#rusengweek2023

Ivan had about three seconds before the black smoke cleared and the human-esque figure now standing in his living room prattled off, “My name is Arthur.  Reason for summoning and what are you offering?”

“Uh,” was the first thing Ivan said. He sat on his living room couch, leaning over the coffee table with his hands lifting from a drawing made with suspicious red on a piece of paper. Tall horns, tail tip twitching, hands on his hips—Ivan quietly bemoaned the creature staring dully and expectantly at him, “Oh no, it worked.”

“What worked? This better not be another prank! I had four this week already!”

“No! No prank!” Ivan shot to his feet, almost tripping on the coffee table as Arthur charged a few steps forward. “I just! Ah,” he glanced around the table, nothing foretelling but a half bottle left of wine. It didn’t do much. So he thought. “I…dont know.”

“You don’t know. You summoned a demon and you don’t know why.”

“Sorry,” Ivan said. “My bad.”

Surprisingly, the demon only huffed, puffed, and sighed. “Ugh. I suppose it wouldn’t be the first time. Fine. I’m here already. Let’s negotiate.”

“Negotiate?”

“About what you want.”

Ivan sank back onto the edge of his couch, staring up at Arthur.

“You somebody managed to get my number. There's some part of you that wondered if it was legitimate enough to try, yeah?"

"No, I don't think so," Ivan told him. "It's bad idea to negotiate with demons."

"Then why even try summoning one in the first place!" Before Ivan could 'I don't know' again, Arthur made an offended noise and turned away. He wandered around the living room, which was only a tight circle, sniffing at nothing in particular and his tail flicking.

Truly, Ivan didn't know. He hadn't been expecting guests that night. Demonic or not. It was just some silly paper his sister had stuffed in the mail. Maybe that was the prank.

"What the fuck is this!" Arthur turned to Ivan, pointing at a photo frame on the wall. "Is that a sock?!"

"I—yes? Have you ever seen socks before?”

“Not in a frame for pictures and paintings!”

“It's the first one I ever knitted. So I framed it. Safekeeping.”

Arthur looked at the frame. Looked to Ivan. Looked to the frame again. He harrumphed and continued onward, gesturing at a picture between the two windows facing the rich view of an alley, one of a morose clown. "And this thing! What the hell is that thing. It's creepy." He continued around Ivan's apartment, snuffing and snorting over anything he deemed extraneous and odd. Again, coming from a demon.

Didn’t every and any piece of literature and religion screech over these creatures? But it was so absurd. A demon. Snooping around his kitchenette, sans fireballs and tortuous screaming. Ivan may have been a bit underwhelmed, if it were honest to himself. Arthur seemed like an ordinary man that came out of a gay bar on Halloween night. Maybe it was all according to plan, to dismay the victim, then spring hellhounds and annoying pop music when they least expect it. Ivan rocked to himself on his couch, petting down his scarf as he stared at the sheet of paper on the table. Mildly worrisome. The mold growing in the bathroom pipes was probably worse in the long run, though.

Arthur stopped just on the other side of the coffee table again with fists on his waist. Ivan looked up at the horns again and tucked his face into his scarf to snicker.

"Oi. You brought me here, remember? I don't like wasting time, so I'm not leaving without a deal. If you need a friend, I will make you one. If you need a lover, I will make you one. If you want a plane ticket back to your sisters, it will be done."

"How do you know about all that?"

"It's my job."

Ivan decided not to question it. "Ah. So you are every kind of man."

"Aye. That’s right. Any and every sort you need me to be."

Ivan made a thoughtful noise. He shook his head. "I don't feel like giving up my soul today."

"You don't have to. We perform deals to a far lesser extent all the time."

"But I get lesser asking."

"Naturally."

Ivan thought again. He shook his head again. "No, it's bad idea."

"You give grocery clerks money for food. You give your car petrol so it can give you distance. Your entire life already revolves around deals and trade-offs. Think about it!"

