The Devil in the Details
Summary; A demon’s spirit is harder to break than his glass cage
⚠️ content advisory: demon whumpee, tiny whumpee, dehumanization, captivity, sunburn, confinement, threat of noncon, nonconsensual bathing, nonconsensual dressing up
Fandom: original work | WRITING MASTERLIST
notes: @whumpgiftswap gift for @willa-whumps
The sun beat down like a hammer on an anvil.
Leander cracked open one eye—then another, and another, until a dozen of the extra ones flickered into existence across his scarred skin. His head throbbed. His mouth tasted blood.
Right. The bite. The swearing. The very clear "fuck no" when Tearney had started getting handsy with his breeding bullshit.
Leander tried to shift and immediately regretted it. The jar was barely big enough for him to curl up in, let alone stretch his three ragged pairs of wings. One wing was already pinned awkwardly beneath him, the dark membranes crumpled against the curved glass.
His tail and fins were coiled tight around his legs. The black-armored claws of his hands scraped uselessly at the smooth walls.
"Fuck everything," he rasped. The air inside was thick, humid, and scorching. Sweat (or maybe it was just condensation from his smoky aura) beaded on his black-and-green tinged skin and rolled down the exposed bone of his jaw. His long pointed ears twitched at tiny creaks of the glass as it expanded in the heat. Everything hurt.
He remembered the fight. Tearney looming over him with that smug, "You're mine now, little demon. Might as well make yourself useful." Leander had laughed in his face first, sarcastic and feral.
Then he'd told Tearney exactly where he could shove his breeding plans, followed it up with several colorful suggestions involving angels and rusty pitchforks, and topped the whole performance off by sinking his jagged teeth into the human's wrist.
Tearney had not appreciated the feedback.
Now Leander was trapped and cooked alive under the midday sun. No shade nor mercy. His immortal body could take a lot, but the heat pressed in on every scar from Hell.
His horns felt like they were boiling inside his skull. The soft lilac mess of his hair stuck to his forehead in sweaty clumps.
"Fucking... tech-nerd," Leander forced a humorless grin. "Hope your wrist rots off. Hope your dick falls off next. Bet it was small anyway."
A surge of fury burned through the haze of pain. He wasn’t going to just lie here and cook like some pathetic specimen.
Leander twisted as much as the cramped space allowed, drawing his arm back. With a snarl, he slammed his fist into the curved glass as hard as he could. The impact jolted up his arm and into his shoulder, sending agony through his burned skin. The jar didn’t even crack.
“Break, you piece of shit!”
He struck again. And again. Each punch grew more desperate. Tiny sparks of hellfire licked across his knuckles, but the glass simply absorbed the heat. His tail lashed violently, slamming its spiked fins against the bottom of the jar, but all it did was bruise his own coils.
He braced his back against one side and kicked with both clawed feet. The jar rocked before settling back. Not a single crack. Not a scratch. Whatever this thing was made of, it was far stronger than normal glass.
Leander's extra eyes stung with sweat. He threw his head forward, smashing one curved horn against the wall. A sharp crack of pain exploded behind his eyes, but the jar remained pristine.
"Fuck you, fucking glass!" He roared as he hammered at the glass with both fists in a frenzy. His wings spasmed. The smoky aura around him flared wildly.
Nothing worked.
Leander finally slumped back. His knuckles were split and bleeding.
"Son of a bitch..." he whispered hoarsely as he looked at the uncaring sky beyond the glass.
Then he summoned his flames. A weak spark flared in his palm but that was it. Smoke curled uselessly from his pores, trapped in the jar, making the air even thicker and harder to breathe. His enhanced senses were a curse now.
Leander bared his sharp teeth, "Nice try, you pathetic fucking tech-wannabe. Cage me like a goddamn bug? I'll piss on your grave one day."
Yet the heat pressed harder. The glass burned where it touched him. His wings trembled, membranes drying and cracking at the edges. His tail spasmed, fins wilting. Even his claws felt heavy. He shifted again, trying to find a cooler patch, but there was none. Just relentless heat.
"Should've bitten his dick off instead," he muttered. Sarcasm was his shield. Always had been. Pain could go fuck itself—he'd laugh at it until the end. "Bet it would've been easy. Tiny target."
Time blurred. The sun climbed mercilessly high. Leander's extra eyes squeezed shut one by one as the glare and heat overwhelmed them. His breathing grew shallow. The smoky aura around him thickened into a choking haze. Under normal circumstances it cloaked him, concealed his scent and made predators think twice.
But inside the jar, it had nowhere to go.
