Demoncember writing prompt — Demon who gets teased relentlessly by the other demons because they are so vanilla
“So you’re a succubus,” says a drunk woman in the bar, wide-eyed, winding her soccer-mom hair round her finger.
Talquatl gingerly picks up her chocolate martini — because Lorgrax can’t be trusted to order drinks — and gamely, if a touch wearily, toasts her. “That’s me,” she says. “Horns, tail, bijou little rathole on the shores of a lake of fire.” She gestures up and down soft jeans and a reasonably nice comfortable blouse, garish plastic sash that says PARTY GIRL, and a plastic tiara that rivals a knockoff Barbie accessory for class. “You must be with the girls’ night out over there.”
They’re in an Earthside bar. Goodness knows whose bright idea that was; Talq was ready to slink off home and watch stupid TV after the first few rounds of drinks back home, but the entire gang of idiots from the office grabbed hold of her arms and made puppy-dog eyes at her until she conceded that she could tag along for a bit — just a bit.
The basic problem with Lust being on strike is that succubi are very, very bad at doing nothing, and the longer it drags out, the worse the odds get that somebody will blow everything up — probably metaphorically, though the odds of that steadily worsen, too.
“You never come out with us, Talq,” Pamnaxxa had mooned, wrapped round her elbow. And that’s true; Talq doesn’t, generally, because Lust is just like one big happy family: the happy is unevenly distributed, in a live-demo-of-statistical-bias way, disproportionately located in the people made happy by relentlessly just joking at others’ expense; and Talq consistently ends up on the downhill end of it.
“Can I buy you another drink?” the soccer mom asks, blushing and fidgeting; and Talq wants to scream.
“Hold that thought,” she says, smiling as much as she can manage; “I need the bathroom.”
She leans her face on the cool glass of the mirror over the sinks.
“Cheer up, Talq,” Lorgrax says encouragingly, and nudges her with a hip. “You’ve pulled a milf, haven’t you?”
“Oh, sure,” Talq says bitterly. “Just agog for the boundless depravity of Hell’s finest, that one,” and Lorgrax pauses and nudges her again.
“Talq—” she starts, and Talq snaps.
“Oh, you have her,” she says angrily. “All they want is interchangeable kink dispensers, so you — heck, snag Voz, tag-team her, give her the full fucking theme park ride! Sit on an arm each and take turns spitting in her mouth, or whatever the fuck!”
“Talquatl—”
“I’m going outside to smoke.”
”…Since when do you do that?”
“I thought I’d start!” Talq lies, slams the bathroom door, and stalks out of the bar to throw herself on an Earth street kerb, wrap her arms round her knees, and sniffle angrily.
“Hi,” a tentative voice says behind her, after a few minutes. Soccer mom is standing a few paces away, looking sheepish and cold, arms wrapped tightly around herself. “Did I make you mad? I didnt mean to.”
“No,” Talq says sullenly, chin propped on her knees. “I’m just — I’m a pretty shit succubus. Go back inside.”
The woman hesitates, then sits down next to her instead, drunk and wobbly. Talq has to stop her from falling over with a hand on her arm.
“I don’t think you’re a shit succubus!” the woman declares.
“You don’t know me,” Talq says. “But you know succubi, or what we do for people, don’t you? Got some wild fantasies you feel brave about maybe exploring with a demon girl who can’t possibly judge you because it’s what we do, right?”
“No,” the woman says, shivering a little in the night air. “…I don’t know. Women are scary and you have a nice smile?”
“Go inside,” Talq says. “Get warm. Talk to Lorge or Voz or any of them. They’ll do anything you want, anything you can imagine. Probably stuff you haven’t imagined, pack you off home in the morning with a couple new experiences under your belt. I’m boring. I’m the boring one. I am abnormally boring.”
“I don’t think you’re boring—”
“Lorge has fucked three different people in the bathrooms while we’ve been drinking here,” Talq says. “I’ve never slept with someone before the fourth date. Every so often someone from work will try to sit me down and be supportive about the fact I’m sex repulsed and I have awkwardly explain that I’m not, I just…” she rubs her temples. “I’m vanilla and I like to go slow.”
“That doesn’t sound boring.” The woman scoots closer, with a catastrophic drunken approximation of subtlety, and tentatively puts her head on Talq’s shoulder. Talq sighs wearily, and rests her own head against hers.
“It doesn’t sound anything like a succubus,” she says miserably. “Everyone’s — most people are nice about it, but I’m the boring weirdo. And if anything it’s worse up here, because everybody knows what a succubus does—”
“I’m sorry,” soccer mom whispers, and peeps soulfully up at Talq; hesitates; tilts her head—
“This is what I’m talking about,” Talq whispers back ruefully, and presses her lips briefly to the woman’s forehead, instead of where she’s angling for. “I’m going to walk you back inside now, it’s really too cold for you out here.”
The woman cries briefly as Talq delicately manhandles her back inside the bar.
“I’m not mad at you,” Talq says soothingly. “No, I don’t hate you. No — no, don’t say that, sweetie, you’re very pretty and there’s a girl for you out there. No, not me, but that’s okay. I’m okay and you’re okay. No, I’m really not mad at you—” and hands her off to her friends, as gracefully as possible.
At the bar, Vozdrammar looks her up and down, pats the barstool next to her, and holds up two silent fingers to the bartender hovering attentively in the periphery of her personal space.
“Needy fuckers, humans,” she says, sliding one of the drinks in front of Talq, and Talq snorts, shoulders hunched. “I know you don’t do client work, Tallie, but you handled that nicely.”
“I’m gonna be alone for ever,” Talquatl says grimly.