"I am thinking! It's still bad idea!"

"Okay and?! Humans make bad ideas all the time."

"That's...not the good selling point."

"Well, it's true, innit?"

Ivan sighed to himself, but made sure it was loud enough for Arthur to hear. If there was no other way to get this demon out of his home besides striking a deal, maybe the smallest, most affordable deal wouldn’t be so bad. It was either that or start smacking the demon on his head, but that wasn’t a good idea either, even if a lead pipe, for example, would make good music between those horns.

Maybe Arthur could snap away the mold in the pipes. Or grant him a new cooking set, one that wasn’t dinged up and flaking. Or  new shoes that wouldn’t get wet in the snow, or…

Arthur gave him a curious look, one that sent a blush through Ivan’s face from the knowingness of it all. 

"How much would...it cost to have someone to talk to for the night?"

"You do understand what sort of entity I am, right? Ask for something better."

“I see. I cannot even pay a hell-creature to spend time with me.”

"I-I didn't say that! I'm just saying if you had one opportunity to ask for anything, why go for something so..."

Ivan frowned.

"Anticlimactic, really."

"Because you said big deals need big payments!"

"And what do you have to lose? You're two payments behind in a rundown flat. I can give you riches. I can make the world love you. I can give you friends. Endless vacations. Endless ecstasy!"

Ivan hunched up his shoulders and made a few uncertain noises.

Arthur was at his side, breaching the couch in a heartbeat. "Your shame. Your guilt. I can take them all away."

Ivan leaned back, pinching his scarf to his mouth to protest, "Then you will chew me and eat me!"

"You might like it!"

"Oh, no. Oh, no, that's more bad ideas."

A short sigh. Arthur resigned to whisk around the coffee table again and back, the tip of his tail irked and twitching. "Fine!" He finally said, still going back and forth. "I suppose since this is your first time, I'll go easy on you. But only because of that! This is business, after all. You want me to sit down and have a little chit chat through the night, then we will." He finally stopped, whirling on Ivan. "I won't take your soul over such a puny request, but I expect payment nonetheless for my time!" He pointed behind himself. "I will accept that!"

Ivan glanced at nothing there, then Arthur, then the nothing again, until he realized it was the photo frame on the wall. "You want a sock?"

"It's something meaningful to you, isn't it?"

"I could just...make you one."

"But that doesn't have the same emotional satisfaction to it!"

"It doesn't?"

"Well!" Arthur's hand fell to his side with a huffy sigh. "What sort of sock are we talking here?"

"Oh!" Ivan leaned down and brought out a wicker basket of yarn and needles from beneath the coffee table. "Any sock! I have good yarn."

"Aaaand that's probably where all your income goes."

"No, that's-" Ivan blushed. "Okay maybe a little true." Arthur raised a brow, in which he glanced away.

"Two socks, as I have two feet, after all. And my end will entail spending time with you in any way however long it takes to make them. Does that strike your fancy?"

Ivan peeked up at him. “You wouldn’t take my soul afterwards?”

Arthur rolled his eyes and slighted back, crossing his arms. “Look, I know my marks when I see them. I can go somewhere else to get that if I must.”

“But you can get socks somewhere else, too-“

“Not like this, okay?! Are you going to make them or not?”

“You cannot make socks? Maybe I can teach you instead, that will be good payment, yes?”

“Erm, well. Yes. But. I’m afraid that won’t be possible. I’m fine with you making them for me, really.”

“Is it because of the claws?”

“No. We’re cursed. Our little departing gift from Heaven, I suppose. Can’t make anything from our own creation. It withers and rots away in our hands.” Begrudgingly, “So we get others to do that for us.”

“Ah, and most people do not do it for demons.”

"Right, right."

The living room fell quiet. Such a thing must have been a bruise to Arthur's hellish pride.

