Dr. Labubu's Intimacy Practice

The screaming starts at 3:47 AM.

Dr. Labubu’s eyes snap open. The sound tears through the Victorian mansion’s walls—raw, primal, unhuman. He exists across multiple dimensions simultaneously, which means sleep is meditation and meditation is watching reality’s threads twist around supernatural therapy sessions gone wrong.

His bare feet hit cold hardwood. At three feet two inches, Labubu navigates a world built for larger beings, but urgency strips away his careful movements tonight. He grabs reading glasses helping humans process his otherworldly nature without complete psychological breakdown and rushes toward the Transformation Suite.

The screaming intensifies. Something heavy crashes into reinforced walls designed to contain werewolf rage.

“Oh dear,” Labubu murmurs, his voice carrying childlike concern and ancient wisdom in equal measure. “This doesn’t sound therapeutic.”

He presses his ear to the door. Two distinct voices tangle inside in what could charitably be called communication and more accurately be called the sound of a relationship imploding:

“Control yourself, Marcus! You’re bleeding all over my—”

“Your fault for biting during an emotional breakthrough! I told you I can’t handle feeding when I’m—”

Another crash. Blood and supernatural pheromones seep under the door, thick enough to make Labubu’s interdimensional senses recoil. He pushes his glasses up his button nose and knocks.

“Valentina? Marcus? I’m coming in.”

Silence replaces chaos. Heavy breathing follows, then embarrassed shuffling.

Labubu turns the handle and steps into the aftermath of a supernatural hate-fuck. Reinforced furniture designed to withstand werewolf transformations lies shoved against walls. Claw marks score specially treated wood. In the center stand his clients: Valentina Drăculești, four-hundred-year-old vampire CEO, and Marcus Steele, werewolf alpha, both looking caught masturbating in church.

Valentina’s perfect hair hangs in dark tangles. Her business attire is shredded, revealing pale skin untouched by aging in centuries. Her eyes tell the real story: golden with recent feeding, wide with terror and hunger and the devastating recognition of letting someone see her lose control.

Marcus crouches beside the overturned therapy couch, partially shifted. Human features war with wolf characteristics: elongated canines, amber eyes reflecting light, muscles straining against skin meant for a smaller frame. Blood trickles from puncture wounds on his neck, already healing with supernatural speed. The healing doesn’t erase vulnerability in his posture. He holds himself with the stance of someone who discovered trust can be weaponized.

Neither can look at Labubu. Neither can look at each other.

“I see we’ve had a breakthrough,” Labubu says, stepping over broken lamp pieces to reach his emergency kit. “Though perhaps not the kind we discussed.”

“She lost control.” Marcus’s voice roughens with partial shift and something rawer: betrayal mixed with arousal, fear mixed with want. “Fed too deep. I shifted to protect myself and...” He gestures at the destruction. Labubu hears what he doesn’t say: I shifted because for thirty seconds I wanted her to drain me completely.

“I did not lose control.” Valentina’s accent carries aristocratic precision earned through centuries among European nobility, but underneath trembles someone whose carefully constructed world cracked open. “You triggered a feedback loop with your protective instincts. Your pheromones overwhelmed my rational response.”

“My pheromones? You’re the one who—”

“Perhaps we focus on what happened and not whose fault it was?” Labubu retrieves a thermos still warm despite chaos. “Blame is rarely therapeutic. Terror, however, can be illuminating.”

He pours three cups, each different in size and temperature. Liquid in Valentina’s cup carries a metallic scent making Marcus’s nose twitch with involuntary hunger. Marcus’s tea steams with earthy, pack-comfort scents making Valentina’s dead heart clench with something she refuses to name. Labubu’s cup releases no scent, usual for interdimensional beverages.

“Now then.” Labubu settles cross-legged on the floor since all furniture was relocated during their meltdown. “Tell me what you felt right before things became explosive.”

Marcus shifts back to fully human form with visible effort, his body moving through transformation with the violence of someone performing surgery on themselves. “We were talking about pack integration. How Valentina might attend full moon runs. And she was...” He pauses, throat working. “Responding.”

“Responding how?”

Valentina accepts tea with hands trembling imperceptibly. For a creature untouched by trembling in four centuries, this equals complete psychotic breakdown. “I was aroused. By the thought of belonging to his pack. Of being accepted.” The words come out with the gravity of murder confession. “Not for my resources or political connections or immortal beauty. Just accepted.”

“And what happened when you felt arousal?”

“I fed.” Her voice drops to barely above whisper. Labubu catches self-loathing dripping from every syllable. “I’ve trained myself never to feed during intimacy. It’s too dangerous. But the emotional intensity, the acceptance...” She presses her lips together hard enough to draw blood. “I lost myself completely. I wanted to crawl inside his skin and live there.”

Labubu nods, making notes on a pad writing in symbols no human language developed. “And Marcus, when Valentina began feeding?”

“Every instinct screamed she was in danger. Vampires in blood-drunk states are vulnerable to other predators, hunters, their own makers who might exploit weakness.” Marcus runs a hand through disheveled hair, leaving it standing in frustrated spikes. “The bond I feel with her triggered my alpha response. I shifted to protect her, but shifting made my blood more potent, which deepened her feeding state...”

“Creating a beautiful cycle,” Labubu finishes. “She feels accepted enough to be vulnerable, which triggers your protective instincts, which makes her feel more accepted, which increases vulnerability.”

Both clients stare at him with the expression of people asked to set themselves on fire for recreation.

