Joe liked to take pleasure in the simple things in life. Right now, for example, they were  appreciating the sound that the gravel path made under their feet. The rhythmic crunch-crunch filled their ears as they made their way to the library.

They carried a few books under their arm that they'd just picked up from Doc. The creeper hybrid had checked out some herbal healing guides, hoping to find some information to help speed along Keralis' recovery. Luckily for the hermits, Keralis was doing much better, after having time to heal, and he was even out of the infirmary now.

A lot of worry had been buzzing through the village because of their fellow hermit. Joe hadn't really been too worried, though. Well, of course, they had been sympathetic, but they didn't really have a reason to worry. They'd long ago figured out that Keralis wasn't quite the human he claimed he was. There was something unexplainable to the man, something just screaming of ancient magic.

So, Joe's case in point was that Keralis obviously hadn't been as injured as he'd appeared to be, whatever magic he had likely speeding up his healing processes. But, Joe was glad their fellow hermits were worried for Keralis. It was sweet to see all of their efforts towards helping him.

Sweet thoughts aside, Joe had reached their library. "After you, Joe. No, after you, I insist," they giggled to themself as they opened the big double doors to the building. Joe winced at the sad creaking cries they made, making a mental note to oil their hinges later as they shut loudly.

A low thud-thudding sound made itself known once the doors had quit their groaning, echoing through the quiet library. Thud-thud. Joe placed their stack of books down on the front desk, ignoring the sound for the time being in favor of scanning their eyes down the book spines and noting their numbers and authors, in order to properly sort them by the Dewey Decimal System, one of the things that brought satisfying order to a chaotic life. Thud-thud. Each book, unsurprisingly, needed to be sorted into the same section, so Joe gathered them back up to put them away. Thud-thud. A few other unsorted books had been left on the front desk, but they could get to those in a minute.

Thud-thud– Okay, that sound was getting rather annoying now. That's just what they get for not living in a vacuum, Joe supposed. Sound waves could be as irritating as they pleased with the medium to do so, and Joe so happened to live where sound could travel. It could be inconvenient.

Joe's pointed ears twitched as the noise reverberated off the walls again, and they headed in search of the source, books still in arm. It got louder the closer they got to it.

Rounding a corner into the back of the nonfiction section, they were met with books strewn across a table, some flipped open to random pages, and others stacked on top of each other. There was a small moth walking around on the table, weaving its way between books. Joe would've been concerned for the wellbeing of his books around a moth which they assumed was capable of eating the poor pages, had there not been a certain hermit– who owned said insect– locked in a contemplative pace next to the table.

It was Impulse, flipping through a small paperback as he paced, his tail flicking behind him and thwacking into the table legs rhythmically. Thud-thud. Ah.

"So that's what's been disruptin' the vacuum-adjacent environment," Joe hummed to themselves. Impulse paused his pacing and turned to face Joe, the low thuds abruptly coming to a stop. The demon blinked slowly, wide brown eyes staring Joe down confusedly. "Howdy!"

Joe smiled, abandoning their stack of books on the edge of the table in favor of curiosity. "Whatcha doin'?"

Impulse remained frozen for a moment or two more, clearly caught off guard by Joe's arrival. The demon gave a slow shrug, glancing between Joe and the books on the table, as if Joe already knew what was going on. "Research?" Impulse finally said, though he phrased it like a question, as if he didn't actually know what he was doing either.

"Self discovery research?" Joe joked, grabbing the largest book off the table, which happened to be a dusty old tome on demons. They were pretty sure it was the same one they'd lent out to Bdubs a while back; to be fair, they had next to no books about demons in the library, so there was a very low likelihood that it wasn't.

In response, Impulse just shrugged again, while Joe flipped through the book curiously, not landing on any specific page.

"You could call it that?" Impulse's voice went up a pitch when he spoke. "I dunno." He paused, staring at the book Joe had taken. "All of the information in there is super inaccurate by the way."

