The door to Xisuma's lodge opened with a soft click. Impulse hummed quietly to himself as he slipped inside and shut it behind him.

His fingers drummed lightly against the doorframe, a quiet redirection of the caffeine he'd just had. He'd woken up early again that morning, so he'd decided to go down to Keralis' coffee place. And Impulse was not disappointed. The roasted bean juice was just as incredible as he'd remembered.

What Impulse had not remembered, however, was how being caffeinated made him feel. He was still as tired as he'd been before, but now he had energy. Lots of it. Maybe he should've started with one shot of espresso rather than five.

Eh. Back when he drank coffee all the time, he could have more than that, multiple times a day.

But at least the caffeine meant that now he felt like he could handle the day. Impulse peeked around the house for Xisuma, he had a few questions that he'd forgotten to ask the mayor yesterday.

"Impulse! I didn't hear you come in!"

Impulse spun around at the noise, finding Xisuma behind him. Impulse gave him a smile that was maybe a bit too wide, but if it was, it was just because of the caffeine.

"Hey Xisuma." Impulse tried to relax his stance a bit, but couldn't seem to stop fidgeting his hands around. "I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions, maybe?"

Xisuma's eyes seemed to light up, with what looked like amusement. "How funny! I had some questions for you as well!"

The mayor motioned for Impulse to follow him into the kitchen to sit down at the table. Impulse slid into the seat across from Xisuma. He started to place his hands up of the table, noticed how they were still jittering, and resorted to hiding them in his lap.

"You can go ahead Impulse. Hit me with it, I'm an open book." Xisuma smiled, waving a hand for him to start.

"Ah, okay." Impulse thought for a moment, picking which question to ask first. "First I guess is, well, why don't you ever take your helmet off? I haven't seen you without it."

Impulse realized he'd probably hit a sensitive topic as Xisuma sucked in a sharp breath. "Hah, I assumed you'd ask that at some point. It is, for the most part, for the aesthetic, but it does have a few filters inside that help me to breathe more easily." Xisuma tapped the bottom of the mask, where Impulse assumed the filters must be.

Before he could ask why Xisuma needed the filters, X continued. "I know the helmet can be a bit intimidating, so I'm sorry about that. Here."

Xisuma undid a few latches around the base of the helmet, and pressed a button. He pulled it off his head with a small hiss sound. Deep brown curls spilled out messily, falling down onto his shoulders. They framed his tan face, which had a large, 'X' shaped scar in the center. He had soft features, and his eyes were a shade of deep purple, wide and sparkly. Odd, shimmery freckles were sprinkled across his face too. Though Impulse had somewhat seen it through the green tinted visor before, it was still a shocking change.

"Surprised?" Xisuma asked, his voice airy and a bit raspy without the helmet. "Most people look at me like that when they see the scar." He traced a finger along the edge of the gash.

"I- uh..." Impulse subconsciously leaned closer, studying Xisuma's unique features. "You're not human, are you?"

Xisuma shook his head. He clicked his helmet back into place, letting out a small sigh as his filtered air returned. "No, I'm not human. I'm from the end. Cool, right?"

"Yeah, That is cool." Impulse felt his heart beat a little faster. Here was another occurrence of someone non-human being accepted into a community with no consequence... Impulse really wanted someone else to know about his secret other than Bdubs. He wanted to tell the whole town. But that would not end well and he knew it. They'd ask what he really was, and a demon is a whole lot less acceptable than an end being.

Luckily, his mind strayed from that as he remembered something. "Oh, right, my other question."

"Go ahead!" Xisuma tapped his fingers on the table, mimicking the energy that Impulse felt inside.

"I was wondering, that town meeting yesterday, how often do you have those? Or are they like, only for special occasions?" Impulse found himself speaking slightly faster than before, the caffeine from earlier really sinking in at this point.

"Ah, great question!" Xisuma answered. "We have town meetings pretty much biweekly, or every other week. You just arrived on a pretty convenient day, since we had a meeting right after. We have had them for certain occasions before, but we don't typically."

Impulse nodded as he took in the information. "Mhmm, thanks. I just had those two questions, so nothing else I needed to ask right now. Your turn?"

Impulse squeezed his hands tightly together in his lap. Yes, you're extremely energetic right now, but keep your cool if he asks you anything serious. He gave himself an internal pep talk.

