#so technically Halloween somewhere

[macabrecake]

I'm way too lazy to put a proper title and such but this is basically a fluffy little Slasher RE6!Leon x Reader drabble that absolutely no one asked for 🥲

The moment you nearly jumped out of your skin when the door slammed shut, you knew who it was. By the eerie silence and the overwhelming sense of unease that just his presence alone is able to blanket all four corners of the house in, you knew Leon had returned from 'work.' Having entered through the backdoor as usual, he's done it so many times to the point where it's become second nature that you keep it unlocked.

Another odd component to this extremely bizarre roommate set up that you and he have created.

You feed him, give him shelter, and he doesn't end your life like the many others he's taken before. You know it's wrong, aiding a felon- an extremely dangerous, wanted killer to be more specific. You know you should call the police, or Chris, already aware about his own encounter with Leon that night.

"I swear to you y/n, the moment I see him again. I'm gonna make sure I put a bullet in him. Rip his mask off and watch whatever semblance of life he has drain from his eyes. He's cast his shadow of fear and grief over this city for too long…"

"I'll keep you safe from him, I promise."

Your face finds its way into your hands with a deep sigh of guilt. That classic damned if you do, damned if you don't is why you keep quiet. Or that's what you tell yourself at least, since you can't bring yourself to think about the real answer. Chris is trying to protect you… from the very thing that you're harboring in your home right now. You know that if you do say anything about Leon, that's not just your life that's cut short, but Chris as well, and anyone else who gets in his way. Who, now that you're finally tuning into what's going on, is making a lot of noise.

Being around Leon long enough has caused you to inadvertently pick up some of his patterns. Like how he's normally much quieter than that. Only ever making a subtle amount of sounds to lure his victims where he wants them. It's also just a means to scare you, everytime you think Leon is in one part of the house you turn around, only to find him standing there staring at you. It's part of what amuses him. His routine. Which he also hasn't done yet since he got home.

You shouldn't care enough to turn and call out his name, yet you feel that you just need to, even if he doesn't answer. Before you can open your mouth, however, it seems Leon knew you were going to. Making you jolt slightly when you find him already standing in the kitchen. You would ease down a little, which is still a strange thing for you to do around him, but it's short lived when you see the blood.

There's a very obvious crimson trail following behind him, smeared all over his clothes, still dripping from his hands and knife. You don't wanna know who it could belong to, though you're probably gonna find out anyway when it shows up on the News tomorrow. But, by his stature alone, you could see it's not just some unfortunate civilian. Leon's shoulders were more hunched than normal, and the breath that escapes through his mask is loud, ragged. It connects the dots for you quickly.

He's hurt.

"Holy shit." You whisper past your fingertips when your hand goes to your mouth in shock. Again, you really shouldn't care, you should be praying that he'll finally drop dead where he stands. You shouldn't be reaching into the cabinet for the first aid kit, shouldn't be asking him if he needs help and wait for an answer. Yet, that's exactly what you do.

There's a brief minute of silence until Leon slightly turns his body to the side to give you a path out of the kitchen. You act swiftly and head for the bathroom with the medical necessities, hearing his boots hit the hardwood as he trails behind you. Once in the bathroom, you set down the supplies while Leon sits on the toilet lid with what you could assume is a quiet sigh of exhaustion. Probably sitting down for the first time this whole night.

It's things like that that often makes you realize he's still human, to an extent at least. You've still witnessed him do things that are beyond the capabilities of an ordinary man. So much that he's survived. Things that would kill anyone else. Maybe that's why just being in the same space as him is still deeply upsetting at times. Especially when all you can smell near him is the strong scent of iron.

He's pretty unpredictable.

Even now, Leon could very easily kill you if he wished. Whether it's because he doesn't see usefulness in you anymore, or if he just suddenly gets bored. He's smart enough to take care of his own wounds after all.

So what is his purpose for keeping you alive?

You don't know, nor will you ever try to gain the courage to ask, as you take a small shaky breath to calm your nerves before turning to face the man. As usual, those dark eye sockets of his mask are already peering back at you. Fighting to contain a small shudder, you point to his bloodied coveralls, "I'm gonna need to move your clothes out of the way so I can see where you're hurt, ok?"

