Male Demon biker x male character (3rd person, sfw) - WIP/early release (Patreon)

Hey folks! I don't normally do WIPs as early releases, but I'm getting far enough ahead with this story now that I'm confident not too much will change between posting it here and posting it on Tumblr in its final form.

You voted almost equally for both this story and Oats' story, so I've been working on getting this one to a point where I can share at least the first of the three chapters that are currently extant, then focus on Oats' one. I can see this one being a four-parter in total, and it's already at over 14k words... (Oats' WIP snippet can be found here, in case you missed it).

This story features Demon the angy biker from the Full Moon Motorcycles universe (aka the 'supernatural biker group' that made anon salty over on Tumblr recently XD). He features as a small side character in Pumpkin the Dullahan's story, and in Tepes the vampire's story (unpublished, though I shared relevant snippets on Discord in the #patreon-chat channel), but he's become very dear to me while exploring his story. I hope you come to care for him even a fraction as much as I do.

Content warning: character gets heartlessly dumped and laughed at after being cheated on and gets hit in the face, another character offers violence towards said ex

Wordcount: 4519

(Please note that while this is largely complete as is, there may be one or two tweaks between now and it's posting on Tumblr.)

Demon threaded his gleaming, red Ducati through the maze of narrow side streets, following the inexorable pull of pain through the night like a drop of water rolling downhill.

Pickings in the city were always good for a demon that fed on human suffering — he didn't even need to form contracts with people to survive here. The lesser Prince of Hell could simply exist under his own free will. He could just… browse.

This particular human’s pain was stoking like a newly lit beacon, so he revved the bike and turned again, avoiding a buzzing delivery moped as it splashed through a puddle ahead of him, and swinging last-second around a pedestrian that stepped heedlessly into the road. He revved the bike in a sharp reprimand, ignored the vague shout they sent after him, and then sped off down the otherwise empty streets.

The human’s pain sharpened, changing abruptly from emotional to physical, and a growl to rival the purr of his Panigale rattled through him. Revving and nudging the powerful bike into a racing, red blur, he roared through the night in a rush of magic until he came to the source of the pain and cruised to a halt to observe at a distance.

A tall man in light jeans and a white t-shirt was standing in a powerful, wide-legged stance with his back to Demon about halfway up a narrow alley that sat between a closed grocery store and a two star hotel. He smelled distantly of sweat and sex and amused triumph.

He stood looming over a second figure who was kneeling in the rain-soaked alleyway, as if his legs had simply buckled under the weight of whatever news had just been dropped on him. Pain radiated out in a tangible, black cloud from the kneeling figure while the man in the white t-shirt laughed.

“I can’t believe you’re reacting like this,” he chortled, leaning down and gripping the other man’s chin in his fist to force his ghostly-pale face upwards at an unnatural angle. “It’s not like I’m getting something from her that I could be getting from you, is it?”

“That’s not the point!” the other man fired back, his voice cracking as the pain sharpened to knife-point sharp again. “God, you think that’s what this is about? You think I’m upset because you fucked some girl? You lied to me, Andy! I trusted you and you lied to me!”

“Wait, you thought I was going to stay with you forever?” — another stab of pain told Demon that that was exactly what the other man had thought — “At first I thought all the crystals and the herbs and the tarot cards and shit were kind of cute, you know? In a freaky kind of way… But you’re not someone I’m going to settle down with. I can’t take you back to meet my family like I can with her. God, can you just imagine your hippy mother with my parents at our wedding? It’d be a fucking freakshow.”

“Right,” the man on the floor choked softly, bleeding pain everywhere around him like the victim of a shark attack. “Cool. I’m an idiot. You’ve made your point. You can stop rubbing it in now.”

At that, he was met with another cruel laugh.

“Fuck you,” he spat. “I can’t believe this is happening. It’s like I didn’t know you at all.”

“You’ve got a crystal ball and you didn’t see it coming, huh? That’s some funny shit right there.” The man crowed the words like it was something he was proud of. Like it had gone on for months longer than he’d planned; turned into a game that was finally up.

Bored by this pathetic attempt at alpha posturing, Demon revved his bike’s crazy-powerful V4 engine obscenely and the man jerked around, practically flinging his heartbroken ex aside. The slender man barely caught himself from falling face-first into the reflective pool of filthy water beside him and Demon smelled the faint trace of blood on the air a few seconds later.

The cheating scumbag looked down at his victim one more time, spitting, “There was a reason I didn’t want all your goofy shit in my apartment, and I’m glad you never moved in. It’ll probably make it easier for you to move on though, so I guess I did you a favour.”

