Tango hadn't felt his heart thumping this hard in a good couple years. You see, demon hearts are much weaker and less necessary than human ones, and in the other side of the chest. But he was afraid, and his heart decided he needed to be ready to run at any given opportunity. So a loud thumping was echoing through his head.

Now, what reason did he have for being so afraid? He wasn't even normally afraid of death, due to his immortal nature. But with demise going on, who knows how much of his immortality had been temporarily stripped from. He knew he couldn't summon his sword, for one thing. He'd had to settle for diamond instead of his magical masterwork iron-and-ruby blade.

And so here he was, not knowing how mortal he was, clutching an unfamiliar diamond sword for dear life. He looked the reaper, Ren, dead in the eye through the door. And yet he was terrified. He couldn't guarantee his own life, and so his heart was thumping to remind him that it wasn't over yet.

As he tried to lock eyes through Ren's sunglasses, he struggled to maintain his human illusion. His wings screamed for him to show them, to fly out of this situation. His eyes screamed for him to let them glow, to scare off the threat with his unnatural magic. His claws screamed for him to use them, scratch Ren across the face. The face that stared down at him, chilling his bones.

But Tango resisted. Tango resisted the demonic instinct. He was afraid for his life, yes, but he was also afraid that the hermits wouldn't want a demon in their midst. Impulse hadn't taken it well, how could he know that others wouldn't react the same? What if he got kicked out of demise? What if?

Ren turned away, gliding off to torment someone who actually still had a soul. As soon as Tango knew he couldn't be seen, he let out a deep breath he hadn't known he'd been keeping in. He felt his wings unfold behind his back, wrapping around him like a blanket. He saw his hands become mottled with red scales as his claws appeared.

And his heartbeat slowed, back to the negligible silence it was the majority of the time. And he hoped nobody could see him, reduced to this husk of the person they knew him as. Reduced to his true face, his true heartbeat.

And That's a wrap! Tango's episode inspired me to get the creativity juice out. Yay.

I've got myself a proper upload schedule now, and have decided for sanity reasons that I will no longer upload on Wednesdays. Sorry about that, it's the exhaustion. Other than that, it's simple. I'll do something AU-based on Tuesday and Friday. I'll work on major arcs on Monday and Saturday, and I'll upload independent oneshots, tags, A/Ns et cetera on Thursday and Sunday.

Also I'm going to do proper covers for all the books.

Autocorrect, signing off from the past!