okay, Al?”
He seems to be staring past the ceiling as he tries in vain to temper his lungs. “More than okay, sweetheart.”
Any pride that swells in her chest is short-lived. She tilts her head and scrunches her brows. “You’re still hard.”
“It would seem so,” he manages, rubbing his face wearily.
“Well, that’s interesting. Round two?”
“The stage is all yours, darling.” He bites his lip for a second, coaxing something out of himself. "May I ask something of you?"
Charlie visibly, audibly, spiritually brightens at the prospect of a request. "Yes! Of course!"
He covers his mouth, eyes narrow and pensive. Charlie really does have to marvel at how novel it is to see him so wound up. She associates him with big gestures and overblown cheer. On the off-chance he's in a mood, he slinks off like an injured cat to hide in some bush until he's recovered, so it's not often she sees him in such an altered state firsthand. Certainly not so up close. If he was terse at all during her heat, the lust clouded her mind too much for her to really remember it. She catalogues these uncommon expressions diligently, telling herself all the while that she just wants to know her business partner better, though deep down she knows something more pesky has already taken root.
"On second thought, never mind! As you were! Do whatever you see fit." His eyes flit to the side, lips pressed together in an evasive smile.
"Huh? Wait, no! I wanna know what you were gonna ask!!"
"Truthfully, I failed to find the words for it! So don't mind me, my dear, it seems this rut is wearing down my mental facilities!"
Charlie pouts and leans forward. If she pushes her chest out with her arms as she does, it's just a coincidence. "If you can't tell me, then show me. I want to know."
Alastor lets out the aborted start of a laugh, regarding her with skepticism, as if she's playing some elaborate trick on him. As if such a thing is even in her nature. He rolls his eyes, more at the situation than anything, and takes her hands, guiding them to the base of his overgrown antlers. At first, she assumes he wants her to use them for leverage the way he did with her horns, but then he guides her hands into sliding up the velvety appendage as a fortifying sigh shudders out of him.
All at once, she understands. A sunny smile inappropriate for what's taking place blossoms on her features as she straddles his torso with a confident swing of one leg and grips both antlers intently. "Let me know if I'm doing it too hard… or too soft."
He just nods, demure. Again, she can see the surface tension, the savage want reflected in his darting gaze and trembling fingers. How does she lure that beast out of him? How can she prove she can handle him at his worst? For the time being, she makes good on his request, rubbing his antlers with attentive whorls of her thumbs. They're soft, or at least softer than she expected, and she preens slightly at the excitement of touching a part of him she's never seen anyone else touch. Except for maybe Niffty, but she's more akin to his strange pet or daughter or… barnacle…
She puts thoughts of Niffty out of her head.
To her delight, he leans hard into her touch, eyes falling closed. A contained hum emits from his clamped teeth, escalating into a whimper that clues her in to how much he's getting out of the touch. She pins a mental reminder to do some reading on deer demons later. Her own horns lack much feeling, but her horns are also smooth and hard, polished like gems, more a show of power and seniority than anything else. His antlers are about as different as could be, covered in a fuzzy layer of velvet that she could honestly enjoy petting for hours if only he'd let her. There's some give to the texture, though she can tell it's solid at its core. She slides up to some higher prongs and pulls experimentally. It startles a sharp sound out of Alastor, an undignified sort of yelp, and he presses so hard into her touch that he almost gouges her.
"Charlie—" he whines, clutching at the back of her thighs just for something to hold on to. "I can't, I can't—"
Charlie's eyes practically glow with interest at the desperation in his voice. "It's okay, Alastor, I've got you, okay?" She spares a hand for just a moment to pet his head consolingly. She hushes him with whatever reassurances come to mind, continuing to rub firmly at every junction, every branch of his antlers. "Take what you need. It's okay."
She has to duck to avoid another near-gouging as he curls around her, foreheads bumping as he pants in ragged breaths, digging his claws into her for security, searching clumsily for her mouth and clicking their teeth together in a motion more akin to feasting than kissing. Her hands stay busy, squeezing tighter so as not to slip. Something a lot like a sob begins in his throat, swallowed by Charlie's sympathetic mouth, and he constricts her like a metal trap as he comes against her back. She's a little more unsure of what the cooldown process for this should look like; should she keep stroking his antlers through the tremors? Should she let him go so as not to overstimulate? Alastor just suckles at her bottom lip, seemingly pacified by that while he rides the final waves. In the interval where his breathing evens out, Charlie revels in his heartbeat, in his warmth, in the satisfying mess they're making of each other. She squints at him with a loving smile, kissing the corner of his mouth and then his nose. The gestures make him blink blearily out of his trance.
His claws retract as he supports himself on his elbows, evaluating her with a strange expression.
"Alastor?"