He swaggered off up the alley in the other direction without a backward glance.

Tears ran down the pale man’s cheeks as he bowed his head over the puddle and gave a heartrending little sob.

Demon, still sitting astride his bike, drank down that last, distilled, sorrowful pain like it was a twenty year old whisky, lifting his face to the night air as it sank into him and filled him, reviving his power almost to overflowing. When the man gave another hollow sob though, the pain twisted into something darker — something that tasted distinctly of despair — and Demon stopped feeding.

He could leave now.

He should leave.

If he stayed, it would draw the human’s attention back to him, and if the mention of crystals and herbs had been anything to go by… He extended his power just a little, sampling the stranger’s aura more directly, and sure enough, he was met with a vibrant, sparkling magic.

Witches and demons were like matches and gasoline, and that was a fire Demon had no intention of setting.

“I hate you,” the witch hissed through clenched teeth, still hunched over.

He was wearing a baggy black t-shirt that swamped his wiry frame and showed the delicate, enticing architecture of one collarbone where the fabric gaped open at the neck, and his arms seemed starkly pale against the black asphalt beneath him. His black skinny jeans were ripped at the knee and those clompy, black boots made his legs look thinner than they actually were.

In a word, he looked fragile, but Demon’s lip twitched into a snarl. He could taste the magic boiling off the man like morning mist, and his skin prickled. He needed to go. This witch could set his now-ex on fire with a snap of his fingers. He had no intention of finding out what he’d do with a demon.

Still though, Demon stayed, sitting astride his red Ducati, arms folded, watching.

“What do you want?” The young man’s voice had changed, and Demon realised he was being addressed directly.

For a moment, he didn’t speak. He didn’t know what to say.

Then the man looked up, and Demon’s breath caught. Behind the safety of his tinted visor, his eyes flared like coals, and his tail coiled a little tighter around the muscle of his right leg beneath his own black jeans. The man’s exquisite, bone china beauty was marred by a huge, angry red bruise that was blossoming across his cheekbone.

That absolute shithead. He shouldn’t have to wait for Hell to receive his punishment. He could have it right now.

Demon didn’t realise he’d lowered his kickstand and swung off his bike until the witch gasped softly and tried to scuttle away from him, floundering and struggling to stand up.

Demon halted abruptly and took a steadying breath. Magic that wasn’t his own sparked like purple sherbet on his tongue.

Turning his gaze down to regard the stranger better, Demon saw his dark eyes widen.

“Oh.” The witch’s rosebud lips parted and he stared, transfixed.

It wasn’t an unusual reaction; a lot of humans saw the small, backwards-curving horns on his helmet and thought they were decoration to make him look intimidating. Little did they know that they were real and that the helmet had holes in to let them pass through, which were then glamoured to look like decoration.

“That’s… That’s quite the glamour,” the witch breathed, and Demon’s brain stalled like a beginner biker at a red light.

“What?”

“Your…” the human gestured vaguely above his own head and Demon saw that his black hair was tied back in a messy bun at the back of his head while several stray strands dangled into his face. The sudden and feral urge to grip that messy bun in his hand and tilt the man’s head back to expose his pale throat for a litany of kisses surged in him and he bit it all back with a growl like a Rottweiler.

Then, a dose of clarity rushed in to replace the spike of lust that had rendered him momentarily idiotic, and he froze. “You can —?” he couldn’t even finish. Never once had anyone been able to see through his glamour. Even Pumpkin, a fucking Fae, couldn’t see through it. Demon was a Prince of Hell — admittedly, one of the less powerful ones, and there were rather a lot of ‘princes of hell’, but still. “The fuck?”

The human laughed quietly at that, and it rattled through him like a forgotten flyer down an empty corridor. There was no real joy in the laugh, and it brought Demon to his knees. Literally. He dropped to one knee in the dirt before this battered, broken witch, and reached a hand for his face.

The man flinched though and Demon halted. “I won’t hurt you,” he said quietly.

“You're a demon. All your kind does is hurt people.”

“Your own kind does enough of that without me getting involved,” he snarled back softly. “Let me look at you.”

“No. Stay away from me. I don’t need a demon making tonight any worse.”

“You’re bleeding,” he pointed out, eyeing his scuffed hand where he’d caught himself earlier, and the puffy bruise on his face.

“No shit,” the man scoffed. “And you can’t have any of it. Fuck off.”

Demon smiled as he tasted the rebellious strength creeping back in through the miasma of pain and sadness that cloaked the fierce little witch and he stood, holding out his hand. “Let me help you up at least.”

The witch staggered up under his own steam and swayed on the spot, glaring.