"I'll go ahead now then," Xisuma started. "Now, I don't want this to feel like an interrogation or anything, so answer however you feel fit. Simple one first: how long do you think you'll be staying here?"

Three months. That was how long he could stay, hypothetically. But it wouldn't be that long if they kicked him out.

"I'm not entirely sure..." Impulse tried to formulate a lie, but just decided to tell a form of the truth. "Well, in all honesty, I'm kind of just waiting for that friend I mentioned the other day. I don't want to be traveling on my own without him, but I don't know how to... uhm, how long it'll be."

This was a conundrum that Impulse hadn't really thought about. Time. He could stay a very short time. But that would mean moving on with absolutely no plan whatsoever. Or, the alternative of actually completing his mission.

Which Impulse had already decided to find a work around for. Even though it would be so easy— no.

"Sorry, let me rephrase that." Impulse stuttered out, realizing he was being incomprehensible. "I do want to stay here, but if my friend finds me, or turns up, I'll be on my way."

Xisuma nodded slowly, his expression switching between confusion and... worry? "The friend, yes. Who are they? If you're okay with telling me."

"Oh, ha," Impulse winced internally as he realized he never had given Xisuma a name. "His name's Skizzleman, or just Skizz. I've known him for a long while, but— but I can't really contact him right now."

Impulse but his lip, realizing that he hadn't actually spoken to Skizz in over a month. That he was the one who'd basically abandoned Skizz with zero explanation. Considering the last interaction they'd had—

Skizz probably thought he was dead.

"Really? No way of contacting him?" Xisuma frowned. "I mean, we could send him a letter if you wanted to."

Impulse held back a scoff and shook his head. You couldn't send letters to the aether. The only way he could talk to Skizz was by reaching out with his magic, but his communication spell had been taken from him. Impulse had tried before, but whatever invisible magic cuff the superiors had put on him just made it not work at all.

It was probably intended to keep him from contacting other demons from back home, but it also worked for connections through the aether as well apparently.

"He can't get letters, where he is right now," Impulse sighed. "I know that makes it sounds like he's in prison or something, but he's not, I swear. Just isolated."

"Yeah, okay. I believe you." Xisuma reassured. "And I wish you the best of luck in getting back together with him."

Impulse breathed in shakily. What if he couldn't get back together with Skizz? What if they never saw each other again? "Yeah," he mumbled. "Sorry. I just miss him a lot."

"Hey," Xisuma reaches across the table and put a hand on his shoulder. "I know it's hard. But the hermits and I could work to help you find him again, if you want."

"Thank you, Xisuma, but no." Impulse shook his head. "I do technically know where Skizz is. I more so need him to find me. But he probably doesn't want to find me, I doubt he even knows I'm still alive."

Impulse paused, cutting himself off slightly as he realized he might've said too much at this point. Xisuma pulled back his hand, and was silent for a moment, giving Impulse a pitying look.

"I'm sorry, it's okay Xisuma, really. I'm exaggerating," Impulse lied. He pulled his hands up and waved them a bit sheepishly. "You had other questions you needed to ask—"

"It's okay to not be okay, Impulse." Xisuma interrupted. "But I'll move on from that. Just know that whatever's going on, I can help you."

Impulse bit down on his lip, feeling himself tense up. Xisuma wouldn't help him if he knew that Impulse just being there was directly dangerous to the mayor and all of his people. But Impulse gave a shaky nod anyways.

"Okay." Xisuma spoke a little more softly than before. "My next question was, which town were you at before this one? Or, where did you come from directly, because I swear you just materialized from out of nowhere."

Impulse let himself giggle at that joke before answering. "Before I ended up here, I passed through a pretty big town north of here. It's like, real far north, but yeah." That was the town that he'd been chased out of, and if he remembered correctly, the same one he'd met Bdubs outside of. "I don't quite remember the name— I think it was Light-ly or Lamely or something."

"Lamply?" Xisuma suggested. "They're north of us."

"Yeah, that's it, I think." Impulse conformed. It was a weird name but the town did have plenty of lampposts, though that probably wasn't the reason it was named that way.

"And how long would you say you were there for?" Xisuma followed up.

