Bellamy sat in the cafe inside of Sanctuary. It was on the first floor, visible from the lobby, meant to be easily accessed for those visiting and those who stayed long term. A sign sat outside the door in a gold frame that read "Hot Takes." The cafe had a small counter with pastries to the left of the cash register. They served sandwiches, salads, and soups during the day, during the evening they brought in more foods like hamburgers and steaks, chicken and seafood. Desert options became available after three. The cafe walls were mostly white with flat sheets of metal pressed against the wall and plants in brown pots hanging over them. Large, green leaves reached for the floor, but got nowhere near it. The tables were dark wood with a sealant to give them shine. A couple of plush, cream chairs and sofas made up the remainder of the cafe seating with shorter tables and a chest offering a place for the couch gests to place their food and drink. Bellamy sat with a laptop and book open in front of him. The pages were a mixture of Latin cantations, English translations, and demonic runes. The computer was opened up to a webpage with more of the same. A dozen pages on a dozen websites talking about different incantations, interpretations, demon summoning spells, and theoretically experiences of the people who went through with the castings. None of it brought him any closer to understanding the runes.

He had a stack of books in his room about how to interpret runes. He'd gone through so many books, but all he had discovered through reading them is that almost all of them were most certainly written by people who had never performed the simplest of spells and who had definitely never summoned a demon. Bellamy reached for his plastic cup of coffee made of mostly milk and chocolate. He barely took a sip before he pushed it back to the edge of the table and turned the page in his book. The counter he sat pressed against a wall of windows. Mesh-like blinds covered them to dampen some of the light. No one outside could see in the window. It had taken him a while to believe it and become comfortable enough to sit in the cafe. His long, white cat tail swayed gently behind him. An ear flickered. He took another sip of coffee and tried not to lean his head on the book.

Bellamy's night had been filled with nightmares. Maybe not what was conventionally considered a nightmare; there were no monsters, no hellfire, no doom. Instead, he had sat in an empty, white room with no doors, no window, and no way out. He turned in the room, hoping a door would appear, calling for Parish to come find him. A door finally appeared, but it wouldn't open no matter how hard Bellamy tried to open it. He stepped away from the door, and then it opened. Twelve men in long, black capes entered, faces covered in the shadow of their hoods. Fire licked their feet, but didn't burn their robes. "Did you really think you could get away from us?" they said in one voice. "We made a pact, Bellamy. Your blood is our blood. Your life is our life. We will always find you, wherever you go, you cannot escape." Their collective voice became louder. "We made a blood pact. You will always be part of us and we will always be part of you. We will find you and you will never see him again."

Bellamy jerked back. Water pooled at the corner of his eyes. He wiped it away then reached into his pocket for his phone. The screen told him he had no new messages. He wiped his eyes again. His tail hung down without swaying and his white cat ears fell flat against his head. There must've been a phone number somewhere in the runes that he was overlooking, but when he didn't even know where Parish technically was, it wouldn't help if he could even read the demonic symbols and none of the guides assisted. What one website or book said, another contradicted, and when two sources agreed, a third and a fourth both disagreed. And this went on and on and on. He shut his laptop and put the closed book on top. With the straw from his cold coffee in his mouth, he watched the streets. It was midday and the traffic was minor, but still there as business people in casual suits or skirts and blouses and briefcases. Cars drove in fairly consistent waves. On the other side of the street, Bellamy saw him; Gage didn't wait for the light to change before coming across the street. He wove past anyone he saw. His lips curled upward and he spoke with a gentle smile that felt alluring even from where Bellamy sat in the cafe. Gage came in through the cafe door and made a b-line for the register. He ordered his usual coffee: a vanilla cold brew, and waited for it to come out on the other side of the counter. He pressed his hands to his cold ears, breathed into his hands, then pressed them to his ears again.

Bellamy left his things on the counter to meet Gage. "Good morning," he said. He slipped his phone back into his pocket.