Once again, Leon is still for a short moment before he straightens his back up more. Keeping his hands in his lap so you have room to work on him. After you get permission, you step closer to unbutton the flap and unzip the top part of his suit down. You see his plain black T-shirt underneath, torn in some areas, very clearly red and sticking to his skin in others. Your brows lightly furrow in concern, almost hesitant to lift his shirt up now. But with the way he leans forward for your hands to lightly splay against his chest, you make yourself carry on. Carefully, you remove Leon's shirt. But this time with extreme caution to not take his mask off with the ruined fabric.

That's when your concern turns to horror.

For one, you can't tell what's fresh wounds and what's old scars that the blonde obtained from Doctor Benford shooting him the first time he escaped all those years ago. Everything is caked in a layer of dried blood, dirt, sweat, and grime.

The darker spots on Leon's torso yielded some clues at least, more bullet wounds for sure, as well as some deep cuts and heavy bruising. Like he was beaten with something, or numerous things, who in the world managed to get ahold of him to do all of this? Nevermind how he survived it, that's a question you long gave up trying to answer. Much like how, considering that he's sitting here right now, tells you that the one's who did this most likely aren't around anymore.

"Fucking hell…" You mumble as your eyes drift across the vast sea of injuries before settling on what you know is probably gonna take the most work. "Jesus Christ Leon, you got burned too?" The response you get is a low huff, it's a long story that he's clearly still mad about, which obviously would suggest that you don't mention it. Now, you know you're not a doctor, but anyone knows a burn when they see one. They stick out, and are never pretty. It cascades over his left shoulder, seeming to creep upward before going to hide away under his mask, which also looks rather charred on one side now that you've gotten a closer look.

There's so much going on around Leon's chest and abdomen, you don't know where to begin. You opt to clean the mess away for starters, let you see where the wounds are and also prevent any infection. If he's even capable of getting sick. Nearly an entire roll of paper towels, tissue, and cleaning wipes later. You finally get an eyeful of the damage that was done, and a little extra…

You already knew Leon was fit. However, it's one thing to imagine, another to actually have your face up close and personal with it. Now you have details. Now you get to see what lies beyond those dangerous hands- that have yet to lethally turn against you. Following one of the protruding veins on the back of his large palm, it runs up through his muscled forearm before disappearing into the hearty meat of his bicep.

Along the way you find another old bullet scar, stamped right below where Leon's shoulder meets with his collarbone. A roadblock, or perhaps an important landmark. Your eyes continue their journey along the bone before dipping down to pass between a valley of pure muscle that makes up the natural pecs and abs of his strong chest.

You know you should probably stop, you know Leon can see what you're doing- you're kneeling right in front of him for God's sake. So maybe it's a good thing that before your eyes could follow the happy trail and obvious indent of his V-line, Leon suddenly shifts to lean forward and tilt his head at you. Course it makes you jump a little, avoiding his gaze with a small 'sorry' as you search for the tweezers. Search, more like you passed your hand over the tool a couple times before you finally grabbed them and got to work plucking out the bullets.

Though you think Leon is now annoyed with you, that ghost of a smirk hiding beneath his mask while he stares down at you would say otherwise. He knows you were looking, and sees it in your burning cheeks how flustered he made you. Maybe he should do this more often.

Curious about what other reactions he'll get out of you, he patiently waits for you to finish wrapping some gauze around his torso. Add some bandaids to the smaller injuries on his hands and arms, then stand up to get a closer look at the burn on his shoulder. The man would almost chuckle at how gentle your dainty hands work, as if you're scared of hurting him more, carefully padding the burn ointment onto his seared skin before stopping at the edge of his mask. You then step away, which leaves some vague sense of disappointment in Leon.

A small gasp falls from your lips as you're suddenly stopped in your tracks, making you turn your head to look at the man and ask what's wrong. Course you get no vocal answer, but Leon still makes it clear when he pulls you back to him for his other hand to latch onto your hip and make you sit down in his lap. Others. Strangers he doesn't like touching his face.

