Spare Me Your Alpha Nonsense - 6. Chapter 6

Universe, did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning? I have to ask at this point, cause today’s turning out to be a lot more shitty than I even initially thought it’d be when I left Dale and the apartment this morning. So far I’ve fallen down some stairs, found out my universe is scheduled for an apocalypse demolition by low skilled labor demons, I now have a local magic item dealer threatening to sick covens in the area on me if I don’t find a denizen to date and fall in love with, I did a nice thing for a would be carjacker which ended up getting me a ticket for my piece of crap vehicle, and THEN my aunt blows up that same vehicle with a kick not even an hour later. To top all of this off the most infuriatingly hot man I’ve ever met has decided to start courting me to make me hopelessly fall in love with him, and he even wagered that if I managed to fall in love with someone other than him he’d hold off on the apocalypse for the next one hundred years.

We are currently waiting to be seated at this barely Italian restaurant. They serve an approximation of Italian food here of course, but everyone in the transaction knows that this isn’t what such dishes are supposed to taste like. You’re not here because you want to have the best Italian food; you’re here because you either cannot afford proper Italian food, don’t know what proper Italian food tastes like in the first place, or you simply don’t want to make it yourself and are willing to pay their prices to avoid your own kitchen.

Wow Hunter, you might be thinking, you sure sound like a pretentious food snob right now. Listen, if there is one thing I miss about my family’s resources out of everything, it was access to their chefs. Holy crap do they have some top of the line people on their payroll cranking out some fantastic food all the damn time. I didn’t even know how good I had it in the food department until I started making my way out in the normal world and tasted this processed crap people call food out here. Do you have any idea how much sugar is in everything on store shelves? I swear you people keep wondering where this diabetes epidemic is coming from while doing lines of sugar like cocaine.

My Aunt has been around long enough to go through a few famines and junk, so she is actually not as picky with food as you might think judging from her Marry Poppins like attire. Of course neither of us are eating anything at the moment because the line to get into this damn place is excruciatingly long. Did everyone want to eat at this place today or something? We have an elderly couple, a haggard looking mom with five rugrats screeching and jumping all about her while she struggles to find her wallet and her will to live, and a smattering of middle aged people who look like they are there on a sad and depressing version of a ‘date.’

These types of restaurants know how to exploit the old sunk cost fallacy don’t they? We make the people wait in the lobby just long enough where they get frustrated, but not so long that they give up and leave. If they leave they’ve decided it’s not worth giving more time. However there is this sweet spot where, If you hold them there just long enough, you’ve made them sink enough time into waiting for this damn food then they’ll actually spend more to make that time waiting worthwhile. That’s not even counting the time you end up waiting for the actual food to be made. That’s a whole other affair entirely.

See, you know I’ve been waiting a long ass time when I’ve started concocting conspiracy theories about why I’ve been waiting a long ass time. It was right around the time my eyes started glazing into my eyelids when one of the worst things happened.

“Oh my god Hunter!” Suddenly my body was tackled and hugged before I even had a chance to open my eyes. “I haven’t seen you in ages!”

My heart leaped into my throat and my face heated up the second I realized who this was. Son of a bitch Universe, what the fuck man!?

When he pulled back from his hug it almost hurt to look at the guy. He was taller than me, though that’s not saying much. In truth he’s a pretty short guy himself, however next to me his five foot six ass looked like a Harlem Globetrotter. He’s a skinny bitch, but he’s got padding in all the right places, especially towards his waist where, no matter what fucking pants or skirts this man is wearing it always accentuates his perfect buns.

Yes I said skirts. See for awhile I had this stint where I kinda got swept into this, well, how do I put this exactly? I kinda did drag for a while! There I said it. I was at this gay bar one night getting tempted by all these normal gay dudes who wouldn’t be able to do anything for me in the bedroom, and I ended up hitting it off with some guys who cross-dressed on the weekends. They were so alive and energetic and excited with how they acted with one another I admit I got sucked in bad with the crew. I will also say that I can fuckin pull off some goddamn looks let me tell you the fuck what.

However I had to stop going. Not because they were bad or anything. No nothing like that.

I was starting to fall for a normal person. The normal person who was currently our Waiter right now. Fuck me this just aint fair. Why did it have to be this guy?!

“Hey Felix.” I said, hating how my voice cracked looking up at that stupidly bright smile on his face. Fuck me, do you have to be such a ray of sunshine you asshole!? It would never work! “I didn’t know you worked here?”

“Oh I just started doing this as a side thing gurl. Gotta supplement this bitches income somehow am I right?” Felix said this with a dainty move of his hand, leaning down to me and saying this in a hushed tone like he was letting me in on a little secret. All that before he snapped up and looked at my aunt with such a sparkle in his eyes that he damn near blew out the lights with how much energy it had.