Gage smiled and said good morning back, though it lacked his normal energy. Gage closed his eyes. He gently shook his head. His drink was called. He took a sip before looking back at Bellamy.

"You look... tired. What were you doing all night?"

Gage sipped the coffee again. "Working. Driving. Too much driving, but working."

"Working?" Bellamy pursed his lips. "What do you mean?"

"The smell is gone." Gage smiled toothily. "Can't you tell?"

Bellamy didn't answer immediately. He sniffed the air, but all that was there was the smell of roasted coffee beans, bread, and a little dirt from the hanging plants. "What smell?"

"The smell," Gage said. Bellamy twisted his head to the side a little. He must've made a confused face because Gage responded by muttering, "must be a demon thing," into his cup.

"What do you mean a demon thing?" Bellamy said.

Gage walked past him and sat down at the counter beside Bellamy's things. "There was a stench in the air and it was coming from that kid. He was ripe to feed. It's just how incubuses work. Even if you can't smell it, you can feel it if you're around him." Gage covered a yawn. "It's supposed to bring him food. If you're a demon, I guess you can smell the lure for miles, but if you're anything else, you feel it when he's around you and you're compelled to... fuck and fuck hard. Bad stuff can happen if you let the lure marinate for too long when it's time to feed. I've heard stories. Demons gangbanged, raped, cornered by people who wanted a taste of it; they'd work together to pin the thing down and get their taste. People who couldn't help themselves and in the midst of fucking, the clawed and stabbed and killed the thing. Sometimes the humans who do it get caught, sometimes they don't. Odd enough, people somehow know when we're not one of them. Somehow. They have a sense of their own that whispers in the back of their heads when we look like one of them, but there's something off about us. 'Course, you publically call someone a demon and humans will let you burn them at the stake." Gage's soft laughter was cut off by a yawn.

"Oh," was all Bellamy could manage to get out. "So you were helping him? The incubus?"

"You could look at it that way, I guess. Or you could look at it as an incubus with his lure out is like fucking while high on some of the best drugs. The feelings are more intense, the body is more sensitive—you don't know good sex until you've done it with a hungry incubus. Even the amateurs feel so fucking good. YOu gotta be careful with 'em though. Incs are greedy bastards when it comes to feeding time. Worse for this kid, it's like he's fasting. That's why the lure gets so damn intense." Gage took a long swig from his coffee cup and discovered it was nearly gone already. He glanced back at the counter momentarily. He shook his cup, hoping to find maybe a couple more drops before he had to go back for more, but nothing bounced around inside of it. "The smell is gone now. You know it's bad when you can catch it all the way from Niagara."

"You went to Niagara?"

"Yeah. Pretty fun. Hadn't been in a while. You should try fucking in a river sometime. Perry might like it." Gage returned to the coffee counter and put his cup down. "Another the same." He dug out his wallet and put cash on the counter.

"I don't think Parish likes water." Bellamy followed Gage.

Gage turned around. "Because he's a demon?" He paused. "Hell isn't all fire and brimstone like the human churches might have you believe. Don't get me wrong—it's not a funland playpark or a strip club like the Satanists might have you believe either. But... Perry doesn't spend his day basking in heat and fire if that's why you think he might not be into water. In fact, he might enjoy the hell out of a hot tub after the kind of shit he does." Gage picked up his newly refilled cup and took a sip.

"And what kind of stuff does he do?"

Gage waved his hand dismissively and walked out of the cafe. Bellamy left his book and computer off the counter and quickly followed after. "It's not a big deal. Talking about work."

Gage almost choked on his coffee. "Parish would kill me if I told you. And I really don't want to be on his bad side."

"What can he possibly do that you are afraid of him?" Bellamy stepped in front of Gage to stop him from progressing toward the elevators.

Gage stared down at Bellamy. His red tail flicked at the pointed end. He pursed his lips. When he finally shook his head and turned away. "I'm not afraid of him, I'm just not stupid enough to do that to myself."