"I would assume so," Joe huffed, trying to hold back a laugh at Impulse's comically irritated tone. "I don't think the people who wrote this have ever actually met a demon before. And also it's probably older than Keralis' grandmother." Joe realized only after he made the joke that Impulse probably wouldn't understand, not privy to the same knowledge about Keralis' indiscernible age.

The demon still laughed anyway, stepping around the table to peer at the book over Joe's shoulder. He placed down the paperback he'd already been holding, meaning Joe could see the cover. They noted that the title read A Dummy's Guide to Dark Magic before returning their attention to Impulse, who was flipping the pages of the demon book as they held it.

Impulse stopped flipping, giggling at the page he'd landed on. "This one, Joe, look at this one, it's so dumb." At the top of the page there was a title that read, A Demon's Diet, Cont.

Impulse pointed to a paragraph and began reading aloud. "...It is a known fact that all demons are strictly carnivorous, typically preferring red meats. It is believed they also frequently eat their meat raw, though it is unclear the exact reasons why this is preferred. Demons also specifically detest sweets. Anything sugary is said to immensely displease them... blah blah blah."

Joe had to admit, that information sounded like the writer hadn't even tried to corroborate it. A low chuckle escaped Impulse as he looked away from the book. "Listen, Joe, if I had to go on a diet in which I couldn't have any of Scar's bakery treats, I think I would, I dunno, spontaneously combust! Also, I don't think I've ever met a completely carnivorous demon. There's so much nonsense in this book," he laughed, tail flicking lightly behind him.

"I think I would spontaneously combust too, ha!" Joe smiled, closing the book and tapping their fingers on the leather cover. "Maybe I should put this one in the fiction section," they noted.

"Maybe you should," Impulse absentmindedly re-ordered the small stack of books on the table. "Well, not all of it is that incorrect, to be fair." Joe handed him the demon book, and he placed it where he wanted with the others.

"That's the trouble with ancient texts, you can never quite tell the accuracy of whatch ya workin' with. And you can get pretty widespread misinformation with just one poorly marked piece of literature when there's books like these." Joe mused, pushing their glasses up their nose contemplatively. "It's probably best to just leave that one where it was though," they motioned towards the demon book. "We already know it's not accurate, and I wouldn't want to mess up my organizin' system."

"Ah, of course. Gotta keep that organization in check," Impulse laughed as if he didn't know what he was saying. He glanced around at the neatly kept library. Or well, mostly neat. (Joe sometimes forgot that tidying was a thing that existed, sue them.) Each book had its own place though, and relocating that one book would probably mean shifting around others here and there and all over the place so that everything's location comparatively made sense.

All of that shuffling would probably, most definitely mess things up. Joe nodded their agreement.

Well, Joe didn't want to keep Impulse from whatever he was doing. It was clearly somewhat important judging by all the serious informational tomes littering the table, and they didn't want to be too much of a distraction.

"I'll leave you to it, then," they said, turning to grab the books they'd left on the end of the table.

"Actually, Joe, wait–"

Joe turned back around to find Impulse a couple steps closer to him, a conflicted expression in his eyes. The librarian waited, humoring Impulse. The demon took a considerable amount of time to gather his words, suddenly fidgety and hesitant under Joe's gaze.

Impulse glanced back to the table, picking a book from his stack. Joe waited patiently, remembering the demon was probably going through a lot in his head, if the things regarding him they'd been told by the other hermits recently were anything to go by.

"Do you think you could look at something for me?" Impulse finally asked vaguely, his voice full of the apprehension Joe expected. He flipped to a page in the book hesitantly, as if he expected Joe to immediately turn him down and leave him alone. But the fae wasn't going to do that, obviously.

"A' course!" Joe responded, their tone a massive contrast to Impulse's. With a relieved smile, Impulse passed them the open book and sat down at the table, turning the chair next to him invitingly. "Thanks," The demon said quietly as Joe sat down.

"Now, what're we lookin' at here?" Joe asked as they scanned the page quickly. The book was one that covered an assortment of different spells, flipped open to the dark magic section. The two page spread was titled "Manual Spell Restrictions," and had a few paragraphs of descriptions and an illustration of a lock and chains in the bottom corner.