“Gurl, I adore everything about your look!” His hand gestured to my seven foot tall Aunt’s wardrobe fearlessly, beaming such a smile at her. “Honey you are a trend setter for sure!”

“Oh Hunter I like this boy!” My aunt said as Felix sashayed off and gestured for the two of us to follow. God dammit why did it have to be him! Fuck! Stop swinging your perfect ass about like that you tease! You have no business being as attractive as you are.

Hunter you might be saying, What is wrong with Felix? What scary dark past do you have with him? What made you have to stop hanging out with him and the other drag queens on the weekend? To which I have to reiterate to you that he is a normal person. As in not a denizen. As in as much as I find him attractive we literally cannot have sex. I don’t even mean that metaphorically either. Any movement inside of me that would cause the slightest bit of damage would halt a normal cock in its tracks. I’m literally not penetrable by a normal person back there!

There is only one way Felix and I would ever be able to have sex. Only one way, and I would never do it to him. Cause if I did that to him I’d be dragging him into a world he knows nothing about just to fulfill some selfish desire of mine. I’d be no better than the assholes who try to turn me into a vampire or a shifter.

In order for Felix and I to really date, and have sex, I’d need to turn him into some type of Denizen with enough strength to get past my non magical defense. I would need to do the very shit I judge my asshole ex roommates for. The scary thing was, it was getting really tempting to do so. Like, you don’t understand how much I was growing to like Felix. It was bordering on schoolgirl crush territories of heart throbbing.

He’s just so energetic and positive and everything I’m not! it’s just intoxicating, you know? Like I actually felt more awake and happier after spending a night with him, like he recharged my goddamn positivity battery. It felt so nice. YET HE’S NORMAL. No Shifting, No Blood Sucking, no magic, none of it! Not only could he do nothing back there, I could actually hurt him if I got too excited in bed! It’s fucking not fair man!

“Now ladies,” Felix leaned over the table and brushed his dirty blond bangs out of his face to speak like he was conspiring with the two of us. “normally I’m supposed to sell the food here like it’s the hottest thing since myself,” He had this smirk on his face towards the end saying he was half playing around and half acknowledging that yes he was that fucking cute, “but since I actually know Hunter here, just avoid ALL the stuff with red sauce. Bitch tastes like canned water. Their chicken Alfredo on the other hand? Shit, that was part of why I threw an application in here honey!”

My Aunt and Felix hit it off instantaneously. They are like two peas in a pod, bantering and complimenting each other, ramping the energy each of them has up to such a point where I practically need sunglasses to deal with their radiant positivity. You’d think my bickering ass would hate a person like this but I really truly don’t! Believe it or not I actually like to be around glass half full people! The problem is I just cannot sustain that positivity on my own. It’s not natural for me. I need to draw that energy off of some energizer bunny of a person like Felix to maintain that good mood myself. I don’t know what kind of perpetual positive energy machine he’s got inside of him, but fuck would I want it.

I can appreciate dark and smokey guys for sure. I’m not confined to liking one type of guy. If Felix was already a denizen I’d have eagerly and without hesitation dated him. Yet when he asked me out that last night I was with the group, it scared me so much I ended up never going back. Now I’m just so embarrassed. What’s worse is Felix isn’t even acting like I ditched him and the crew, he’s pretending like it never even happened! He’s just happy to see me! Fuck me!

“If you’ll excuse me, I need to use the restroom.” I needed to get breathing room between Felix and myself. I couldn’t leave the restaurant cause my Aunt’s the one driving and I don’t have a car anymore. It’s driving me crazy being around him without him even asking why I left in the first place. Like I don’t feel guilty enough without him pretending like I didn’t do anything wrong by leaving him in the cold like that. Fuck me.

I rush into the bathroom and start to just run water on my face, trying to calm myself down from being so worked up from seeing Felix again.

I nearly jump out of my skin when I see The Devil from this morning standing with his hands behind his back like a perfect gentlemen.

“Hello again Mr.Borisov.” That frustratingly hot deep voice intoned as he smirked at me through the mirror with his glowing yellow eyes, “I trust your day has been going well so far?”

I crack the porcelain of the sink with my grip before I turn on the guy. “You’re really zero for two on this flirting business Devil. I thought you said you were good at this?”

“I’m not here to Flirt, Mr. Borisov,” he raised an eyebrow and smirked wider on one side of his face as he said this, “I’m here to clarify some things you seem to be confused about.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you seem to be under the impression that I specifically said that you had to fall in love with a Denizen. I said no such thing. I merely said you’d need to fall in love with someone in this realm.” See now why does him saying such a permissive win condition for me make my stomach lurch in panic? He must know about Felix. He can read my mind after all, and who knows how deep in my mind he could actually go. For all I know he could know almost everything about me.