His eyes are still black. His skin still thrums with fire. She senses what's coming before it happens — a violent tangling of limbs that ends with her on her stomach and underneath him. He has her pinned as if she'll escape, the base of his palms pressing bruisingly into her shoulders. With a wry smile, Charlie lets him maneuver her, docile and pliant under his rough handling. She's been trying to elicit this from him all along, so she can't help feeling smug.
Alastor lifts her hips, his fingers sinking easily into the soft skin. Charlie's not normally much for pain, but she finds herself idly hoping he leaves marks. A small memento of this encounter, the likes of which may never happen again, depending on how Alastor feels on the other side of it all. She half-expects he'll be so humiliated when he comes to that he might not even speak to her for a while, a thought that devastates her a little. The thought doesn't linger, as Alastor presses his tongue into her pussy with haste.
"Alastor!!" she whines, scandalized. She really thought he was going to fuck her proper — and more importantly, this isn't going to get him off!! The sulky princess glares over her shoulder, but she can't catch her partner's eyes because he's currently somewhat occupied. "Aren't you sick of that yet?!"
He mumbles, "Mm-mm," without interrupting himself. And she can't stay mad when he's so goddamn good at curling his tip into her most sensitive spot, reducing her to a truly lewd and pathetic sight, whining into her forearms and obediently letting him tonguefuck her. Her tail whips from side to side on the mattress, stimulated yet impatient. …Her tail! She gropes around blindly with it, finding Alastor's thigh and trailing up to her goal. She's not as coordinated with her tail as she'd like to be, but she snakes it around his cock in a deliberate swirl, pumping him with a vengeance. Either he's going to fuck her, or she's going to get him off with every other part of her body until he can't stand his own self-restraint anymore.
"Chaaarlie, that's not fair," he complains against her, like he can't bear to pull himself away fully.
"You wanna talk to me about unfair?? I'm here to get you off! You wanna tell me how eating me out for… what, the third? Fourth?? Time??? Is gonna accomplish that?!"
If she didn't know better, she'd suspect she feels him frowning. If nothing else, the fuzz of displeasure scratches at his voice. "I already told you, I can't help it! Blame this accursed rut for heightening my senses."
"I don't see how it satisfies your condition! Unless it's different from my heat, but no matter how many times I got Vaggie or you off, it wasn't enough to calm the mating drive."
Alastor's expression darkens a little at being reminded of Charlie's official romantic partner. A hole has already been pried in their once-closed relationship ever since the heat incident, and he intends to pull at it until it's wide open and raw at the edges. To that end, he hums, "What do you want me to say? So sue me for liking you."
Charlie swallows the surge of hope tickling at her throat. "Sure you do…"
He pulls her tail off and sits back on his ankles, full-blown irritation creeping into his voice. "Princess, do you honestly believe I'd engage in any of this mess if I felt no affection for you? I thought you were more clever than that."
It registers somewhat gradually that she's being insulted, and she's not exactly in a position conducive to strong arguments. So instead, she weighs his words, and that's hard to do because there's always a chance Alastor's dancing around the truth, or at least being misleading on purpose, but measured against what she knows of him, it checks out. She was more than a little stunned at what a willing and attentive partner he was to her last week, and it fills in the missing piece of why he's drawing this encounter out so luxuriantly. Even if he means "like" in the most baseline sense of the word, she latches onto it with everything she's got. They can work out the details when she isn't naked, ass-up, and already stained with his cum.
"If you like me so much, then prove it," she challenges daintily.
Alastor lets that one sit for a moment. But just a moment. Then he's on her, chest to her back, one arm wrapped possessively around her waist, the other positioning himself at her sopping wet entrance. When he fucks into her, he squeezes her tightly in the cage of his arms, forcing the breath out of her in a way that heightens the not-quite-enough relief of every gasp.
"Fucking finally," she all but growls, burying her face in his pillow. The saturation of his smell only heightens her enjoyment. Meanwhile, Alastor readjusts and feels out the boundaries of this tight sensation. Charlie urges him along by lifting her hips forward and slamming back, none too kindly. He winces in response but gets the message.
Being held so tightly while he fucks her gives her a strangely safe and secure feeling, not that she views herself as someone who needs protection — rather, she takes a bit of morbid joy in the possibility that he's just as afraid of her leaving as she is of him. She murmurs warmhearted assurances to him, "Alastor, you're so good, you feel so good, please, don't stop, I want you to feel good in me, please please please…"
The usually chatty Alastor is uncharacteristically quiet, too focused on every inch of slick pleasure she graces him with. He's starting to understand how lesser men destroy their lives chasing after this feeling, but they're fools all the same because nothing could possibly be as worth ruination as his Charlie is.
He comes more placidly this time, a muffled groan all he offers as he pumps his release into her. His belle is the one who collapses into a wrung-out cry, her hips working him with enthusiasm at finally being filled. He thinks, at the back of his head, maybe this will make her a little more docile, or less combative at least. She pulls off and flips onto her back, meeting his eyes with a malicious smile that makes him love and hate her in equal parts.