"I know you don't like other's touching your face. Thought you might feel more comfortable working on it alone." You explain in that tone that's always so soft around him, as you throw away the blood soaked trash before turning to exit the bathroom. Knowing he hardly takes his mask off unless he's alone or extremely tired. That's when Leon's brows furrow as he moves into action, letting his hand shoot out to grab your wrist.

You're different.

A shy smile graces your lips, just as your heart decides to leap around in your chest. Meanwhile your lungs seem to forget how to provide air for a moment. You manage to stay composed for the most part as Leon keeps a hold on your wrist to guide your hand up and place it against the cheek of his mask. That answer is definitely loud enough.

It takes you a second to get over the small shock, because, over all, the only one allowed to touch that is him. Regardless, you don't pass up the opportunity as you bring your other hand up to grip the edge and carefully peel the mask away from Leon's face, uncertain of what other injuries he could possess.

You would focus on the burn once you set the mask on the floor, but it's such a rare occurrence to fully view his face, so the moments you get to see him, are captivating everytime. Like how long his hair has gotten as the golden strands fall around his shoulders and frame his fierce blue eyes. It's something truly magazine cover worthy, he could definitely be voted as the sexist man alive in a heartbeat.

It's to the point you can't help but admire as you let your fingers part his bangs so you can see him better, "Would you be offended if I got you a haircut at some point? Could make it easier to manage." You muse as you move his hair away to start working on the rest of the wound. Seeing now that the burn took a little of his stubble away before stopping around his cheek, close to the scar that runs through his eye. Said eyes narrow at you just a fraction while his hands press more into the flesh of your hips and actually rub up and down your sides a little. That's new.

Even when he's tired, Leon normally isn't this cuddly. Which lends you the realization of how gentle he's trying to be. It makes your stomach flutter with a strange giddiness as a quiet giggle passes your lips while you apply the same burn ointment near his Adam's apple. "Just an idea, don't worry."

Though Leon will never ever admit it in anyway, it does mean a lot that he views you a little differently than anyone else. Hell if anyone else was this close to him, they would most certainly be dead already. But, again, it's different with you. So if a haircut means feeling your fingers gently touch him like this, he's all for it. He's not even gonna question why he wants it. He just… does.

A few more minutes pass, before the final bandage is placed on his cheek. As well as a couple little kisses- one to his nose, and the other to his lips. Which he actually lets you give to him and even deepens the last one.

Damn it. Maybe it's whatever sweet poison is on his lips, but it's no wonder you don't say anything to anyone. Because you know you'd miss him. You don't let yourself think on it longer, instead you smile brighter with another little giggle at Leon burying his face in your shoulder, his breath coming out faster and heavier from the kiss. "Be careful next time, ok?" You whisper to him.

Your butt receives a soft squeeze in response.

[pikslasrce]

so major when a bitch has a jacket longer than her skirt

[unproduciblesmackdown]

michael in the bathroom being a halloween song in that [it takes place on some particular day but that's totally irrelevant] way

[popcornpieispissedoff]

Roughly 24 hours ago I randomly became fixated on those tragic death songs from the 50's-80's

[weirdworldofwinnie]

Happy Halloween!🎃Here's a treat for all you Jonathan Crane lovers out there:

Face Me...

Dr. Jonathan Crane aka Scarecrow x Female Reader (NSFW 18+ only smut)

Summary: You work at Arkham Asylum in Gotham and Dr. Crane has been stalking you for a while, but you are leery of him and have been avoiding him outside of professionalism at all costs. One night though as you are leaving work, he tracks you down at your car to see just what you're so afraid of.

Word Count: ~4,426

Warnings: Semi-rough car sex, non-con elements, forced oral (male receiving), dirty talk/language, slight degradation, hair pulling, slapping, stalker behavior, talk of virginity loss, birth control, Dr. Crane being kind of a creep in general

Note: Reader does not know he is actually Scarecrow! And images above are sourced from Pinterest. This story is based only on Cillian Murphy's version in the Batman films and is my interpretation of the character; I don't own him or any part of the franchise, this is just for fun.