Unexpectedly, Demon’s cock twitched in his pants at the fire in those endless, black irises. “Tell me something?”

“No.”

He laughed and asked his question anyway. “How did a shithead like him —” he jutted his chin up the empty alley “— get away with hurting you. You’ve got enough magic to turn him inside out and liquefy his brains with the snap of your fingers, and don’t deny it. I can feel it.”

Horrified and repulsed by his crass words, the witch grimaced. “That might be your idea of a good time, but that’s not what I use my magic for. I help people.”

Demon’s mouth twitched into a smile. “Well, I am partial to having my own brains liquefied from time to time, I’ll admit.”

Despite himself, the witch snorted a shyly amused smile and shook his head. “I’ve never met a demon, but you’re not what I expected.”

“Oh? You thought we were all shitty bargains and pea soup on the walls?”

Again, the witch laughed, and the emotional pain melted a little further into the background. His face still hurt though, so Demon slowly reached his hand out and brushed his gloved knuckles over the soft expanse of pale skin that had been marred by the impotent fury of his shithead ex.

“For free,” he breathed. “No catch. I swear it on my True Name,” and the witch’s eyelids flickered closed as Demon summoned his own magic and let it wash over the bruise. He drank in the pain of it until there was nothing left.

The man gasped and staggered, and Demon caught and steadied him. The witch’s deft fingers clutched at the bare, golden-brown skin of his forearms as he fought to keep himself upright, and then the tears began to flow. In the space of three fluttering heartbeats, huge, desperate sobs wracked his whole body and his skinny chest began to heave.

Demon hesitated for a moment, then drew him against his chest and tucked the man’s head under his chin. He was still wearing his helmet and the strap dug into the soft flesh of his neck, but he ignored the discomfort as the stranger fell apart in his arms.

“I’m sorry,” he choked between awful, ugly gulps. “I just… I thought… I thought things were good… I was — we’ve been together for four years. We were gonna go to Italy this summer… to… to Venice… and… and see the churches and the art… I thought… I thought he was serious about me — about us — but… he lied… He was just… just leading me on… He… He’s been with her… He told me he was only interested in men when we met. He told me so much bullshit and I believed it!” he wailed.

“Shh, it’s not your fault he’s rotten to the core.”

“I know that, but—”

“Sometimes you can’t see it. Even someone with your sight,” he added wryly. “You know, you’re the first human who’s seen through my glamour.”

“Really?” That seemed to surprise him into a brief, gulping silence before he sucked in a breath too sharply and began to cough.

Demon rubbed his hand across his shoulders and drew more of the pain from him.

“Oh…” the witch sighed, his muscles going tangibly slack for a moment.

“Too much?”

“Maybe? What are you even doing?”

Demon chuckled. “I feed on pain. You were like a fucking beacon tonight.”

“Makes sense,” he sniffled, and forced himself to step back. His face was puffy and pink, and his eyes looked like he’d been crying for hours from how red they were, but he still looked gorgeous underneath the temporary veneer of distress and grief and shock. “I’m sorry. I made your shirt all wet,” he said.

Demon glanced down but the helmet blocked the view of his white t-shirt. He could feel where it was sticking to his skin a bit through, and smiled. Clicking his fingers, the water turned to steam and rose up out of the fabric in a little coil that wisped away on the night air, and the witch smiled again at the unnecessary theatrics.

“That’s better,” Demon said. “Now, you going to be alright to get home?”

He nodded unconvincingly.

“You want me to hunt him down? I could do it. Make him pay.”

“What? No,” the witch hissed.

Demon blinked. It was a rare human indeed that hated a person to the core and yet didn’t wish any kind of vengeance or retribution on them. He flipped the visor up and regarded the witch with a level, red gaze.

The stranger blinked up into his face and stared at the cat-like pupils in his crimson irises, and then set his jaw and glared. “No. Let the universe take care of him. I don’t want someone’s pain on my hands.”

Demon shrugged, though the gesture was easier to fake than to make sincere. “Your call,” he said. “You want a lift home?”

“Like I want a demon knowing where I live,” he laughed shrilly, and the lack of trust hurt deeper than it should have done. He was a fucking demon. Of course he wasn’t trustworthy. He lied all the time to get what he wanted. The only people he didn’t lie to were the others like him — the family he rode with.

“I could drop you at the corner,” he said.

“No. I don’t want you going after Andy and I don’t want you knowing where I live. Thank you for intervening, but that’s where this ends.”

Demon sighed, then stepped aside and waved an arm in an extravagant gesture towards the mouth of the alley where his bike was waiting in a pool of pale streetlight like a faithful steed.