“Beautiful?” Valentina’s voice carries enough frost to freeze blood.

“Oh yes. You’ve discovered you trust each other enough to lose control. Most couples spend years trying to reach the same intimacy level. Most never achieve it.”

Marcus snorts. “Most couples don’t destroy therapy offices when they trust each other.”

“Most couples aren’t navigating four hundred years of emotional walls and alpha werewolf protective instincts.” Labubu sips his non-scented tea. “Though I will need stronger furniture. Perhaps something with the ability to withstand small explosions.”

Valentina sets down her cup with precise control of someone fighting not to smash it against the wall. “Dr. Labubu, I nearly drained him. If he hadn’t shifted...”

“But he did shift. Your subconscious knew he would protect himself. You felt safe enough to let go.” Labubu’s enormous eyes reflect something ancient and patient. “You’ve spent four centuries ensuring you never need anyone. Tonight you discovered what it feels to need someone so desperately you’d risk destroying them to keep them.”

“I don’t want to let go.” The honesty makes Marcus flinch. “Letting go means losing control. Losing control means—”

“Being human?” The words slip out before Marcus can stop them, carrying four months of accumulated frustration with her emotional armor.

Silence follows with the precision of surgical instruments used for open-heart surgery.

Valentina’s face goes perfectly blank: the expression of someone stabbed by their lover in front of witnesses. “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me.” Marcus’s amber eyes meet her golden ones with the unflinching directness of someone who decided to tell the truth even if it kills them both. “You’re terrified of being human. Of needing something you can’t control or command or buy with centuries of accumulated power.”

“I am not human. I haven’t been human for four centuries.”

“No, but you want to be. Sometimes. In the dark, when you think no one’s watching, you want to need me the way humans need each other. Desperately. Without calculating cost or exit strategy or how to maintain upper hand.”

Labubu watches the exchange with fascination of someone who studies emotional truth across species and dimensions. This is why he chose Earth. The beautiful, destructive honesty emerges when beings stop pretending they’re anything other than desperate for connection, even when connection means annihilation.

“I chose immortality,” Valentina says, each word sharp enough to draw blood from air itself. “I chose power. I chose never to be vulnerable again because vulnerability gets you killed, used, discarded when someone more powerful comes along.”

“And yet here you are. In couples therapy. With a werewolf.”

She stands so fast the movement blurs. “Here I am trying to make an impossible relationship work because I’m apparently a masochist who fell in love with someone whose protective instincts make me want to bare my throat and beg him to keep me safe, which is the most pathetic thing a vampire my age could possibly...”

“Who fell in love,” Marcus finishes quietly.

The words hit with the weight of incantation, of course, of the most dangerous thing either has ever heard.

Valentina’s perfect composure cracks. For one moment, four centuries of careful control slip, and Labubu sees what Marcus sees: a woman terrified of wanting something she can’t guarantee, can’t buy, can’t command. A woman who spent lifetimes building walls only to discover love makes walls irrelevant.

“Love is not enough,” she whispers, and the words carry the weight of every disappointment she’s survived.

“No,” Labubu agrees cheerfully, “it’s not. Love is the beginning. The rest requires practice, patience, and willingness to destroy beautiful furniture in the name of emotional growth.”

His phone buzzes with the ringtone reserved for emergencies: cosmic screaming only interdimensional beings can hear without permanent psychological damage. He glances at the screen and his enormous eyes widen further.

“Oh my. It seems we’ll need to schedule follow-up. I have another emergency.” He looks up at his clients, still staring at each other with the intensity of predators deciding whether to mate or kill. “Perhaps you could continue this conversation at home? In a room with less expensive furniture and more soundproofing?”

“What kind of emergency?” Marcus asks, his alpha instincts extending to protective concern for their diminutive therapist.

Labubu gathers notes folding themselves into his briefcase with supernatural efficiency. “A young witch who accidentally burned down her apartment during... well, during what you were attempting before things became complicated.”

Valentina and Marcus exchange a look carrying months of shared frustration and devastating recognition: they aren’t the only ones struggling with supernatural intimacy disasters.

“Should we...” Valentina begins.

“Help?” Marcus finishes.

“It would be lovely,” Labubu beams. “Elena could benefit from meeting a couple working through supernatural intimacy challenges. And you two could benefit from focusing on someone else’s crisis instead of your own.”

He pauses at the door, childlike features arranged in expression of innocent wisdom somehow conveying authority of someone who witnessed birth and death of entire civilizations.

“Sometimes we learn to trust ourselves by helping others find courage first. Sometimes we discover our damage isn’t unique—it’s simply human. And sometimes the scariest thing about love isn’t destruction. It’s salvation, and we might not deserve it.”

After they leave, Labubu stands alone in his destroyed therapy room and smiles. His interdimensional senses pick up emotional resonance left behind: fear and desire and hope tangled together with the intensity of suicide pact, of love song, of beautiful disaster either forging them into something stronger or burning them both to ash.

This is why he chose Earth. The beautiful chaos of beings who have to fight for happiness, who have to risk everything for the chance of connection, who can destroy a room and call it progress because sometimes destruction is the only path to reconstruction.

His phone buzzes again. Elena, the combustible witch, is having what humans call a complete meltdown in the parking lot of her latest burned apartment building.

Labubu straightens his tiny bow tie, grabs his emergency kit (containing, among other impossible things, a fire extinguisher working on magical flames and cookies providing emotional comfort to beings whose pain exists across multiple dimensions) and heads out into the night.

After all, love might not be enough.

But it’s certainly never boring.