Tonight was swathed in misty sheets of rain in the gritty darkness lightly tainted by the glow of streetlights as your car, parked a few blocks from Arkham Asylum, beeped to unlock and you slung your purse over your shoulder, sighing after a long day and wanting to get home to a hot bath and a drink or two. But a strange feeling in the pit of your stomach at a shadow from your peripheral vision made you hesitate and you squinted through the hazy shower that was tapering off to a light drizzle, dampening your hair.

A suited man, height on the shorter side, was stopped no more than twenty feet away and a jarring jolt rushed to your bones when you saw the street light glint off his narrow framed glasses and you paused, hand on the car door. He was utterly silent and you were unnerved by his stiff posture and oddly clenched fists, half thinking to jump in your four-door-sedan and peel out of his presence, but he then walked forward causally, those hands relaxing and slipping into the pockets of his black slacks.

"Good evening," he called out, stepping into view under a streetlight with a smirk and you clenched your jaw, crossing your arms defensively as he slowly approached, that sick smile never sliding off his features that were - you'd have to admit - frankly handsome... No, beautiful was a better term.

"Why are you stalking me, Dr. Crane?" you asked with edginess to your tired voice. It was late and you didn't even live in Gotham City, you just commuted here for work.

"Stalking? Oh no, I am simply observing," he replied smoothy, but it came off as more snappy and insincere.

"Right... Don't you have somewhere to go?"

"Do you?"

"Yeah, home to my apartment miles away. It's been an exhausting day and too late to be out on the town, so if you're proposing anything, I can't take it tonight."

"It's always a long, late night in Gotham."

He moved within a few feet of you and you swallowed nervously, but remembered a man like him could smell fear, so you put up a brave front.

"So when do you finally fuck off and leave me alone? It's unprofessional to follow someone without their permission, you know. Keep this up and I'll need a restraining order."

"But you always avoid me during work and now you reject my offer for simple company?"

"Company late at night at my car in the rain? And aren't you technically my boss? We aren't friends and I don't know why you're so interested in me, but I don't think you should be. I'm not looking for a man like you. Right now I'm just looking for a nice glass of red wine honestly."

"Really...?" he drew the word out to almost a parodying tone and you pursed your lips.

"Yes, really. Now I bid you goodnight, Dr. Crane." You opened the car door fully, ducking and stepping a foot in when the door caught and you looked up to see him holding it in a firm grip. He was stronger than you expected.

"Stop denying it, I see the way you look at me when you think I'm not paying attention. Stop hiding and face me once and for all," he insisted darkly.

You took a breath, desperately trying to calm your beating heart and yet the horrible feeling that this evening wasn't going to end on a dull note persisted.

"Don't hurt me, I'll-" you started to warn and his eyebrows shot up with a shake of his head.

"Call the police?" It sounded like mockery from his mouth and you scowled as he continued, his pale hand sprinkled with rainwater sliding up and down the car door frame.

"Hurt you, hm? Well, only if you want me to." He chuckled and you stared at his slightly floppy dewey dark hair and raised eyebrows.

"Why the hell would I want you to hurt me?"

"You tell me. I do know you secretly want something else, don't you? Something more... erotic?"

You scoffed angrily, hating how he was worming his way past your exterior and into attraction, but you couldn't let it happen.

"Take a raincheck. I'm going home." You tried to shut the door but he was still holding it in a death grip, knuckles white and veins bursting out the back of his hand.

"Stop fucking around, I don't have time for this sh-" you cut off your sentence with a yelp as Dr. Crane shoved you inside the backseat of your own car and you landed flat on your back as he came inside to hover over your vulnerable body, wetting his pink lips.

"Please! Don't do this!" you cried out of panic and he leaned back, breathing heavily.

"Don't go anywhere," he warned and you struggled to sit up, throwing your purse up front and he slammed the side door shut, getting more comfortable in the backseat, which you were not pleased about.

"This is MY car, get out," you commanded, but he was as cool as a cucumber as he cleaned his glasses with a cloth from his suit jacket.

"I just want to talk one on one, which we never do outside of the usual board meetings and it can be so boring, always about psychiatry and stats and police reports and this patient and these crazies and-"

"Oh sure you just want to talk. I'm not some kind of naive idiot to the desires of the opposite sex," you rolled your eyes and he scoffed, settling back on the seat with a cross of his legs and looking up to the car ceiling.

