The Alpha's Pretend-Boyfriend

The Demon

Belphegor—better known as Fig—was not your typical evil demon. Well, technically, at least. He did not do things just to cause pain or sadness to beings, nor did he live to torment or tempt someone into ruin. If anything, the only “demon-like” about him were the runes around his neck and how devilishly handsome he found his reflection to be—but that just might be his narcissistic traits talking. Aside from those, he considered himself to be a relatively decent creature.

That is, until he is bored.

And recently, with his current relationship being unusually stable—providing no much-needed drama whatsoever—the most interesting thing that had happened to his life as of late was the appearance of this human named Louie. Fig was never really attracted to the man—he wasn’t bad-looking or unlikeable, but he just wasn’t his type and he also happened to be in a committed relationship for the past three days. What caught Fig’s interest, however, was how his long-time friend and boss seemed to react strongly to the human. So, Fig being Fig, decided to rile him up a little bit.

“He's kind of simple, isn’t he? Also kind of cute, don’t you think?” he had whispered to Dane, just to elicit a reaction. It was just a dash of teasing and devilish tempting whispers here and there, nothing too fancy, just to spark some one-time fun into the daily boring routine; but when Dane had answered, “Yeah, he’s got a nice smile,” with a dreamy look in his eyes that Fig was sure he wasn’t aware he was doing, it was almost like he was begging for Fig to mess with him. He even went as far as to warn Fig “not to dare try anything with the new kid,” which the demon only took as a challenge.

So, it was much to poor, innocent human Louie’s surprise when on his second day at work, his senior, Fig, suddenly sat beside him during the meeting and lovingly placed an arm around his neck. Louie almost jumped in his seat. The meeting was taking place at the main hall so there were a bunch of other empty chairs, yet Fig chose to closely huddle up with him. This made Dane, who was in the middle of talking about their menu and reservations, momentarily glance at them.

Fig innocently smiled up at him before turning to Louie to smell him. “Mmm,” he hummed as he took in a good whiff, the tip of his nose just an inch or two away from Louie’s cheek. “What perfume do you use?”

Louie, who had immediately frozen in place with his face beginning to redden like a tomato, tried his best not to move even just one centimeter. “U-uh,” he nervously stammered.

“Fig!” Thankfully, the demon was suddenly pulled away by an unamused Dane.

“Yes, boss?” Fig batted his eyelashes at him. Everyone else looked at Dane, who finally realized that he may have acted a bit too rashly. He let go of Fig and took an awkward step back.

“Does anyone else have questions?” Dane cleared his throat, feeling embarrassed.

“None for us,” Fig said, pulling Louie up to stand, “I have to orient human boy over here for his first shift later.” The rest of the staff also began to disperse, and Dane could only helplessly sigh as Fig casually placed an arm back around Louie’s shoulders and even went as far as to fix the strand of stray hair by his ear, making the human shiver.

But that was only the beginning. The entire week, Fig kept hanging out with the clueless human and intentionally became touchy with him whenever he knew Dane was watching, and Dane would almost always be. He kept popping up everywhere that it came to a point where Gadreel picked him up from his collar because he had been sneaking around in the kitchen, peeking through the service hatch to get a glimpse of Fig and Louie.

“What in God’s name are you doing?” Gadreel asked with a sigh, pointing a spatula at him.

Dane sheepishly smiled up at him and straightened his clothes. “I-I was just keeping an eye out for the new employee.” He frowned. “Also, should you really be using God’s name—"

Gadreel raised an eyebrow. “What are you really doing in my kitchen?”

Dane inadvertently glanced at Louie through the window, who was politely smiling down at a customer in his new uniform, and for a second, Dane forgot Gadreel was annoyed.

“Fig’s right,” Dane mumbled, lightly elbowing the angel and nodding towards the human, “don’t you think he’s cute?”

Gadreel let out a groan and rolled his eyes, then pulled Dane by the back of his collar, “Stop sneaking around, the kitchen is busy,” he sternly said as he kicked the werewolf out of the kitchen.

