Demon with wings (a Hazbin Hotel and Helluva boss fanfic)

Part 11

It was officially a year since Astrid's death, and she had almost forgotten until she noticed the uncomfortable amount of sexual advertisements covering the streets. She was wearing a simple hoodie with leggings and staring at the ground when she had the sudden feeling that she was being watched. She stopped in front of an ally and looked around curiously when she noticed 2 yellow pinpricks focusing on her in the ally. They grew closer and the owner of them stepped into the light, revealing it to be a familiar creature.

Astrid smiled and bent down the scratch the dark grey cat with a white face and paws. "What are you doing here, Socks?" She asked the cat. It looked exactly like how she remembered her cat, if you didn't count the fact that her cat now had small devil horns and his previously fluffy bottlebrush tail was now a thin line with a small flame on the end, or at least a tuft of fur that looked remarkably like fire. She picked Socks up off the ground and, as he used to, he crawled up around her shoulders and lay there, purring.

When she got into the office she picked her cat off her shoulders and cradled him in her arms. "Blitz I brought a cat with me!" She called up the staircase before proceeding to the staff room. "Why? There are cats all over hell, you've been here for about a year now, surely you would've noticed them?" But he relented and walked over to scratch Socks between the ears. "I've been here exactly 1 year to the date. Anyways I'm pretty sure this is my cat that I had in the living world, but he's so sweet, why would he end up here?"

"Heaven claimed all the dogs to themselves so we get the cats, no matter what they were like." Moxie said, coming from the staff room.

Astrid wondered what might've killed Socks, as she was sure it wasn't old age since he was still fairly young when she died. Maybe he was sick, or died of starvation?

Millie seemed to love Socks and Luna didn't seem to mind him as much as Astrid thought she was. They were slow on clients and could only really just sit and wait for someone to come in. They were no longer allowed to practice in the staff room so they sat making awkward idle chit chat.

Blitz suddenly opened the door, the same way he did to introduce a new client on Astrid's first day, and announced "Team, we have a new client. I want you to meet Husker!" He stepped aside to reveal... nobody. Oh wait, Husker was just shorter than he was in the living world. He now strongly resembled Socks, but with fake wings and a top hat. Astrid let out a small gasp, "Husker!?"

He looked over at her, ears pricked, and raised an eyebrow. "Do I know you?" Astrid rolled her eyes. "It's Astrid, it's been a year, so I'm not sure if you were ever sober enough to remember that I exist when I wasn't there to save my cat from your apartment." She had dropped the idea of trying to be polite to Husk, especially since he never seemed to be nicer to her in the first place. "Oh so you two know each other, great!" Blitz didn't seem to pick up on the cold air between them, or if he did he was just pretending he didn't. "He used to be my neighbor. Hey why do you look like Socks?"

Demons typically took the form of something that represented them in life, or something that relates to their death. Astrid wasn't sure what aspect she'd gotten from her form, but the casino cards that seemed to make up Husker's wings made sense, but the fact that he looked like Socks threw her off.

Husk shrugged. "It might've been cause I ran the damn cat over." Astrid stood up at this, and then became confused. "Why? Unless you got a job and a car in the past year, how did you run him over?"

"That's why I came here, I need a guy dead because he beat me up after I won a game of cards against him at a bar. Then I stole his car, accidentally ran over your stupid cat, had my car shot at from my apartment building and then swerved off the road and into a building. At least I think that's what happened, hard to tell because I was drunk and everything was blurry."