"It's so cold and wet tonight, shame we aren't someplace more cozy," he muttered and you awkwardly crawled into the driver's seat with your keys and fumbled to insert them in, starting the ignition.

"What are you doing there?" he asked mildly and even that sounded passive aggressive. God, he sure was insufferable.

"Turning the heat on because you're whining about it. I just wish you'd get out of here, completely violating my privacy."

"This is a public street you're parked on, isn't it? And is this how you treat all passengers?"

"I never have any passengers," you remarked bitterly and Crane leaned forward, putting his hands on the back of the seat and peering around to you as you glanced at him in the rearview mirror.

"Indeed. I know you're mostly a loner with almost no friends and orphaned from family or maybe you've lied and they aren't dead and are only estranged... Either way, no one cares and no one understands how you spend office hours in a facility full of the most criminally insane but you do it for the money and to quench your curiosity because deep down, you know - you know you're a freak too who sees no normal in what you have deemed a, oh say... corrupt kind of world."

You swallowed at his assertions and unfortunately fairly accurate reading.

"I don't need sympathy from you of all people," you snapped, putting the heat to full blast. It was freezing tonight and the defrost was battling the condensation filling up the windshield.

"I'm only trying to understand you myself, it's my job to psychoanalyze."

"I'm not one of your patients or experiments," you told him in disgust.

"Every human being is an experiment in the eyes of their creator, which is me for you because I happen to be the one who hired you in the first place. Without me, you would not have a job and therefore I created you in that respect," he replied in absurd smugness.

"Then what am I? Frankenstein's monster?"

His eyes flashed and he adjusted his glasses reflexively.

"I wish. No, you're my first prototype I have yet to diagnose."

You shut the heat off once the internal temperature was fairly toasty and cracked a window down a fraction for circulation. A beat of silence befell until he suddenly climbed into the front, dropping into the passenger seat confidently, and you realized how lithe he was, how easily he fit into spaces not designed for someone with such an overshadowing, all-encompassing ego.

"Now what are you doing?" you asked exasperatedly. He didn't answer and you hated the way looking at him was making your heart flutter despite your anger and the alarm bells ringing in your brain. Something about him was always... very off and you never could quite place your finger on it, he was a blind spot, but it was undeniable. Which was telling considering the people you were exposed to every day.

Crane reached up and removed his glasses entirely with a swipe to set them on the dash and your breath caught with that simple action. You admitted how he was very visually pleasing without those lens obstructing his intense blue colored orbs were. You glanced down and fiddled with the keys when he suddenly snatched them up out of your lap and pocketed them into his own pants with a manic expression.

"Hey, give those back!" you yelled and began to wrestle with him, arms flailing as he held his own above his head, palms up and empty.

"You want those? You have to do something for me first."

"I-Okay, what is it?" You dropped your arms and glared at him suspiciously. He smirked once, speaking with a tremor of excitement.

"If I was civilized, which I'm admittedly not, I'd ask you out on an old fashioned dinner date and then walk you to your door, give you a nice polite kiss and send flowers to your desk on Monday. But I can't wait anymore for that saccharine romantic scenario, so we'll get straight down to business. I want to fuck your brains out, right here in the car."

You blinked, rather stunned.

"I... I-I no, I can't, I mean that's-"

And here was where your confidence utterly failed as he suddenly lunged and grabbed you to pin you down inbetween the passenger and driver seats, head flung upside down almost to the backseat floor and legs helplessly kicking towards the windshield.

"Please, don't do this!" you yelped anxiously.

"Don't tell me you're a virgin who has never had a dick in you before," he whispered, misreading your fearful hesitant expression. Actually, you'd had sex once with a lame boyfriend back in college and since then, avoided the dating and hookup scene, content just to masturbate when you could.

"Oh, fuck, I should've guessed. What a shocking discovery," he wrongly concluded rather sarcastically and you cringed, twisting your head away from his warm breath and ridiculously good looks.