When his eyes landed on it and he really saw it for the first time, the witch laughed quietly. It was a rueful sound, full of the kind of dry amusement that Demon could taste on his tongue, the way he could sample different kinds of fear. All emotions were detectable to him, though it was only pain that really fuelled and sustained him. “What?” he asked.

“No wonder Andy was intimidated. He only has a 250. That thing’s a bloody beast.”

“You… know bikes?” he asked, looking the witch up and down. He didn’t look like the type, but then again, neither did Coco and she had taken to riding like the proverbial duck to water. Banishing thoughts of the succubus who had had no interest beyond simple friendship with a fellow demon, he listened to the witch’s response with interest.

“I only know about them through him. He’s got a Suzuki. He used to think it was funny to ride at Mach Jesus to scare the shit out of me though.”

Demon growled again and to his surprise, he was met with another softly-amused laugh and a warm hand splaying slowly at the centre of his chest. It felt like an emergency brake on his temper and he stilled. The growl kept simmering though.

“You really aren’t what I’d expect at all. Are you sure you’re a demon and not some avenging spirit?”

“What’s the difference?” he said, unable to stop the constant, acrid growl from rumbling around his ribcage and up around his teeth like a thunderstorm. “I make people like him pay for the choices they make and the hurt they cause.”

Something complicated passed across those onyx eyes, and he watched the witch’s throat work as he swallowed. “You offered me a ride,” he said carefully, “But you don’t have a passenger seat, let alone a spare helmet, and I’m afraid I’m not indestructible like you probably are.”

Demon twitched his head in the direction of his Ducati and to his surprise, the witch followed.

Changing matter at will wasn’t Demon’s strongest suit, but he’d had the bike long enough that it was practically a part of him. He knew it down to the last bolt. He closed his eyes and laid his hands on the tailstock and he felt it ripple and shift with unnerving ease, almost as if it had wanted to change. He ignored the implications of that thought. A comfy pillion seat was waiting for him when he opened his eyes again and he stepped back. The bike had also acquired the necessary passenger foot pegs.

“Wow,” the witch exhaled with a little shiver. “That was some tidy magic…”

“Came in handy when I dropped my bike once and scuffed up the fairings,” he said, his throat suddenly and oddly dry.

“You’d better not drop it with me on board,” he muttered. “Don’t want my fairings scuffed again so soon, thank you,” he said, dabbing a fingertip against his healed cheek.

With a laugh, Demon took off his own helmet and held it out to the stranger. “Here.”

The witch took the helmet but stared up at his face instead, eyes flickering over his revealed features as though cataloguing them all as quickly as he could. Sparks of desire skittered through his emotions, and Demon smirked, which only made the man’s marble skin blush pink. It was rare that a human got a good look at him, and he knew he looked… different.

With creamy-gold horns growing out of his hairline and crimson eyes with slit pupils, and canines that were definitely longer and thicker than a human’s, there was no hiding what he was. Silky, black hair flowed around the base of his horns, and he tended to keep it relatively short — just long enough for a lover to tug on, on the rare occasion he allowed himself to slide into someone’s bed. The pale horns were thick and ridged like a ram’s, but they curved up and then down again in a sinuous wave over the crown of his head, ending in a little upward flick. Getting his helmet on over them was interesting, but there were slots he’d modified into the helmet to accommodate them.

Tapping the top of the helmet though, he closed up the holes so that the human’s fragile skull would be completely protected, and he gave him another lopsided smile when he felt that flare of interest from him again. It wasn’t enough to act on — unsurprising given everything he’d endured that night — but it was there all the same, and Demon couldn’t deny that he liked it. His physique was strong and muscular without straying into bulky, and he enjoyed the results of working out a lot.

Under the glamour, his skin was crimson, but to most people it appeared a warm, Mediterranean olive. He wasn’t sure how much the witch’s power actually let him see, but he suspected he could see him as he was in this form. His true form required an actual, conscious, physical change, like a werewolf under shift, so he knew the witch was spared that much at least.

“Ready?”

“Sure.”

“Where am I going then?”

“North end of Grosvenor Street is close enough.”

With that, Demon swung a leg over his bike and turned the key to wake it up while the witch climbed aboard behind him and settled with familiar ease. The thought of him clinging for his life to that vile creature sent another growl through him, but he hid it as he nudged the kickstand up and started the engine. He revved it a few times and felt the thunder of the bike in his whole body.

The witch’s slender, wiry arms closed rather boldly around his middle and Demon inhaled just to feel his ribs push back against that hold. For all that this witch looked fragile, there was a strength to him that drew Demon in dangerously close.