The black haze curled against the curved glass and folded back over itself, growing denser. Leander coughed. The smoke tasted acrid on his tongue, heavy with brimstone and burnt iron. His own aura pressed into his lungs.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me…”
He tried to suppress it. He clenched every muscle he could, forcing himself to stay still, to calm down, to stop the involuntary release. The effort only made his pulse race harder.
More smoke bled from his skin.
The inside of the jar became a murky black fog. Even his many eyes struggled to pierce it. The world shrank until there was only burning glass against his back, scorching air above him, and the suffocating cloud his own body refused to stop producing.
He hacked violently. His horns throbbed. Black spots danced across every eye he possessed. The defiant fire in his chest flickered lower and lower.
He slammed a clawed fist weakly against the glass. The world tilted. His vision swam. The heat won.
Leander's head lolled against the burning glass, teeth still bared in one last snarl. His wings went limp. His tail uncoiled weakly. One by one, the multitude of eyes closed.
He passed out in the sweltering jar.
***
Leander jolted awake with a strangled hiss. Sunburned skin screamed in protest. His eyes snapped open at once, pupils contracted to slits. He was no longer in the jar. Instead, he was cupped in Tearney’s large palm, half-submerged in a shallow bowl of water that felt freezing against his scorched body. The human’s fingers moved with deliberate care as he dabbed cloth over Leander's shoulders and wings.
"Fuck!" Leander arched his back. The burns were everywhere: raw, blistering patches across his exposed jaw, down his arms, over the membranes of his wings. Even the scars from Hell felt freshly flayed. “Get your fucking hands off me, you sadistic prick!”
Tearney chuckled in response, "There he is. I was wondering if the sun had finally cooked that sharp tongue of yours." He continued the bath anyway, tracing the cloth along Leander’s tail, carefully avoiding the spines but pressing just enough on the sunburned fins to make the demon twitch. “You were out cold when I took you out of the jar.”
Leander tried to twist away but Tearney's fingers closed a little tighter. The water stung worse with every movement, washing away dried sweat and smoke but igniting burned nerves.
“Oh, still biting. Literally and figuratively...” He tilted Leander slightly to rinse the underside of one curling horn. “You know, most pets learn after one day in the sun. But you… you had to be dramatic. Refusing me. Cursing me. Biting me.” He tapped the fresh bandage on his wrist for emphasis. “I thought we could understand each other, Leander. Partners, even. But you chose this.”
“Partners?” Leander laughed. He coughed as another wave of stinging hit his sunburned chest. “Keep dreaming, tech-boy. I’m not your toy.”
Tearney hummed, clearly unbothered. He lifted Leander out of the water and onto a soft towel, patting him dry with agonizing care over the burns. Every touch hurt. Leander’s sensitive ears pinned back. His smoky aura flickered weakly.
“You’re going to be,” Tearney murmured. “Eventually.”
Tearney reached for a small glass jar on the workbench and unscrewed the lid. He dipped two fingers in, withdrawing a dollop of translucent, iridescent salve.
Leander tensed, expecting more agony. But as Tearney spread the ointment over the raw, blistered skin of his chest, the effect was immediate and cooling. The balm felt like its knitting his fried nerves back together.
Despite himself, Leander’s shoulders slumped a fraction of an inch. He exhaled in relief. The previous fight was nearly drained out of his limbs. He felt floaty. He hated it. Hated that he couldn't stop his eyes from drooping, or the way his tail gave a twitch of comfort before he forced it still.
Tearney noticed. He didn’t say a word, but there was a smug, knowing curve to his lips that made Leander’s skin crawl.
Leander quickly squeezed his eyes shut, forcing his breathing to remain even. Don't let him know, he hissed to himself. His claws dug into the towel beneath him. He’s just trying to drug you into submission.
The dressing came next.
Leander was too exhausted and pained to fight much as Tearney laid out tiny garments that suspiciously look like doll clothes. A ridiculous frilly shirt, tiny trousers, even a stupid little hat that Tearney perched between his horns. The human’s fingers lingered, adjusting the pieces.
Leander glared up at him through slitted yellow pupils, “I look like a fucking idiot. Burn me again if you want, but this? This is just embarrassing for you.”
Tearney stepped back to admire his work. He held Leander up in front of a mirror so the tiny demon could see himself—sunburned, wings drooping, and dressed like a porcelain doll.
“There. Much better.” Tearney’s thumb brushed gently over one pointed ear, making Leander flinch. “I hope you learned your lesson today, Leander. The sun can be cruel… but I can be much crueler if you keep refusing me. Be good next time.”
Leander met his gaze with pure defiance, "Fuck. You."
Tearney’s expression remained infuriatingly gentle. He placed Leander onto a plush, silk-lined pedestal and smoothed the tiny trousers one last time. "Save your strength," he murmured, dimming the lights. "You’re going to need it tomorrow."