***

Louie had no idea what was happening. It was only by his 6th day, which was a Saturday and notably the busiest in his short career, that he finally realized that something was up. Louie had previously been informed that by the end of the week, he will still be under probation but he was supposed to have less assistance. However, Fig still kept circling him on the regular for useless reasons. He didn’t think much about it at first. After all, after a week of working at Hestia’s, Louie had learnt that everyone had their own little quirk.

For example, Fig, or Belphegor, was a “lover type.” Based on what Louie had heard from Germain’s endless gossips, Fig had never spent more than two days without being in some sort of relationship with someone—no matter the gender or race. None of them ever lasted more than two months, but it wasn’t as if Fig had any difficulties charming anyone he wanted. He was apparently affectionate with everyone, and had been dating some vampire girl from uptown; which was why he would always try to clock out as early as he could. It had almost gotten him into trouble, if it weren’t for Callie, the youngest and female werewolf, cleaning up after him.

Callie, as Louie gathered from the amount of times he had seen her wildly blush in front of Fig, was a bashful girl with an innocent crush. He just wasn’t sure if Fig wasn’t aware of it, or if he knew and was just using it to his advantage.

Going back to Louie being needlessly followed, it was by the 6th day when he finally realized that the demon was only doing so whenever their boss was around. That brings us to Dane.

Alpha werewolf Dane's personality was a bit interesting for Louie. He was like a doting father to all of the staff—making sure they’ve eaten, asking about their day—who managed to smoothly run the restaurant while being able to sleep anywhere. Louie had almost stepped on him once when he was dozing off on the floor behind the kitchen door; which Gadreel scolded him for afterwards.

Dane was generally friendly and physically affectionate with the staff—often giving them hugs, pats on the back, ruffles on their hair—but ever since Louie’s day 1, he had noticed that Dane was always watching him. From the kitchen, from the reception—Louie had seen him peeking around and then pretending not to look when he was caught. But he had figured that he was probably just keeping an eye on the new employee, and so didn’t think much of it until he realized that Fig only approached him whenever Dane was nearby.

There was something there, Louie was sure of it since the rest of the staff seemed to have a colorful history together, but what concerned the human the most then was the angel that seemed to dislike him for reasons unknown.

It was almost the end of their shift on Saturday—the day of the week where the tables were always occupied and everyone was busy—when Louie had to go into the kitchen to return dirty dishes. Even before he entered the room, he could already hear Germain angrily speaking.

“You know what, if that’s what you want, then fine!” the vampire spoke as he began to untie his apron. Louie stopped under the doorway, unsure whether he should come in or not.

“You’re always like this,” Gadreel muttered, looking annoyed. “Put your damn apron back on.”

“I don’t want to get in your way, sir,” Germain sarcastically remarked, slamming his apron onto the counter. From the far-end corner, Callie continued washing the dishes with her head down, trying to make as little noise as possible.

Germain and Gadreel's deal, as Louie had observed, was that they seemed to be mortal enemies—which was quite ironic since Gadreel, an angel, seemed to be good friends with Fig, a demon; but Hestia's staff didn’t seem to play into those stereotypes.

“You’re so…” Gadreel groaned, picked up the apron from the counter and crumpled it in his fist.

“What, huh? I’m so what?” Germain argued, which Louie honestly found to be brave. Gadreel was probably around six-foot-four towering over the vampire's five-foot-ten, and yet Germain had the guts to go head-to-head when the angel's hand was as big as his face.

Gadreel shoved the apron back to him and clicked his tongue. “Just do your work and stop whining like a child. Act your age, for goodness' sake, and—” he abruptly stopped when he noticed Louie awkwardly standing by the door. Gadreel’s attention and rage suddenly turned towards him. “The hell are you standing around for?” he asked Louie. “Are you having fun watching this little show? Huh?”

