[WP] After getting home from a long day at work, you find a demon sitting on your couch, sobbing hysterically, snuggling your cat, and eating from a tub of ice cream

Miles shambles up the driveway toward the front door of his house. It’s in this spot on most mornings and evenings where he reflects about the same thing, over and over. It’s not that he hates his job. There are people worse off than him, but it’s hard to ward of the existential dread when he thinks this could be his life for the next forty years. Isn’t there supposed to be more to life than… well, this?

He slides the key into the lock and turns. I mean, what happened? It wasn’t that long ago when he thought having a job would totally be better than school. Now, what he wouldn’t give to go back to the days when he and his friends would sit around the apartment, playing Madden, talking trash and laughing like they didn’t have a care in the world.

Miles open the door, steps through, and immediately kicks off his shoes. He laughs to himself when he thinks about how 11 p.m. or midnight wasn’t when you came home from the bar, that’s when you went. And…

“Huh,” Miles thinks. He hears it before he sees it. The Beach Boy’s “Don’t Worry Baby” plays from the TV. While some choose music for their pets while they’re away, Miles usually just leaves his cat Churchill and the puppies Dozer and Agent Smith to the monotony of cable news. So when he turns around and sees Drew Barrymore passionately kissing her teacher—it’s totally okay, you see, she was just pretending be underage—it takes a moment or two for his mind to register what else is there.

At first he thinks it’s a lion. It’s not a lion exactly. It’s a man, if one could call it that, twice the size of Lou Ferrigno with the head of a lion. He turns to regard Miles. His eyes are bloodshot and the beast lets out a cry that is some combination of the roar of a lion and human wail. Miles has always told himself that he would never abandon his pets, no matter what. Much to his credit, it’s what keeps him from running out the door now. Besides, is that Churchill in the beast’s arms? Her typical reaction to guests is to run upstairs and hide under the bed covers. But there she is, contentedly licking the arm of this… thing. Then Dozer and Agent Smith awake from their naps and happily saunter over to greet their master.

“She used to kiss me like that,” the beast says. His deep and resonate voice drips with sorrow and loss.

A perfunctory “um” is about all Miles can manage as Dozer plows her head straight into him, as she does each time he comes home, and Agent Smith barks hysterically for attention. He bends down to down to scoop up Agent Smith and pats a smiling Dozer on her enormous head.

“Sorry I’m late. It took me forever to get her,” the handsome teacher who can now legally have sex with his student says. And the beast cries out again.

“Stay calm, buy time,” Miles thinks. “Do not make him angry.”

So he says the first thing he can think of. “Wanna talk about it?”

The beast nods his head and pats the cushion beside him in invitation to sit down. Maybe this wasn’t a great idea. With no other choice, Miles walks over to the couch and sits down. Agent Smith immediately jumps from his lap into the beast’s and Dozer nudges her head against his gargantuan knees.

“Oh, my name’s Purson, King of Hell, by the way. My friend’s just call me ‘P.’ I guess we’re not friends yet but you can call me P anyway.” Purson looks down at Churchill, still licking his forearm, and Agent Smith, now hopping up and down, futilely attempting to jump high enough to lick his face.

“I’m Miles.”

Purson extends his hand and Miles does his best to shake it.

“My ex loved this movie,” Miles began. “I’d pretend I didn’t like it, but what I wouldn’t give to lie down here with her on this couch and watch it again.”

As soon as the words come up, he’s surprised he made such a confession. Purson sniffles and wipes a tear from his cheek. Agent Smith and Dozer have calmed down, with the former lying in his lap and the former curled up in a ball by his feet. He fixes his eyes on the floor and says, “Her name was Suadela. You know how Sonny in A Bronx Tale says you get three great women in your life? Well, I didn’t need three. I just needed one. I mean, she was perfect. You meet smart women, you meet beautiful women, you meet women who neither hell nor heaven can tame. But maybe only once—if you’re lucky—do you meet the woman. Do you know what I mean?”

Miles nods his head. “And you know it from the moment you meet.”

“Isn’t everything so perfect at first?” Purson sighs. “You get butterflies in your stomach just thinking about her. You can’t keep your hands off each other. You lose sleep thinking about her.”

Miles smiles ruefully. “And how the very best time you two had together wasn’t on some exotic vacation but that one Thanksgiving where you two were the only ones in town. She insisted that Thanksgiving was the official start of the holiday season, so you put on some Christmas music. Remember how the turkey had the flavor of cardboard, but the stuffing, on the other hand.”

“Then you start to take things for granted. You used to bring her flowers for no reason, and then one day you don’t. She used to send you random texts telling you that she loves you, and then one day she doesn’t. Instead of holding each other, you’re holding your cell phones, looking at pictures of people you don’t know and reading about things you can do nothing about.”

“But things won’t always be as easy as they were in the beginning. They can’t be. Sooner or later, you find out that, surprise! This person is an actual human being with flaws of their own. Who will do things to annoy you, anger you. And you’ll do the same to them.”

Agent Smith cocks his head as Purson rubs his ears. “And somewhere along the way, you stop really trying, don’t you?”

Now it’s Miles’ turn to stare at the floor. He thinks for a moment, and begins. “But if you could make the hurt stop, in exchange for forgetting all about her, you still wouldn’t do it, would you?”

“I wouldn’t,” Purson answers.

Miles gets up and asks, “I need a beer. You want one?”

Purson does. Miles returns from the kitchen with a beer in each hand, hands one to the gigantic demon, then picks up the remote. “Whenever I’m feeling down, I like to watch a good, silly, ridiculous movie. You ever seen Walk Hard?”

Miles grins, pops open the beer, and takes a seat besides the animals and his new… friend?

/r/WritingPrompts Thread