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Alphonse was suffocating in his failure. Not only did he not understand how to control Cassandra’s body, but every time he tried to maneuver her, her soul popped up behind him and threw his essence across the brain until he was too dizzy to continue. So far, Cassandra’s soul kicked, tossed, bounced, drop-kicked, catapulted, lassoed, and exploded him from an antique pirate ship cannon. Each failed attempt disoriented him more and more. He was running out of ideas on how to use his power to keep her from interfering.

“I need to get out of here.” He said after a long hour of Cassandra’s soul singing a song from the radio that she couldn’t stop singing. The body did homework, though sometimes stopped in distraction. How the girl got anything done was beyond him when her soul couldn’t get a song unstuck from her head.

She flashed him a smile from her gaming chair. “Wow, this is your breaking point? Me singing Ariana Grande? Hey, you still lasted a long time. It’s been a week, but I knew you’d crack soon.”

His misty form enlarged twelve times her height, and he lit the entire corpus callosum on fire in a rage at her words. “I am not cracking!”

With a roll of her eyes, a string fell from the top of the squishy brain tissue. She yanked it, and water cascaded into their nook, engulfing the flames until they disappeared. Alphonse shrunk down to his regular size, fury evaporating as she once again thwarted his efforts. The water disappeared after, and Cassandra smirked.

“I’ll be back,” Alphonse muttered.

“Okay.”

“I just need some fresh air.”

“I understand.”

“When I come back, be ready for a world of pain.”

“I look forward to it, Al.”

How infuriating.

Alphonse left her body and stood beside Cassandra in her bedroom. She typed on her computer at her desk. She hummed the inane song that had been stuck in her head for the past hour. He took a deep breath and let it out.

“This must suck for you.” She said, spinning in her chair to look at him.

“I guess.” He slunk over to the bed and plopped on it, face on the pillow, his dark, misty form spilling all over it.

“Ew!” She shrieked. Alphonse looked over to see her disgusted expression. “Stop… molting! Or whatever you’re doing! What the hell is wrong with you?!”

The fact he was on her bed upset her? His corporeal form had always been completely dark and surrounded by mist and smoke that curled everywhere. It felt like a sad win on his part. He hadn’t even intended to upset her. “You know what, at this point, if this is the most distress I can cause you, I’ll take it.”

Cassandra groaned and rolled her eyes. “Look. Do whatever you want—”

“Cass? Who’re you talking to? I’m heading out!” Antonio’s voice called from outside the room.

“My friends, I’m facetiming! Have fun!” She blurted. For a moment, they were quiet, listening for the boy to walk away. Alphonse nodded at her, his hearing far more acute than hers, and she flashed him a smile. “I’ve got a concert to go to.”

“Ariana Grande?”

She grinned. “Ooh, you pay attention.”

“It wasn’t like I had a choice.”

“Anyway… come to the concert. You look like you’re on edge, and you’re clearly way off your game, and you need to relax.” Alphonse flashed his pointed teeth in a grin, but Cassandra shook her head with a pitying gaze. “Not by killing people.” He frowned. “Like. Let loose kind of thing.”

“I let loose by causing turmoil, and you’re not letting me.”

“That’s not my fault. It’s your fault for being a weak demon.” Alphonse glared at her, and she waved her hands, frantic. “Which is okay! You can’t possess everybody. You were bound to come across someone like me one day.”

Someone like her? Were there humans that demons couldn’t possess? In all his years, Alphonse never came across someone like her. Was there a way to get around Cassandra’s defenses that he was unaware of?

He turned onto his back with a growl and glared at her. “It’s not okay. It’s humiliating! There’s nothing special about you!” He said, frustrated. Cassandra pressed her lips together and looked away. “Besides, why would I want to go to a concert to have fun? That’s not my idea of fun. It’s not what I’m supposed to do.”

“God, you’re pathetic.”

Alphonse sat up, and in the blink of an eye, he appeared right before her face, eyes alight with fire. “What did you say?!”

“You’re pathetic!” She repeated, shrugging. “Get out of my face! You keep trying to intimidate me, but it’s not working. You keep trying to control my body and my mind, and it’s definitely not working. If you wanted me dead so badly, you could just get on with it right here and now. Go on. Do it.” She stretched her arms out to the sides as if embracing death.

Alphonse did nothing. He frowned. It would be too easy, wouldn’t it? He could end her life in the next moment in several ways. Would she let him, or was this her pretending to let him have the upper hand again? Was her body as powerful as her soul? Could she defend herself from him like she already had?

Although, if she possessed the same defenses now that he wasn’t in her mind, why wouldn’t she protect herself from her abusive mother?

Cassandra lowered her arms and folded her hands on her lap. “Either you’re scared, I’ll kick your ass again, or you’re too obsessed with the slow burn of torture that you won’t kill me now.”

