Ilusion’s loud laugh echoing on the blank walls was slowly starting to irritate him, but Okatani knew asking him to tone it down would just make it worse, and Sasaki just didn’t seem to care. He was too focused on telling his own stories and any reaction he was getting back from Ilusion seemed to do fine enough to make him keep going, so Sasaki clearly wasn’t going to tell him to stop.

Okatani sighed quietly, brushing some of his hair away from his face, tucking it behind his ear as he glanced down another hallway they passed by. It all looked the same to him at this point, almost making him wonder if there was something more in play here than just them not paying enough attention to where they were going. He was a wolf in the company of a devil, a demon, and an alien after all, so something supernatural couldn’t be just outright ruled out here, obviously.

“Hideki.”

Okatani’s eyes widened a little at what sounded like a whisper of his name, quickly glancing around in the empty hallway. No other person in sight, just the four of them. No other sounds than Sasaki and Ilusion’s conversation that he could only register little bits of here and there.

He shook his head slowly, brushing a hand over his face. He was really losing it, they better get out of here soon or --

Before Okatani could finish that thought, someone grabbed his wrist and carefully but firmly pulled him to a stop. For a brief moment he panicked, watching his teammates continue walking without him, not even noticing that he had fallen behind, getting dragged almost against his will into the other hallway they had just passed by.

Only as the scenery slightly changed around him, as the other hallway wasn’t just pale white walls around him anymore, he calmed down a little, able to recognize the face of the other man who gently pushed his back against the wall.

“…Shunma?”

He didn’t respond immediately, just peeked around the corner to see if Damnation had noticed one of their own missing. Apparently not, as he leaned back to be face to face with Okatani.

“Shh. We are not supposed to be seen together.”

Well. Obviously Okatani knew that. Their friendship was like an open secret in both factions' locker rooms, but they really were never meant to acknowledge it. Only if they were facing each other in the ring, and even then Sasaki made it very clear that Shunma was the enemy, not a friend, no matter how the situation was twisted behind the scenes.

“Then what are you doing?”

Shunma hummed at him a little, brushing a coil of hair behind Okatani’s ear. His eyes narrowed a little at the gesture, but the soft pink blush on his cheeks couldn’t be denied, making a small smile blossom on Shunma’s lips.

“I miss you. That’s all.”

Okatani tried to reply back to him, but Shunma just tiptoed up to his level, pressing a very quick but firm kiss on his lips, silencing any objections Okatani might have had. His hands still cupping Okatani’s face as Shunma pulled away, the soft blush on his cheeks now matching the one on Okatani’s.

“I gotta run before they suspect something. Tell your guys to take a right turn soon, their pacing is driving everyone nuts over here.”

Okatani merely nodded, Shunma leaning in for another teasing little kiss before he bounced back down on his feet. One hand dropped from Okatani’s face, the other softly and carefully, but clearly rushed tracing down his jaw and neck and running down his arm before Shunma was already gone down the hallway almost as fast as he had appeared.

Trying to gather his thoughts together, Okatani scrambled out of the hallway as Ilusion’s yells of his name finally reached his ears, almost bumping into the group that had finally noticed he was gone for a moment and decided to walk their steps back. Nobody asked anything, but the slightly dazed demeanor and the cheeks dusted with soft blush told everyone all the things that weren’t said. Okatani just tried to push past it, motioning down the hallway he had just come from before quietly clearing his throat.

Copia is getting complaints about the ghouls being noisy in the corridors at night. Sleepless siblings with dark circles around their eyes come to him every morning now. All of them insisting there's something in the corridors. He knows it's not a something, rather someone, possibly many of them. His ghouls must be awake at night.

But when he goes and asks what’s going on they play the innocent card, dismissing him, at most they say they’re just playing. Then Phantom, giddily, asks if he wants to play with them tonight. Copia, not thinking ahead but rather on his many pending meetings, says yes.

He goes about his day, one meeting after another, and forgets he agreed to play. No time to think about such things when the abbey is full of leaky pipes, crumbling walls, and he has to fix it all. He heads to bed at about midnight, tired after a whole day of being Frater and not just Copia. Not even wanting to turn on his tv, much less any videogame. He’s already in that strange space between asleep and awake when he hears something in his roof.

His new room is a little more modern, and there’s drywall covering the old beams that support the roof. maybe it's the new materials creaking against the old walls. There’s the noise again… He thinks it could be one of his rats, but he’s pretty sure he left them all comfortably snuggled under a blanket and, more importantly at the moment, inside their big cage, which has a lock. And rats aren’t that heavy…

Copia turns on the little lamp on his bedside table. Everything in his room seems normal, but he feels like he’s being watched. 

Usually there’s no reason to be scared in the abbey. He fears no demons, or monsters. After all, there’s many living here and they’re all friendly… right? He tries to convince himself that yes, the ghouls are all friendly, and they would protect him if anything went wrong. Even Alpha, as stoic and standoffish as he was, patrolled the corridors like a watchdog, all to make them feel safe.

There’s the noise again. There’s definitely something big scuttling about above him. “This is ridiculous…” he complains, muttering to himself as he puts on his slippers and heads out of his room. If he can’t find any sleep in here, he knows he’s welcome to spend the night with any of his ghouls. Perhaps if they're still awake, he could get them to pile around him.

The undignified noise that escapes him rings in the empty hall.

With his phone in hand, he lights the dark corridor. Strange, he was sure he made it so at least some lights should always stay on. Another thing to add to his growing to-do list. No matter, he should just go down the next flight of stairs and…. a wispy shadow crosses his path, making him yelp.