"This makes it all the more interesting, then," he murmured with a feathery caress to your cheek and you flinched, giving him a kick and successfully wriggling out of his grasp to curl up against the door in the backseat.

"I've been waiting a long time for our encounter," he mused, utterly unfazed at the negative reaction.

You immediately went to open the door, ready to run for your life if he became overly threatening, but he hit the button that locked all the doors. You manually unlocked your one door - thank God for that safety feature - but his deadly voice made you freeze.

"Are you quite sure you want to do that?"

"T-This is my ensured vehicle and y-you are violating every right of mine by t-taking over like this," you stated, but your voice was shaking like a leaf through the words.

"That's it, you are afraid of me..." he whispered slowly and the pure delight with pride in his voice was unmistakable. You turned to look at him directly, unable to hide and deny anything any longer.

"I think you are being very inappropriate right now," you admitted nervously.

Crane moved to join you in the backseat, but you felt stuck even though you could technically open the door and make an escape. There was no way he could really stop you, was there? He didn't have a weapon on him, did he?

"If you were really frightened, you would have bolted by now," he said as though reading your thoughts and you gulped, realizing he was right.

"Dr. Crane, I-" you were broken off by him abruptly grabbing your face and kissing you, his tongue sloppily forcing its way into your mouth and you naturally reciprocated while inhaling his sharp stinging scent of expensive cologne. He pulled back with a gasp and a mischievous spark in his eyes that made something awaken deep inside.

"You kissed me," you said in a stunned voice.

"That's precisely what I did, Y/N," he answered with another touch of smugness and you closed your eyes, knowing you were in too deep now. He was going to take this all the way and you felt helpless to stop it. Did you even want to stop him?

"I knew if I exposed myself enough to you, you'd finally stop being immune," Crane told you with a sort of self-righteousness as he ran his hands down your back and shrugged your coat off before moving to your front to remove your blouse carefully, button by button.

"I hate to see such pretty tits contained and so oppressed... Let's free them, shall we?"

He unclasped your bra and removed it, tossing it to the floor and you shivered, goosebumps peppering your bare arms and neck.

"Aww, is it too cold?" He made a pout and privately you wanted to smack those stupid lips right off his condescending face but it was if you were under a spell of a sudden, entranced by his actions and his hypnotic eyes. He trailed his fingers down from your throat to your nipples and you hardened at the stimulation, closing your eyes in regret. Dr. Crane was turning you on, dammit.

"Better than I could imagine..." he breathed, taking in your appearance for a minute while groping your breasts, squeezing, and you gritted your teeth as he teasingly tickled you under your arms, making your breath hitch and a stupid giggle slipped out.

"Sensitive, are we? I promise I won't hurt you."

You leaned back, casting a fretful look out the windows in case of onlookers, but the street was empty and the glass was streaky with rain, creating a thickly translucent rippled covering not unlike a shower curtain.

"No one knows," Crane stated flatly in response to your paranoia while untying his dress shoes and pushing them under the seats. You just nodded, taking off your own and then unzipping your pants the same time he undid his own. His tight dark grey briefs were bulging with his cock and you hesitated, absolutely unsure of what to do when he completely stripped and out popped out his erect glistening-at-the-tip penis in full view.

"Take it in your mouth," Crane ordered abruptly, pushing you down beneath him.

"Um, no I think that's disgus-" Your voice was cut off as you nearly choked; he roughly shoved his cock so fast into your parted mouth. The silky end of his tie tickled your nose as he inched closer, and clearly this was much more enjoyable for him than it was for you as he groaned in building ecstasy and you kept your mouth closed around it, afraid that if you moved, you'd gag or get hurt. He forced your head up a little and bobbed, but you could feel a dribble of precum seeping down your throat and now you reflexed, yanking yourself from him with a loud noise and banging the car door open to cough and spit violently out onto the pavement below.

"Get back in, do you want someone to see us?!" Crane hissed and you felt a sharp tug on your hair as he pulled you back. You shrieked and self defensively twisted to slap him straight in the face. He gasped from the unexpected blow, falling back and banging his head on the opposite window as you spat, wiping your lips of his mess.

