#otherwise known as alastor has a bad time and husk is dragged along for the ride

[darkhymns-fic]

Switching shifts (wip)

Husk rapped his knuckles on Alastor’s door, which finally made it give up on its intended purpose and fell flat on the ground with a giant thud.

“Welcome home!” Niffty popped right out from between the sofa cushions, lint and quarters clutched in both hands. “Oops, hehe. Sorry. I'm so used to the boss making an entrance.” She blinked, staring at him with interest. “Ooo, whatcha got there?”

“Chicken noodle soup,” Husk said through a mouthful. He brought the bowl to his mouth to take one last big slurp, sighing in satisfaction after. Then he tossed it to the side to have it land in the kitchen sink. “So is he up yet?”

“Nope! He’s still sleeping and muttering under his breath!” Niffty clutched more lint in her hands. “I’m gonna leave all of these underneath his pillow.”

Husk wasn’t even sure if this was a thing that Alastor would like, but he wasn’t about to protest. The room was still fairly neat, if the floors looked a little too polished from Niffty’s obsessive cleaning. But the bookshelves had also been repaired, even if the books were placed haphazardly, and the grotesque animal skulls were back serving as assortments of centerpieces over the mantle.

He saw that even Alastor’s chair had been repaired–or as well as it could be. It looked like Niffty had gotten every piece together and arranged it like a puzzle, threading it all together with stitches so that it resembled a monstrous version of an armchair, with stuffing still coming out of the leather, and the seat cushion embedded with sharp wood pieces like it was some sort of torture device.

“Oh yeah, I fixed it!” Niffty proclaimed once she saw where Husk looked. “Good as new! Just don’t ever sit on it, I had to use roach parts to glue some stuff together.”

“Geez, Niff, ya didn’t have to go all out,” he said. She must have worked on it all morning, even if it was functionally useless. “You just had to watch the guy.”

“I did! I watched him all morning!” She smiled very wide, the pupil in her eye shrinking to a miniscule dot. “I watched him sleep…I watched him dream…”

Husk waited, but Niffty just stared out into the distance, her gaze clouded with nostalgia. “Uh–”

“But that got very boring, so I did some extra cleaning! I vacuumed and dusted, got the laundry started, hand scrubbed the toilet and and only fell in it once, and am now going to go to the market to get my dear Sir’s favorite venison to put in the oven. That means I’m a keeper, right?” She breathed a little hard, then rushed over to Husk to grab at his arms and shake them. “Right?! Right?!”

“Y-yes, you are! Any guy would be lucky to have ya.” Husk never ventured just what exactly entailed Niffty’s past, but he’d known a few housewives in his living days who…got into their role a bit too much. “If you wanna go shopping now, I can take over babysitting duties. And nothing happened at all?”

“Nothing!” Niffty nodded vigorously. “He screamed a few times in his sleep, but that’s normal.”

“Ugh, I know…” He scratched his head, looking toward the half-open bedroom door. He ignored the trepidation in his chest, the soft discomfort that had gone hand in hand in his life so often. 

So before he could go back on his word, he twirled around Niffty in his arms, taking her hand delicately in his as she giggled from the motion. Some quick steps over the carpet and the various bug traps he now saw spread around, another little twirl to distract Niffty and…

The girl was now standing out in the hallway, blankly staring at Husk who grinned down at her. Realization took hold about a few seconds later.

“Aw, you danced me out of the room!” She folded her arms, pouting. “You’re too good at that.”

“When I’m good, I’m good. ‘Sides, you wanted to go shopping anyway. So hurry and get a move on.” He gave a short wave, stepping over the broken door. “We’ll fix this later, or whatever.”

“Oh yeah, I have a chore!” Niffty bounced on her tiptoes, then quickly made a mad dash down the hallway. “Chooooores!”

It was only when he couldn’t hear her excited yelling anymore that Husk let his grin fall. He gave another look around Alastor’s room, the writing table to the back wall, and the phonograph off in the corner, both somehow having escaped last night’s carnage. He didn’t see the open vintage he and Alastor had shared before, probably broken to hell, or drunk dry by whoever held his boss’ leash.

It was routine for Husk to head for the bedroom.