Now Copia’s mind is really racing, that was not nothing, not a rat, not just imagining things. He tries his best to keep the panic under control and think rationally, what in all circles of hell could be stalking him. He knows, now as Frater that there have been times portals have been left open on accident, letting other less “tame” demons in. But the ghouls have always handled that, and if he could remember well, no one had summoned anything in a few months.

He goes down the stairs, feeling uneasy. He could swear someone, somewhere, is staring at him. The faint sound of claws clicking on the stone floors follows him, surely it’s just Alpha… Right?

Something brushes against his leg, and whatever effort he had made to try and keep calm gets thrown out the window. He sprints as best he can toward the ghoul den. His heart is beating in his ears, the beam of light from his phone swings wildly, and sure enough he sees that terrifying reflection of eyes in the darkness. Curse demons and their beastly reflective eyes. 

With tears in his eyes and now truly fearing for his life, he catches a glimpse of the heavy wooden door that marks the ghoul den. Just when he thinks he’s reached safety, he finds himself on the floor with the air knocked out of his lungs. 

Growling and laughter ring in the dark corridor and when he gets his bearings he finds Phantom slumped on top of him, tail lazily swinging and with the biggest smile on his face. Too many sharp teeth, too close to his face at the moment. Claws click on the floor announcing another, and he hears Aurora’s voice approaching, “No fair! I was stalking him from the roof!”.

Despite being a magical robot, Skipper didn't actually know a lot about how machines work.

Being raised in a cult where your mechanical god is the only one allowed to do anything with your programming or enhancements or whatever else have you kind of snubs any opportunity for education. After running away, he just never had any interest in that kind of research either - years of it being taboo to him made him feel...dirty, whenever he attempted it.

He was in his twenties now, staying at a casino he landed a job in. The demoness who owned it was nice enough, and it wasn't difficult being a bouncer, for him at least. His tall, topheavy build gave him intimidation points, he had increased strength due to the whole magic robot thing, and the ability to harden or soften his skin made for a laugh whenever a particularly rowdy patron got the crazy idea to try and hit him. It was an alright gig.

Sometimes though, it was draining. Chasing drunks and cheaters around when the boss was too busy to throw them out, turning away countless kids trying to sneak in, or patrons with less than savory intentions trying to flirt just to get in- even the regular patrolling and heavy lifting just seemed like a chore every so often.

It was particularly annoying one night when he got caught in some unexpected rain, holding the vest to his uniform over his head did little to stop a good amount of water from falling through the thin grate in his neck-hole (he didnt actually have a neck, the grate was just to stop rocks and hands and such from falling in). He could feel it sloshing around inside his chest as he sprinted to his apartment, and once inside his warm abode, he could properly feel the cold water against his warm insides. It was an odd sensation- but not totally unpleasant.

He quickly discarded his shirt and the now soaked vest, grabbing a washcloth from the bathroom before going to the kitchen sink. He knew what he had to do. He couldn't just leave all that water in there, it could do serious damage and possibly kill him. Based on what he knew about normal machines anyways. He just had to open his chest plate, get the water out, and dry everything off. He had to.

All those years of his parents and his pastors and his god forbidding him to even THINK about touching the various maintenance plates on his body returned to him as his hand hovered over the access plate located down the middle of his body.

"Okay...deep breath..you got this big guy-" he made a face as he opened the plate and watched the water fall out as he leaned over the sink. It was almost surreal.

Now came the hard part, drying everything off.

Despite being a magical robot, Skip didn't actually know how machines work. Meaning, he didn't know how his own body worked. These wires and plates and this metal inside him didn't mean anything to him because he didn't know what they did.

He stuck a hand in just to push a few wires out of the way, so that the cloth would have room, and oh-

He gasped at the sensation that shot through his body, synthetic voice stuttering as the joints in his knees nearly failed and he withdrew his hand, brushing against the walls of the hatch in the process, making him bite his lip to stop whatever embarassing noise would've come out next.

"What the fuck." He whispered to himself, cheeks burning- was he overheating?? No-

He stuck his free hand in again, much more slowly, and tugged on the first wire he felt.

He had to hold on to the counter to stop his knees from fully buckling, the heat in his cheeks spreading into his chest and down his torso. He could feel a prickly electric feeling quickly spreading through his whole body. "nGh- fuck- this can't be happening."

He stood there for a moment, contemplating. He had three problems now. The water, the burning curiosity, and a certain burning need beginning to cloud his rational thoughts.

He went to his bedroom and sat against the headboard, washcloth discarded onto the nightstand. He figured he could continue "experimenting", the water would just evaporate as his body heated up, right? Right-

In went the hand, pushing a finger lightly along the metal lip at the bottom of this bodily chamber and he shuddered, letting out a choked noise halfway between a whine and an error message no partner had ever been able to tease out of him- shoulders tensed and back arching when he gently scraped a nail against a cable port. He couldn't even process the tightness in his pants.

Panting, he traced a finger along the edges of the hatch with his free hand before pinching a new cable with the other. The pure sin that came out of his mouth would've made any prude back home faint on the spot- and Skipper certainly felt like he was about to as he rolled the cable between two fingers, using his free digits to tug on fingerfuls other wires and cables and ribbons around it. His hips were borderline bucking at this point, desperate for friction, preassure, release-

He pulled just enough to just barely dislodge something, and he saw stars. Well, the equivalent of stars. It was more like shorting, static vision and a feeling like his brain being scrambled.

This was certainly one way to get rid of work stress.