The giggling stops.

She looks up at him, confused.

Niffty just has an odd sense of humor. What works on others might not work on her.

"What's the catch?"

No encounter like that would come to be without one. With Niffty's limited understanding, she stands certain that a deal must've taken place between the two.

She does her best to ignore the fact that she's doing this for someone she never thought would need it.

"Hell's biggest bad boy, huh." She mentions casually, smiling up at him for a moment.

+

"I didn't like it, either. Too loud for my liking. Messy enough to be worth staying for!"

Where his needlework faltered, hers lay neat and precise. Her red threads continue to loop in and out inside his wound until slowly but surely, the injury is primed to continue healing properly.

+

"You wouldn't have liked it there, though. It played a lot of loud music, and it's not the kind you like. There were no words and a lot of--- bang, bang, bang, and broken record noises!"

Once she's done pulling the remnants of his old stitches out, she begins with the sutures.

+

"Angel's friend brought us to a bar a while back. And I drank soooo much until I couldn't feel a thing."

She pulls out the flimsy stitching with care. Niffty tries to go as slow as possible, though she knows there's really no going around this part and the next without it hurting like a bitch.
+

So she begins disinfecting the area with the medical supplies she brought. Her hands move as light as a feather, careful not to inflict pain despite knowing how well he takes it.

"It's a good thing you had a lot to drink, then, huh?" She utters with the same cheery vigor.

+

It's hard to hide how disturbed she is by the sight of it. Though she can't help but feel curious--- how deep would the burning feeling run in her own flesh if she had it?

...Now's not the time to feel sad about not having angelic steel anymore.

+

Simply standing or sitting with an injury this severe would send a grown man to tears. It's clear to her that no sinner should've been able to survive this.

What a miserable wound.

+

Niffty wills the needle and thread to hover close by. She has to clean the wound first before she can get started.

She can see progress in its healing, but the tear just seems too deep for comfort.

+

She summons her own threads, delicate and glowing red. A special needle fades into existence in her other hand.

"But I'll make it hurt less!"

She's quick to move on her feet, getting to supplies here and there and settling down in a matter of seconds.

"This'll sting a lot, boss," she cheerfully warns.

Her own powers are not as strong as Alastor's, but they're enough to help with this simple task, at the very least.

+

That's why she's here now. She insists on helping, even if there's nothing she can effectively do to make things better for him.

Niffty rarely ever keeps secrets from Alastor, but if she could keep one,

it's that he's the closest to a true family she'll ever have in hell.

+

Pissy, no-nonsense, yet loyal all the same.

Poor kitty.

Niffty, on the other hand, would choose to believe Al in a heartbeat. Even if he makes it clear a thousand times that he'd throw her to the wolves, she'd happily make it clear where her own loyalties lie.

+

If he were to tell either of them that, Husk would probably roll his eyes and call bullshit. That's the reaction that would make the most sense to her, at least. After all, kitty always made how much he hated his situation known.

+

A deranged little giggle bubbles up her throat.

"Charlie's not gonna let us hear the end of it."

...It's a quiet plea to let her do as she pleases.

She finally smiles at him, to give him some semblance of normalcy.

There's no way in hell she can help speed up his recovery, but she can at least use his threads to close the wound properly.

"It'll bother me all day and I might end up stitching rats into the couches again."

+

How much torture is he willing to endure to get the last laugh?

Alastor is a scary, scary man. And that's what makes him so fascinating.

...Such an incredibly lonely existence.

"Your stitches aren't neat," she repeats quietly.

"Can I make it better? Just the stitches."

+