Louie's eyes widened as he quickly took a step forward. “I-I was just g-going to return these—”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Gadreel. Stop tormenting the kid,” Germain rolled his eyes. Louie hurriedly tried to make his way past them under the angel's deathly glare, but in his attempt to do so, accidentally knocked over a pan.

Louie's heart stopped at the sound of metal clanging on the floor and the sight of what looked like melted chocolate spilling.

“You have got to be f*****g kidding me!” Gadreel bellowed.

“Hey, language!” Fig peeked in through the service hatch. “Where’s the dessert for table 12—” he stopped when he saw the state of things, and without missing a beat, called out, “Dane!” before disappearing once again.

“I-I’m so sorry,” Louie managed to say. To his relief, Callie rushed to his aid and picked up the tray of dishes he was carrying. He kneeled next to the spilled food in panic and started trying to fix the mess with a towel.

“What the hell are you doing?” Gadreel asked, while Germain tried to hold him back. “I told you not to make stupid mistakes, didn’t I—"

“What’s happening here? Nothing's coming out of the kitchen,” Dane busted in through the swinging doors and quickly assessed the situation.

Louie looked up at him, clearly embarrassed “It was my fault, I accidentally—”

“Damn right, it’s your fault,” Gadreel coldly remarked. “Now I have to make another batch and—”

“Get to it then,” Dane snapped at him. Much to Louie’s surprise, Gadreel shut his mouth and glared at him, but did as he was told. Germain put his apron back and continued to work without a peep.

Dane walked towards the mess and pulled Louie up. “You, go change your pants. I’ll take care of this.”

Louie looked down and noticed that some of the chocolate in fact did get onto his clothes. He weakly nodded and rushed out of the room, only to hear Dane scolding the two just as he was leaving. When he emerged from the staff room with a new pair of pants, Dane only told him to “Get back to work,” and so he kept his head down and did so for the remainder of the shift.

The last set of customers finally left and the staff silently cleaned up their stations, an awkward cloud hovering above them all—well, except for Fig who, as if on cue, placed an arm around Louie's drooped shoulders just as Dane entered the staff room.

“First week’s done, my protégé!” he happily exclaimed, putting Louie into a headlock and childishly messing up his hair. Louie had learnt not to fight it anymore and just wait for him to finish. As expected, Fig let him go and beamed at him. “You did great!”

“I kind of messed up at the end,” Louie admitted in a whisper as Callie entered the room. Dane glanced at them, but was pretending to be busy with something.

“Psh,” Fig waved him off and pinched his cheek. “That’s fine. It’s just Gadreel. He’s a harmless punk.”

“Louie,” Dane spoke up, nodding at Fig. The demon got the message and stood at the corner next to Callie, where they both pretended they weren’t listening.

“Are you alright? You know, from before?” Dane whispered with concern. “Gadreel can be a bit harsh and he's got a bad temper. I hope you don’t take his words to heart.”

Louie felt relieved hearing those words. He had previously thought that Dane was also mad at him somehow. “I’m fine,” he sheepishly said. “I’m kinda used to angels being mean.”

Dane let out a sigh then pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to Louie. “Here,” he offered.

Louie took the cold can of coffee and frowned up at him, confused. “What—”

“Just a little pick-me-up,” Dane said, looking quite embarrassed. “You did well on your first week, even with a mentor like that.”

From the side, Fig's head snapped up to glare at Dane, but he paid it no mind. For in front of him, Louie’s lips curled into a huge smile that brightened his entire face.

“Thank you,” he beamed up at Dane, whose heart seemed to do a little dance for a second at the sight of his brilliant smile.

Fig, seeing this, clicked his tongue and smirked. He had only intended to mess with Dane for a bit, but it seemed like it worked very well. He leaned towards Callie and whispered, “I know that look,” as he watched Dane’s expression. Callie giggled beside him and nodded in agreement.

“He does tend to fall fast,” she murmured. "Looks like someone has a crush."

Out loud, Fig called out with feigned jealously, “Hey! How come he's the only who gets drinks?”