"Ah, a few weeks or so, maybe." Impulse made up, because he was fairly sure that the truth of a few hours would sound incredibly unreasonable.

"Huh— That, that maybe lines up." Xisuma murmured to himself, before flicking his head back to Impulse. "You met Bdubs yesterday, correct?"

"Yes." Impulse subconsciously widened his eyes. (Even though they were already wide because of the coffee.) Bdubs was the only one who knew he wasn't human— if he had told Xisuma, everything was over.

"This is more of something I need to talk with him about, but he said that he recognizes you, from that same village." Xisuma explained, and Impulse breathed out in relief. He didn't know.

"I don't remember meeting him." Impulse faked a bit of confusion, furrowing his eyebrows and pursing his lips together. "I mean, like, he could've seen me there or something but we never really crossed paths. And I don't recognize him."

The way he spoke made it sound like he was creating weak excuses, but Xisuma seemed to take the bait anyways, and believed him. "That probably does explain it, thank you. I will have to get back to Bdubs later about it, but for now, don't worry about it. And the last thing I wanted to ask was about how you're getting along with the hermits. I know it's only been a couple days, but I'm hoping not too badly?"

Impulse instantly felt a lot calmer as the Bdubs topic was dropped. He cracked a smile as he answered. "It's been great! Tango's been showing me around everywhere on this endless village tour. But I haven't talked with everyone yet though, and I've noticed False and Etho are a little wary around me, I don't know why."

"Ah I see." Xisuma tapped his chin as he thought. "I talked with False yesterday, she's just always a bit cautious around strangers. She'll warm up eventually. And Etho, he's typically pretty quiet, only really talks much with Doc and Beef, so nothing you did wrong there. And, speaking of the other hermits, I wanted to let you know that we all have these big get togethers at the end of each week, and I'm hosting this week's at the lodge. They're usually pretty chill, but I figured I should warn you anyways."

"Oh, uhm, okay." The thought of all of the hermits being at one place sounded like a bit much to Impulse. He imagined it was probably quite loud and stressful. Impulse tapped his foot anxiously against the ground, feeling worry mix together with caffeine to make a not very tasty stress smoothie. "What do you like, do at those?"

"We usually just have dinner, watch a bunch of movies and play games. Most of the time it turns into a big goofy sleepover. Also, don't worry, not everyone comes to these things. It's usually only like half of us, though it's different each time." Xisuma spoke of the event fondly, and his last sentence was quite reassuring to Impulse.

"That sounds pretty cool, actually." Impulse changed his mind about the get together. His fingers created a drumming rhythm against his chair because of his mishmash of emotions.

And somehow, Xisuma finally noticed when he did that. "Hey, are you good Impulse? You've been real fidgety this whole time— oh no, you had Keralis' coffee, didn't you?"

Impulse's eyes blew a little wider than before. "Only a little bit!" He lied, smirking. "It was reeeeeally good."

Xisuma practically burst out laughing, though Impulse didn't get what was so funny. "That," Xisuma motioned to him and his fidgeting self, "Is not a little bit. And Keralis has found a way to magic extra caffeine into it, so I'm very much hoping you didn't have too much."

"Uh oh." Impulse snorted in a laugh. Even though it was currently under his cloaking spell, he could feel his tail whipping around behind him incredibly fast. "Is five shots of espresso too much?"

"Impulse!" Xisuma exclaimed in a parent's voice before devolving into laughter. He practically melted in his seat like a snowman on a summer day. "That's WAY too much coffee! H-how?!"

"I like coffee okay?!" Impulse tried to excuse himself over both of their laughter. "I've had more than that before!"

"That's frightening, please don't do that." Xisuma said in a quieter voice for comedic effect. When Impulse shook his head in defiance, Xisuma sighed, and dropped his head onto the table. "Another adult shaped child in this village to deal with. I'm so delighted."

Impulse just about died laughing, and he allowed the caffeine take over his system, letting him ride the '5 year old child energy' wave for the rest of the day. And Xisuma barely convinced him not to have any more.

~ end chapter 6 ~

A/N: I based Impulse's experience with caffeine off my own, and I should not be allowed to have any ever again. Also please do not have that many shots of espresso all at once. Spread out through a day, yes, but all at once is not safe. Also could you tell this was a filler chapter? Lovely! Bad shit is happening next.