Hellhound AU

[just_aces]

Sometime round about 1900, a witch summoned a hellhound as a familiar.

He didn't mind it, hellhounds are loyal after all, and if some of her spells left him tired and drained, well, that was what he was there for, to keep her from using too much of her own energy for things. That and to eat the souls of her victims, sometimes.

But then, in the early 1970s, she ran afoul of a much stronger coven.

She was quite quickly banished to hell, but the hellhound couldn't be allowed to go with her, because, well, hellhounds are loyal and she was powerful and would have been able to use him to escape.

So the hellhound was made human, figuring that sixty, seventy, even eighty years if he was lucky would be enough time for the witch to have been consumed, so that even when the human-that-had-been-a-hellhound died, and Death herself realized that he was definitely not where, or what, he was supposed to be, she'd send him back.

But then one Charles Rowland kind of fucked up that whole plan by dying young and immediately running away from Death herself.

So the ghost-who-was-the-boy-who-was-the-hellhound has no idea what he was, or still is, under it all.

But, after a trip through hell to save his best friend (Hellhounds are loyal, after all) and time spent in a familiar position -though not a familiar kitchen- after that has been enough to knock a few things loose...

Comments

[uptightboy]

For sure. If Edwin learned anything from this is that they needed to have rules about this too... Especially when they were both desperate. Though, he let them off the hook, as this occasion had some special circumstances. Namely, the lack of collar and leash at the beginning and the still-fresh memory of Despair in Edwin's mind.

Edwin chuckled weakly. Yes, they could move somewhere but getting up and doing all that felt too much of a fuss. However...

"Bear with me, a moment," he said. He didn't go anywhere or stop holding Charles but he closed his eyes and started to say the words of a spell. He was slow and careful not to touch any of Charles' power. Edwin could feel it was a stretch, yes, it was the first time he had used this spell after all. But once he finished it there was a warm blanket draped over them. It was woven by magic so it had a short lifespan, about an hour, but Edwin figured it would do until they gathered some strength. He didn't know how a heated blanket would feel but it was still something close to that.

[just_aces]

Charles' brow furrowed a little at the first stirrings of that spell. He'd gotten a feel for when Edwin was weaving something, whether or not it pulled at Charles' magic too, and that was even without the obvious tell of Edwin's murmuring a spell.

He just blinked at the blanket, lifting his head so that he could actually look at it as if to verify that was, in fact, what he was feeling, just making a curious little noise as his head flopped back down against Edwin's shoulder, "Magical shock blanket. Nice. Could come in handy."

[uptightboy]

Edwin smiled and settled a little more, now that they had a bit of comfort until they got their strength back.

"I thought we would use it under wildly different circumstances first but I am pleased to know its functions are highly versatile," Edwin said. "The main purpose was, well, not to have you ever be cold." Ghosts couldn't get cold, yes, not naturally but by magic. So it was logical to have a spell to countermeasure that when it happened.

Most of his spells were learned so he could assist Charles in his brawn tasks but some of them were there to support him. The blanket was one of the first Edwin had memorized, even before Charles' nature was known to them. But it was only lately he could actually cast it.

"Do rest, Charles," Edwin said softly.

[just_aces]

Ghosts didn't get cold naturally, it was true, but it was also true that in times of stress or low energy, they tended to revert to the state they'd been in when they died, which for Charles, was wet and cold. So a blanket would be a comfort in that case, doubly so when it was coming from Edwin.

Of course, Edwin was thinking of ways to use it to benefit Charles, and Charles' first thought was how it could benefit the occasional case they got from the Department. Because while sometimes those kids had just wandered off, sometimes they needed more comfort than two teenage boys -or one teenage boy and one big dog- could provide.

For the time being, however, Charles just pressed another kiss to the slope of Edwin's shoulder before settling in more comfortably, arm curling around his waist, "You rest too, you're the one been doing all the work."