"Do what?"

"Put myself in his crosshairs." Gage walked past Bellamy. The pointed end of his tail smacked the cat boy's ass in a quick whip that left a slight sting. "I'm tired. Barely walking. Can talk later." The words were mumbled through his coffee cup's plastic lid. Bellamy turned around to watch Gage. The elevator opened immediately, Gage went in, and the silver door closed behind him.

It wasn't the first time Bellamy had ever asked; he had tried on numerous occasions to learn more about Parish, the demon who came and went all in what seemed like one breath. It wasn't because Parish was noncommital. Parish didn't have to come to Bellamy the second time, but he did. When they lost touch, Parish had come looking for him. But Bellamy didn't understand the cycles of coming and going; where Parish would come to HVN out of nowhere, with no communication, after weeks of no communication, and they would be together, spending every waking moment together. It wasn't as if Parish showed signs of wanting to get away or that he tired of being near Bellamy. Then, after a couple of days, if Bellamy was lucky, they'd have a week together, and then Parish would be gone again. Parish implied that he had no choice; he wasn't like Gage who had the freedom to come and go as he pleased and, for the most part, never left, but when under pressure, Parish wouldn't say anything about what he did for work in Hell or why he had to go. Sometimes Bellamy wondered if it had to do with him and if Parish was only preparing his way out for when he got tired of what they had.

Bellamy's heard throbbed slowly and painfully. It was a weird feeling, the light anxiety and the tight pain of the things he didn't know, of the answers he was almost afraid to have. He turned around back to the cafe for his things, but he couldn't get past the first step. He couldn't move at all. His legs became heavy, his breath stopped, and his eyes went wide. He stood inside the lobby, near the center of the subtle white pentagram in the marble floor. He was so tall he had to duck to go through doors. He'd broken a couple of chairs in their apartment by sitting down too hard and fast the first couple of times they were together. Their bed frame had broken a couple of times for similar reasons. He had tidy brown hair, short and neat, and the smallest black horn coming out of his forehead. The spikes down his spine weren't visible when he was dressed normally. Blue jeans and a black, double-breasted coat. He had a sharp jawline. When he smiled, his fangs showed, but somehow they didn't look dangerous. His black eyes met Bellamy's gold.

Bellamy ran across the lobby and threw his arms around the much taller man. Parish held him so tightly that Bellamy lifted his feet off the ground for a moment. When his feet touched the ground again, he leaned back, but didn't let go. He held onto Parish's jacket tightly and looked up into his eyes. His soft, gentle eyes. There wasn't anything there that justified Gage's fear. "I was just thinking about you."

Parish leaned down, from the height difference, it looked beyond ridiculous. Bent knee, a curved back, it was almost like Parish was a normal-sized man leaning down to a child. His fingers hooked under Bellamy's chin. A smile came to his lips. "I missed you." Tenderly, Parish pressed his lips to Bellamy's.

Bellamy's heart raced. His skin heated and the red only looked darker under his mess of white hair. "So let's go upstairs and see if we can't remedy that feeling." Bellamy's finger withdrew from Parish's jacket. He satisfied himself by lacing his finger with Parish's. Bellamy walked ahead, quicker in pace, nearly pulling Parish as the larger man casually stepped forward following Bellamy's lead. Bellamy pushed the elevator button, but hit with a sudden realization, he released Parish's hand. "I forgot—" he said. Without explanation, Bellamy ran back into the cafe to pick up his book and computer. When he came back, Parish stood in the same place, only his head turned to watch as Bellamy came back. Bellamy pressed the elevator door button again. There was a ding and the door opened. He tucked his items under his arm and took hold of Parish's hand again to tug him into the elevator. Parish ducked to enter, but had room to stand up on the inside. Bellamy chuckled. giving Parish's hand a squeeze. "I've been lonely. We can fix that too."