Miraculously, she spoke the truth with both assumptions. He loathed that she could read him like a book. She mentioned a demon before him. This wasn’t her first rodeo. Cassandra knew what demons were like and how they thought.

“You can always try possessing someone else. The odds are in your favor of possessing a victim weaker than me.” She told him. “And if not… concert tonight. You can hitch a ride in my brain, and we can party all night.”

“I don’t want to give you the satisfaction in thinking you’ve won,” Alphonse growled, pointing an accusing claw at her. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing!” He yelled. “You’re trying to lure me into a false sense of security so you can destroy me like you did that other demon.”

A laugh burst out of the girl, and she shook her head at him in disbelief. “What?! You think I destroyed the other demon? Maybe I destroyed his morale, but I’m not capable of killing demons. You’re so funny. And… there’s nothing false about my security. You’re the one who’s trying to destroy my life, last I checked. Other than slapping you around, when have I ever actually made an effort to destroy you or even kick you out of my head? You left on your own volition.” She shrugged and looked him up and down with a knowing smirk.

Alphonse lowered his hand and growled low in his throat. She wasn’t wrong, and he hated that. Something she said surprised him, and he looked at her with a cautious gaze. “You’d be okay with me possessing you again?”

“If we’re being honest, you haven’t really possessed me at all. You’ve just been hanging around. I won’t let you possess me. I will never let you possess me. Don’t you understand?” She giggled and stood from her chair to go to her closet, rummaging in it. Clothes flew out of her hands and smacked Alphonse in the face in her search, making him sputter in surprise. “But you still sit in with me. Besides, if you’re coming to the concert with me, I don’t have a ticket for you.”

“Yeah, and I don’t resemble a human whatsoever,” Alphonse muttered, pulling a bra off his face. A high-pitched scream crawled out his throat, and he flung the garment away. “Ew, get it away!” He cried, swooping away to perch on the windowsill.

Cassandra turned to him with furrowed brows and rolled her eyes. “It’s just a fucking bra, you baby.” Alphonse hissed at her. “So, that means you’re coming?”

He said nothing.

“Well, let me know if you pop into my head. You have my consent, just say the word. It could be fun for you.”

Jade called her phone. Cassandra squealed before answering with excitement. Without warning, she started changing, and Alphonse turned around to face the window he sat on to give her privacy. He couldn’t go to a concert without causing death! What kind of demon was he, accompanying a human to enjoy a concert? He didn’t even like Ariana Grande. As a matter of fact, he didn’t like any music. Music wasn’t something Alphonse took a chance on.

Still, Alphonse sensed something odd gnawing at his entire being that felt so familiar, but the reason was new. Desire was always prominent inside him, often based on death, torture, and misery. When terrible things happened to others, a satisfying thrill filled him. Sure, some would suggest that desire was bad because it wasn’t nice to want to watch people in pain, but he loved it. Couldn’t get enough of it.

This desire was different. It was a desire that came from something he didn’t know he could have. He looked down at his dark form, smoke curling and twisting around him. Darkness. It was what he was. Demons were inhuman. It made sense to take on this vacant form.

With a slow lift of his hand, he touched where his chest and heart should be. His hand didn’t stop, didn’t come into contact with a surface, and he let out a soft gasp. It continued to reach, only going through the mist that was his body. There was nothing but air. He reached, reached for something that wasn’t there, swiped at the air. Void.

“You can turn around now,” Cassandra said, drawing him out of his unwanted thoughts. He stood on the ground and swept over to her in a cloud of smoke at his feet. She wore a loose sweatshirt, leggings, and was perfecting a high ponytail in front of a body length mirror.

“You’re copying her.”

“So, you know who Ariana Grande is.”

“I said nothing of the sort. Are there going to be more girls with hair like this?”

“Probably.”

“You’re going to give yourself traction alopecia.”

“I’m not. I, like, never wear my hair like this.” She fluffed the top of her ponytail and swung it around, hitting him in the face. Alphonse spat and glared. Although, why didn’t her hair pass through him like his own hand did?

“So!” She turned to look up at him, grinning. “Are you coming? I’m going to Jade’s, and we’re going together in her car.”

“Your brother?”

“He’s off to his friend’s house, remember? A sleepover. I wouldn’t be going if he was left alone without me. We had this planned for months.” Alphonse nodded, recalling her organized brain. It was good. He supposed that the siblings could schedule their lives together as safe as possible. “Come. What else do you have to do otherwise? Mope around at how you can’t possess me? You won’t move on to someone else, so… what’ll you do?”

Cassandra had a point. He sucked in a deep breath, looking at her excited, young expression full of a light he had intended to snuff out. “Okay.” He couldn’t believe he agreed to this at all. “I’ll… come.” With a grimace, he entered the girl through her open mouth and found himself back in the Ariana Grande music-filled corpus callosum, making him regret this as he sat beside her.

What am I doing?!