A sock. Two socks. Two measly little socks. What harm was this? Ivan stroked through his scarf with the image in his mind of demonic toes wedging into a cracked door, or some idiom like that.

“Okay," he carefully said. "We can have a deal.”

The pleasure erupted across Arthur's features, shoulders straightened, his tail gave a singular flick. "A deal it is, then. Pleasure doing business and all that. We'll just need a kiss to seal it."

Of course. "Okay."

"With tongue."

Ivan furrowed his brow. "No."

Arthur laughed. "I'm taking the piss out of you." He held out a palm, making a beckoning motion. "Just a drop of your blood and we're gold, luv."

Maybe they should have gone with the kiss instead. "On your hand?"

"No, give me your hand. Just a little prick."

"Just how you are a little demon?"

Arthur lightly snorted, smiling almost. "Maybe to you." Another beckon. It was almost gentle. Maybe impatient.

Maybe demons hankered for dusty, boring old souls. He smiled, shy over something goofy like putting his hand onto Arthur's palm. It wouldn't be good. Every part of him knew that. Very warm, though. Of course he dwarfed the creature, but—Arthur leaned forward, lifting their hands to his face and stared right at him as he pressed his lips to Ivan's knuckles. A being quick and sly and holding him far more confidently than he could handle; yes, a very not-good idea indeed.

"If we misbehave," nothing but green, green eyes and soft lips on his skin, "it's bad for business, yeah?"

Arthur kept staring. Waiting. Neck, ears, cheeks, all red. Ivan nodded. Bad, bad, bad.

Just socks. Just yarn and string and a demon.

With a corner of his lips curling up, Arthur glanced down and sank a claw into Ivan's fingertip. A droplet fell onto the page with the sigil on it. Ivan tried to let out that shaky breath as quietly as possible. A pinch and cut were always worse when it was expected, but just a pinch, nonetheless. Arthur smudged his thumb over the cut and let go of Ivan's hand, poking into his own to drop a few more on the paper. Dark creature. Dark blood. Ivan instinctively put his finger to his mouth, gawking as the scrawls on the page shifted and swirled before his eyes, blending with the blood. He jumped, leaning back as they lifted in a grain of dark scarlet to Arthur's waiting hand, and ran up his skin and settled like a snake around his neck. Just a thin outline of whatever words they were, but Ivan knew where they settled, therefore could see them.

Magic? Science? An act of godlessness, right there in Ivan's crummy living room. Arthur's smirk split into a smile and sharp teeth. Just socks. Just knitting.

"From this moment until you're done, whatever you want. I'm yours."

"How you doing darlin?" A tall sleezy man asked. He grinned at Arthur who instantly backed away. The man stepped forward pinning Arthur against a building. Specifically a restaurant Arthur and Ivan had just shared a lovely dinner at.

"I'm waiting for my boyfriend." Arthur spat. His hands curled into fists ready to defend himself against the invasive man. The man just laughed,

"Boyfriend huh? I've heard that one before. Now why don't you kiss me, beautiful?" The man forced himself onto Arthur, his lips slowly getting closer. Arthur was about to shove him off and give him a good kick when suddenly a large fist slammed into the man's head. Arthur beamed seeing Ivan standing tall and fierce. One hand was curled in a mighty fist while the other carefully held the jacket Arthur had forgotten.

"Are you alright, любовь?" Ivan asked, his face becoming more gentle.

"Yes I am. Thanks for rescuing me." Arthur replied, playfully. Ivan smiled.

"No one gets to kiss you but me." Arthur smiled back and moved closer to his boyfriend. Ivan leaned down, and Arthur tilted his head up, so their lips could connect. Sparks of love flew between the two. They eventually parted and remembered the creep Ivan had punched. Arthur looked over at him and noticed something.

"Uh I think you killed that guy, he isn't breathing." He pointed out. Ivan shrugged.

"I only meant to knock him out, but death is okay too." Arthur gave him a quick look then decided,