“In a manner of speaking Mr. Borisov.” Cooed the Devil with that train of thought. Fucking hell I already forgot how disconcerting it was that he could hear my internal monologue. My body tenses as the devil moves his tail upwards and wraps itself around my waist, pulling me into him as he took my chin in his gloved hand and tilted me up to look at him. I try to push away but I might as well not even have my passive non magical defense with how useless my strength is against this guy. He leaned down till his face was mere inches from mine, heating my face up so much with a flush with how frustratingly hot I found this situation.

“You adore Felix, you yearn for him, yet you won’t let yourself love him.” He spoke this so soft and sultry into my face as he gazed into my eyes. “You won’t let yourself love him because in order to do so you’d have to make him just like you.” He drew out those last three words, punctuating and pronouncing them so deliberately that it made my whole body shudder.

“Yet you find me attractive and you know that nothing you do will hurt me. You don’t have to change me to allow yourself to fall for me like you would with Felix.”

Fuck you eyes, why are you watering right now! Stop giving him the satisfaction! Why can’t I push this bastard away from me.

“What was my wager to you Mr. Borisov? What were the precise words that I used when I started this little game with you?”

How could I forget, his words had been rattling around in my head the whole day. ‘ I plan on dedicating part of my vacation to make you hopelessly fall in love with me.’ Those were his exact words. Those words that have been playing on repeat periodically since I heard them. Every time I fucking close my eyes I see this asshole. I am not looking forward to going to sleep cause I have a feeling he’s going to be there as well.

“Precisely Mr. Borisov, I said I’d make you hopelessly fall in love with me. I was very particular with my choice of words. You see, Mr. Borisov. What does hopeless mean to you exactly?” His grinned widened as he loomed over me, his glowing yellow eyes flashing even brighter.

“I don’t know what you mean. Hopelessly falling in love is just an expression.”

“Is it? Is it really?” He leaned closer so our lips were so close to touching. Fuck why did he smell so good. “Hopeless means having no hope Mr.Borisov. You’ll fall in love with me not because I have to try particularly hard to court you, because if I truly wished to I’d be able to do so quite easily.” The fact that my face was on fire being so close to him like this made it disastrously clear to me how right he was, and that killed me inside. Was I this easy? Am I really so shallow that I’d fall for a literal devil?

That thought seemed to have pleased the Devil quite a lot. “To be hopeless is to be incapable or unwilling to find a solution Mr.Borisov. Yet I’ll extend an olive branch to you as a show of good faith.”

He spun me around and pointed me to the mirror, where he conjured up a reflection of smoke inside of it and created an image of Felix and my Aunt talking.

“All you need to do to prolong this universe, just a little longer before it’s inevitable end, is to simply change your Felix into a Denizen and fall in love with him. Of course, you can’t just ask him if he wants to be one since he’s shielded by the collective unconscious. No matter how you’d end up doing it, it would be non consensual.” He seemed highly amused about that as he stroked my cheek. Damn him. Why the fuck is he putting this in front of me like this. Why was he even saying this like this was an option I’d even consider.

“Because you have considered it Mr. Borisov, and it eats you up inside even contemplating it. It gives you such a delightful palette of emotions inside of you.” The Devil cooed into my ear. “You don’t have to do that to Felix however. If you simply give into your hopelessness and fall for me instead. You’ll know that you didn’t force me to change into anything, and you’ll find me just as attractive no matter what I end up doing after you give into your hopeless feelings for me. You already know what I am, just like you already know what you are. Yet Felix doesn’t know what you are, and without breaking through the mental barrier blocking him from seeing you for what you are, he’s going to remain in the dark about you.”

I close my eyes tight so I don’t see the fucking pitiful look on my face. Stupid traitorous eyes were shedding tears, which seemed to delight the Devil so much.

“I’ll also need to point out that you can’t simply turn Felix into a denizen for, shall we say, altruistic reasons.” I could feel his smirk even with my eyes so tightly shut. “You’d need to pursue him and do so in a way that is inspired by your genuine love of him. I will know the difference between you doing that and simply trying to buy an extra century for this condemned universe. No, Mr.Borisov...” He sounded so goddamn pleased with himself ”...you have to be JUST like the denizens you loathe so much to make it count. Does that not sound entertaining?” He asked that last part with a chuckle that finally sent me over the edge.

I opened my eyes and threw a punch at the devil, but he had already vanished. Instead my fist hits the stall door and utterly shatters it and the stall itself with the aftershocks of the fist colliding with it. I can barely see how much damage I did cause my stupid tears are running so much. Fuck me!