"More," she demands.
Alastor's hair stands on end. He just barely finished, and yet he finds himself burying himself in her again, against better judgment. How much of this endurance is a result of the rut, and how much is her doing? He pounds her like he's entertained the thought for decades, though he's only known her a couple of years. Deeper he delves, yet he craves more. His own release lubricates the thrusts, dribbling out of her obscenely, and the thought plagues him that it's still not enough.
There it is — the carnal profanity of this fever is back in full force, and he lets it overpower him this time.
He's relentless, chasing down his next peak like his life depends on it, and Charlie meets him halfway like hers does, too. He surprises her by catching her tail at a midway point and wrapping it tightly around his fist until he's able to give it a rough pull . The unexpected treatment shoots sparks of pleasure up her spine like a shock of electricity, and she moans like a needy animal. It takes a moment for him to figure out the timing, but he uses the leverage on her tail in tandem with his thrusts to yank her down his length. The sparks keep flying until Charlie feels like she's being electrocuted. She howls, thrashing into his hold, or maybe against it — hard to say. Either way, the feeling of resistance whets his interest.
"Fuck," he hears himself saying, "fuck, Charlie, darling, you're incredible," and he yanks her tail with particular forcefulness, making her shriek and tear into his back, right through his shirt, fabric ripping like tissue under her claws. "It's like you're made for me."
Through the fog of pain and pleasure, Charlie manages to raise a brow at that. He's probably just lost in the dirty talk, not thinking too hard about what he's saying, but the sentiment is surprisingly… tender.
His thrusts grow rougher, slower, as if to make a point. His index finger traces south from her belly button. "If your insides are anything like a human's, right about here is the crown of your uterus." He prods. "Your fallopian tubes branch out here… and here… Like antlers! Isn't that cute?" The smile he shoots her is unbalanced.
"Your uterus probably comes to about here, and this…" Two fingers sink into her. "...This is probably where your lovely little cervix is." The fingers glide across her skin, somehow making her spine tingle almost as much as his legato thrusting. Then his hand, broad and firm and unkind, flattens, the heel of his palm digging with purpose. "Think I can reach it, sweet thing?"
Charlie doesn't know how to answer that. She stares at him, mouth agape, robbed of her higher intelligence. Unsure of what she's agreeing to, she nods numbly just because it seems like the right thing to do.
"Let's try it, then." Alastor hoists her legs over his shoulders, folding her onto herself slightly. With an altitudinal advantage, he's able to get that last bit of depth he so covets. Charlie covers her mouth with both hands, stunned and distrusting of whatever sounds she might make. Whatever switch she managed to flip in Alastor, she needs to learn how to do it again in the future.
He fucks her with the conviction of a man who's found his calling — he fucks her like he needs her. Overused and overwhelmed, Charlie feels another faint orgasm submerge her deeper into the delirium they've built together. More importantly, Alastor hits his desired destination, and he doesn't let up on battering it until he's cumming in her again, biting one of her lifted thighs because it's warm flesh and it's what's closest to him. The creamy skin of her inner thigh breaks cleanly against his fangs like the most delicate meringue. He laps at her and whimpers as his crest pulls him under, too.
At long last, he feels at peace for the first time since his rut began. Unfortunately, he's only able to enjoy that tranquility for a moment before his vision blacks out.
When Alastor comes to, he's lying alone in clean clothes against clean bedding. It's only by the agreeable ache he feels all over that he's able to ascertain his most recent memories of consciousness weren't just a very lucid dream. He has to assume the princess, in all of her unexpected hellborn strength, dealt with the aftermath of their coupling. As his sleep-blurred vision clears a little, he spots the main character of his thoughts across the room, sweeping up the shattered remains of… something. Not even he remembers what it was.
"Charlie, don't bother with that. I'll just fix it all with magic later."
Charlie perks at his voice, trotting over with an easy smile that he can't seem to get enough of. "You're awake!! Are you feeling okay?"
"I feel like a million bucks, darling." He ducks his head and glances up at her with a curl to his lips. "...Get it?"
"Bucks? Like male deer?" she asks. He nods. She laughs heartily. "You're so corny!"
"You like it," he accuses with a genuine grin. It's hard to hold back around her, especially now that he's got his foot in the door. He puts a pin in that thought for now. Future scheming can happen in the future. For now, he wants to enjoy the pleasant atmosphere that's enveloped them.
"And so what if I do?" she says with her hands folded behind her back, rocking on her hooves with an impish quirk to her black lips.
He catches her by the wrist. "Well, I might have to do something about that." The ease with which she lets him pull her back into his grasp stirs something in his chest. It makes him want to pull her through the gaps in his ribcage and keep her there like a pet bird. Until he figures out how to do that, though, he has to make do with more pedestrian expressions of love.