"Magic restrictions, or locks basically," Impulse leaned over the book next to Joe. "Do you know anything about them?" He spoke with a hint of resentment, motioning towards the page.

Joe hummed, skimming the paragraphs quickly. The book explained that a restriction spell was a spell that one magic user could do to another to prevent the use of a specific spell or type of spell. It also noted that it was a very difficult spell to perform for most magic users.

"Oh, I think the fae use a spell like this," Joe realized, talking with their hands. "We call 'em blanket spells, since it's sort of like coverin' someone else's magic with a blanket." At that, Impulse lit up a little, eyes curious.

"You plannin' on using one?" Joe continued with more than a hint of concern in their voice. Blanket spells weren't something to mess around with. And they certainly weren't kind spells either. "...Your magic is probably strong enough if you wanted to– but you better not do it to me!"

"No," Impulse spat quickly. He fidgeted with his hands in an embarrassed way, not meeting Joe's gaze. "No, I- um... you wouldn't- ah- happen to know any sort of way to reverse one of these spells, would you?"

With the sound of Impulse's claws click-clacking against the table in their ears, Joe pieced two and two together. Impulse had been involved in a restriction spell, hadn't he? The real question was who the victim of the spell was- the demon, or someone else? Joe started to speak, but faltered, something catching in the back of their throat when they thought about how they'd feel if someone used a restriction spell on them.

"Did you-" They started, before cutting themself off. Impulse shrunk in his chair.

"Only- uhm, only the spellcaster can undo a restriction spell." Joe opted to answer the question simply, hoping the easy factual answer would alleviate the less easily described awkwardness. "I think there's more information about how to do it in the book..."

The fae trailed off, catching Impulse's reaction to the information. Impulse's steady finger drumming picked up its pace, his features pinching together before he flicked his head to make direct eye contact with Joe.

"Are you sure? Only the spellcaster?" Impulse's voice peaked just above a whisper. Joe managed a nod. They prided themself in being rather well versed regarding magic, and while they didn't know as much about restriction spells as they did other incantations, they still knew what they were talking about. Impulse looked away again, eyes far off. "I can't... I can't undo it."

He stopped drumming his fingers, going still and stoic. His face pulled this way and that as he thought for a minute. Joe thought for a minute too. Empathy flooded the fae's voice when they spoke.

"Someone used a restriction spell on you," they said. At the same time, Impulse let out a resigned sigh, expression evening into one of acceptance.

To confirm Joe's statement, Impulse held out a hand, making a common signal to summon a fire spell. Instead of a vibrant blaze dancing across the demon's fingers, a sad wisp of smoke rose above his hand, vaguely shaped like a lock. The purple-ish smoke didn't linger, vanishing almost as soon as it had made itself known. "Yep," Impulse murmured.

While Impulse seemed nonchalant about the situation, Joe felt a surge of anger, directed at whoever was heartless enough to put that spell on Impulse. "Who- who did that to you?!" Joe impulsively took the demon's hands in their own. "Why?"

Impulse flinched back at the touch, his eyes conveying something of a warning.

"I- listen, it was my fault anyways..." the demon trailed off, an indecisive lilt to his voice showing he didn't really know what to answer. "I made mistakes and I got what I de– I mean, it was bound to happen."

Joe failed to hold back a sigh. It was partly because of Impulse's vagueness, and partly in sympathy. The demon didn't look done talking, but he also looked like if he said another word he might genuinely explode.

"It's okay," Joe breathed after a moment of awkward silence. "You don't have to explain. But, assumin' you know the spellcaster, you can probably convince them to reverse it," they offered. 

"...Thanks, but no." Impulse pulled away from Joe and adjusted the stack of books so that they lined up neatly. His movements were strict, calculated. "I don't think I can convince some all-powerful demon overlords to lift that spell. Not when I'm already in their bad books for the rest of forever."

There. It slipped out. That was it. That was what Impulse couldn't bring himself to say, and yet he said it so calmly. Though if his body language was anything to go by, he was beating himself up for even speaking at all.