Humans were not for getting involved with.

Humans were for feeding off.

At that thought, he recalled the clear taste of this one’s pain, and the desire to hunt down and flay the man who’d caused it flared in his belly like heartburn after a rich meal.

Only when the human tightened his hold in a brief hug did he come back to himself.

“You good?” the witch asked.

“Yeah,” he croaked.

“You’re gonna need to adjust that glamour, or the first cop that sees you is gonna stop you for riding without a helmet. They’re not gonna be wild about the horns and the red skin either, I imagine.”

Snarling softly — as if he needed reminding of how to blend into the human world — Demon let the ripple of his glamour shimmer through the air and then asked, “How can you tell what my glamour looks like anyway? I thought you couldn't see it?”

“I can see the outline of it,” the witch replied. “It’s like an aura, only it’s gold, and it’s thin. Like… Like spiderwebs. It cleared when I blinked the first time I saw you, but I can make it come back if I want.”

“You’re pretty unusual yourself, you know that?” Demon remarked to the witch. Without waiting for an answer, he nudged the bike into first with the toe of his boot and gladly pulled away from the alley that still stank of stagnant hurt like week-old refuse.

He wove through the sleepy streets, passing a few revellers still staggering around, but at that time of night, there was hardly anyone out. All but the most dedicated of late-nighters had stumbled home, and the early-risers and first-shifters had yet to venture out of doors.

As the strange human clung to him, there was a new, wild, joyful note to his emotions that Demon tried desperately to ignore. When he drew the bike to a halt at the corner of Grosvenor Street, his heart beat painfully against his ribs. He left the engine idling.

The witch climbed down and stood on the sidewalk, turning the helmet over in his pale, slender hands before handing it back to Demon. “Thank you,” he said. “That was the first time I’ve ever really enjoyed riding a bike.”

“You felt safer with an actual demon, whom you literally just met, than with the man who was your boyfriend for four years?” he blurted. “Please let me fuck him up for you, sweetheart.”

The bright laugh that spilled like an aria from his rosebud mouth made Demon’s chest ache. “No, but thank you. Knowing I’m not the only one who wants to nail the fucker to a wall is oddly comforting.”

Voice low and rasping, Demon said, “Let me do it.” He rested a little more weight on his right leg as he leaned inexorably towards this strange, beautiful witch and literally begged to take revenge on the man for him. “Let me skin him and nail him to a wall.”

“No,” the witch said, turning serious and a little queasy. He still reached his hand out though, and cupped Demon’s cheek. The glamour surrounding his head shattered in a soft shower of gold sparks. The witch stroked his thumb across Demon’s cheekbone and Demon shivered, gasping momentarily for breath. “Will you do that instead for me?”

“Do what?”

“Let it go.”

He bit his lip, but nodded stiffly. It was not in his nature to let slights go, but if this witch asked it of him, he would. Demon then had the sneaking suspicion he would comply with almost anything this witch asked of him, and the thought left him both rattled and intrigued.

“Thank you. He’s not worth it.”

“If he comes back,” Demon said, “If he tries anything, you protect yourself no matter what, ok? You use every ounce of magic you’ve got. Better yet,” he growled, “You call me.”

“I don’t have your number.”

“You want it?”

The witch’s dark eyes dropped to the concrete pavement.

“Having a demon ready to summon is no bad thing…”

“Says the demon himself,” the witch quipped. “Fine. Give me your number.”

“Done.”

“What?”

“It’s done. I just wanted your permission. It’s in your phone now.”

His eyes went wide. “Just like that?”

“Magic, baby,” he snickered. “Thought you’d understand.”

Again, the witch laughed. “You’re really something else, you know that?”

“That’s proper biker rizz, sweetheart…” he purred, taking the helmet back with a smirk. He changed it to its usual form as he slid it on over his horns and by the time it was secured under his chin, the witch had stepped back and was walking away.

Demon revved wildly, making the bike practically scream beneath him, and the witch turned and nonchalantly flicked his fingers in Demon’s direction. All 200+ brake horsepower of that Ducati Panigale V4 S engine turned deafeningly silent beneath him. It was still running and revving, but the sound had evaporated. He reached out with his magic but couldn't find a way to untangle the complex weave that had settled around his bike’s engine and exhaust like a web of spider silk.

“The fuck? Put it back!” he barked, but the witch only laughed and walked away.

Man, the others were going to have a field day when he rolled up at Full Moon Motorcycles sounding like an e-bike.

“Shit.”

__

Hope you enjoyed it! Let me know in the comments if you did :)

(Chapter Two WIP)