"Oh," was all Joe managed at first. They had to admit, the spellcaster being a demon overlord definitely made things just a little bit trickier. Not sure what to do, Joe imagined how they'd feel if some of their magic was taken from them and they just found out it was irreversible due to the circumstances of the situation. Far from good, they imagined. The fae reached out to Impulse, trying to offer whatever comfort they could give. Impulse leaned in, letting Joe set a hand on his shoulder. His pet moth seemed to have the same idea, clambering up to his other shoulder and planting herself there.

"What spells did you lose?" Joe asked quietly. When Impulse didn't answer for a moment, they started to second guess their words, realizing they were probably being insensitive–

"Uh, not a lot," Impulse held out a hand and started ticking off his fingers. "Fire spells, obviously. Communication spells. Transport glyph spells. Summoning spells... Blood magic? I don't know much so I don't know if that one counts. And a few other elemental spells. That's- yeah- that's it."

Impulse turned to him, demeanor still strangely placid. "I know it sounds like a lot, but it's okay, I swear," The demon reassured, clearly having caught on to Joe's shock regarding everything. To be fair, Joe hadn't really been trying to hide it at all. "I wanted them back but I- I don't need them. It's not like they'd do much anyways, and the superiors would probably just take them again. Or try something else to make me get more souls for them."

...

"Souls?" Joe fought the urge to pull their hand away. Impulse was a demon, demons dealt with souls and killing people, this wasn't unusual, Joe just didn't expect it- it was fine.

Impulse went back to drumming his fingers across the table. "Gotta get three," he hummed, voice sing-songy.

Heartbeat going funny in their chest, Joe hummed their acknowledgement of his statement. They paused, looking away and then back again. "And why haven't we talked about this before?" Their intonation may have been similar to that of an elementary school teacher, but it got the point across.

It was barely noticeable when Impulse's features filled with a sudden dread, and realization at what he'd said. Maybe something he'd never meant to say. "Because I'm not going to- um- collect three anyways." Impulse stiffened up. "I'm not going to. I never was going to. I- I will not collect souls for them, and maybe that's why they took away my magic, and maybe that's why I'm scared they're going to take more or do worse, but I can't kill people, even though they want me to and even though they say it's easy, I can't, I can't and I won't do it."

Silence was the only thing that followed Impulse's breathless rant. The demon's eyes were shaky and pleading. Impulse was silently begging Joe to believe him, that much was obvious. And while Joe was certainly surprised by the sudden outburst, and what clearly seemed to be a lot of pent up secrets, they did believe Impulse was telling the truth- that he had no intent on murder or soul collecting.

With the way Impulse had rambled like Joe wasn't there to hear, Joe knew he wasn't lying. And Joe knew he wasn't lying because otherwise the demon would've already killed someone, easily. Because otherwise the demon wouldn't have been so scared of what he is the whole time they'd known him. Because otherwise the demon wouldn't have been so clearly terrified of being seen as a killer.

So, coming to a conclusion on Impulse's honesty, Joe analyzed the demon's situation itself in their head. It was clearly a lot for the demon to handle talking to people about, otherwise they're sure they would've already found out about it.

"So, the other demons want you to collect souls for 'em. But you don't want to since it entails killing people. But if you did, they might give you your magic back," Joe hummed slowly, thinking aloud. They waited for confirmation from Impulse that they hadn't summed up the situation incorrectly. For a moment the brunette seemed frozen, as if hearing someone describing the whole thing back to him was sending him into shock. To be fair, he clearly seemed like he hadn't spoken to anyone about it before, so the reaction made sense.

Impulse was finally able to give a nod, lips pulling into a small grimace.

Joe stayed quiet for a while, letting Impulse get over his- whatever was going on. The demon was likely just coming to terms with the fact that he'd spilled a pretty big secret. While Impulse was processing, Joe was already brainstorming solutions to this oddly specific problem. After giving Impulse time, they spoke up again.

"Do you think there's a way to get souls without killing people?" Joe pondered the thought curiously. If the answer was yes, then it could lead to a clear solution. One that sidestepped Impulse's moral dilemma over committing murder while delivering results to the people who wanted them. Or, evil demon superior people that wanted them- same thing.

Rather than being equally curious, Impulse just looked skeptical and a bit uncomfortable. "Well, having a soul in the first place implies that something had to die for you to get it."

Obvious, of course, but it didn't really contradict Joe's point. "But it doesn't have to die by your hand, does it?"

"No, but–"

"There! My point exactly." Joe's wings flicked behind them excitedly, a mischievous idea suddenly forming. Impulse just sighed, running his hands down his face. "And how do you suggest I find a dead person?" he questioned, voice thick with irritation. Fair point. Joe wasn't up for committing a homicide themselves, and the only dead person they knew was Cleo, who Joe assumed wouldn't be too keen on having their soul taken, if they did have a soul at all.

But there were definitely other ways of coming across the deceased. Joe snapped their fingers at the realization, shouting out their suggestion. "Graverobbing!"

"S'cuse me?!" Impulse snapped his head up, brown eyes blown wide. "That's like, illegal!" he argued.

Right, Joe hadn't thought about that fact. "I suppose you're right," they answered calmly. "Though murdering people is illegal too, so if you had to pick between the two..." they trailed off, wondering about the immorality of both crimes.

Impulse tried to stifle a chuckle by looking incredibly annoyed. "Joe, I think neither is the better option!" The demon exclaimed.

"Yeah, yeah," Joe waved him off. They already knew the idea wasn't plausible, they just couldn't help but be morbidly curious about it. "Why is graverobbin' such a big deal anyways? It always seems to be about disrespect, but how can it be disrespectful if the person you're diggin' up is dead in the first place?"

Impulse sighed again, letting the last of his annoyance leave him before leaning into curiosity as well. "I dunno. I think if I was a ghost, I'd be pretty annoyed with my grave bein' destroyed, wouldn't you?"

"Hmm, well, all graves will inevitably be destroyed because of changes in the environment over time." Joe shrugged. "So it would be hubris to be annoyed, I think."

"Fair." Lost in thought, Impulse absentmindedly messed with his hair, which was currently in a small ponytail. "Disregarding morals and legal-ness and whatnot, graverobbing still probably wouldn't work anyways. You don't typically find dead people with souls, demons and angels and stuff like to snap them up as soon as someone's died." His voice was low, half of his words breathy and muttered.

"Oh, figures." Unfortunate, but it made sense. Joe figured if graverobbing did come with the acquisition of free souls, it would probably be a lot more commonplace. Still illegal, but with more frequent occurrences. If Impulse really did want to acquire souls, he'd have to find some other way.

But, the longer Joe thought about it, they couldn't seem to puzzle out another way of getting souls that wouldn't involve murder of any kind. "I don't know if there is a way to get souls, if that doesn't work," they voiced, volume lowering in dejection. "...I'm sorry."

Impulse nodded, face pulling in a barely perceptible grimace. "It's- It's fine. We can figure something out, maybe." the demon's breaths picked up and his eyes flicked around, not finding anything to land on. His shoulders sunk in defeat, but Joe was quick to reassure, offering a careful smile. "We can figure something out, I know you want your magic back."

"Yeah," Impulse said hoarsely, like something was caught in the back of his throat. He looked up at Joe like a dog left out in the rain, a dismal air about him.

He seemed so hurt, but Joe could try their best to make him feel better. "We can figure something out," they repeated, voice soft and comforting. "We've got all the time in the world."

Impulse looked ready to cry.

"You've got all the time in the world." Joe reassured.

~ end chapter thirty three ~
[NO CHAPTER ART SORRY]

A/N: My bad, I disappeared for almost two months again. Sorry for those of y'all begging for updates in the comments lol. I'm on summer break now, so I'm gonna try and buckle down and post more! We don't have a tone of chapters left to go, and I'm very excited for all of them! See you again in a bit!