"Can't take it like a common whore, can you? Feel like being a goddamn difficult bitch, don't you? Think you're better than me, do you?" he seethed, rubbing his cranium and you huffed.

"I thought you'd just put your dick in me, not that bullshit."

"It's called oral and many women in fact enjoy it."

"How do you know, you've done that before?"

He had a strange expression when he replied briskly.

"I've read up on the concept, you know."

"You've studied about women and sex. Amazing. Is that what you do on your lunch break or...?" you almost laughed, but the way he was staring at you wasn't in a joking manner. He had the look of an inmate one straw away from a full psychotic behavior break down. Basing from your training, you decided to distract his frustrating anger and talk nonchalantly to calm him down.

"Okay, I'm kidding around, I get it, and I don't mean to hate or spite you. Remember when I was initially employed at Arkham, fresh out of college, and I met you for the first time? I personally thought you were extremely cocky and looked waaay too young to be a top psychiatrist in such a grand high security institution. Now I can say with certainty that while you are, um, creative in your methods with the inmates and I do admit I find you very terribly attractive, I have to say Dr. Crane... I still think you're an arrogant son of a bitch."

"Call me Jonathan," he replied, unimpressed by the insult and wrestling off his tie.

"Well, Dr. Jonathan, you sure are a pretty piece of work," you replied with ample attitude and he was fed up, dumping his jacket and shirt from his body and twisting the tie in his fingers. He held it up and a muscle spasmed in face, jaw clenching and enunciating his cheekbones.

"You want me to choke you with this?"

"I'd really prefer you didn't and it would be very nice if you weren't such a dick forcing your sex on me," you answered matter-of-factly.

"Lie down or I'll fucking fire you from your position, understand?" he snapped loudly and was extremely serious as you glared, but then reluctantly laid back obediently on the seats just to avoid complications and he came down swiftly, carefully aligning to position his penis at your entrance. He cautiously touched the moist head to your vaginal lips when you held up a hand onto his chest, stopping him.

"Now hang on doctor, don't you want to warm up first?"

"I'm obviously already warmed up, Miss Y/LN."

"But I don't have lubricant on me, so you're going to have to get me naturally very wet for penetration because right now I'm dry as a bone," you warned for your own protection, but hardly expected him to listen.

"Don't tell me how to do it," he replied, snippy.

"I'm serious, you can't just stick it in there; it will be just as hard for you as it'll be for me and I don't want to end up seeing a gynecologist."

"So you aren't a virgin after all?"

"I had my hymen broken with a loser in the past," you told him and he raised one brown eyebrow, creasing his forehead with a few fine lines.

"Then how should I start, Miss doctor?"

You wordlessly took a hold of his index finger and guided it to your opening and he pressed lightly, feeling pooling liquid.

"You little liar, you're already discharging," he whispered disapprovingly and he massaged your clit in slow jerky rhythm. You nodded in approval, losing your control as he slipped a finger in and moved around enough to make you clench a bit, trapping his digit.

"How does that feel?" he asked almost clinically and you closed your eyes, urging him to put in another finger. He did and you almost orgasmed when he extracted much too soon, sighing.

"This isn't much fun for me," he whined and you made a face, shifting position to spread your legs wider, putting your arms up and accidentally smearing the fogged window with your fingertips. You looked utterly submissive, practically begging to be fucked, to get it over with (so you convinced yourself).

But for all his aggression to trap you in your own car for penetrative sex, Jonathan was now becoming oddly timid as he hesitantly closed the gap between you, realigning his bare body to yours.

"Wait, have you done this before?" you asked suspiciously and he was sheepish in answering.

"I told you, you are my first prototype."

"Shit, you're the virgin here?!" You laughed as though this made this experience any less stressful or partially contrived.

"Do you masturbate?" you then asked and he rolled his eyes.

"What kind of man of do you think I am?"

"Is that yes or no?"

"Doesn't matter, Y/N. Now, let me ask you a more important question: are you on birth control of any type?"

"I..." you hesitated to answer because if you told him 'no' would he go any further? You had pills at home as a precaution, but neglected to ever take them, assuming you'd be remaining single. But you had no intention of getting into a full relationship and certainly not being impregnated by this man.

"I left them at home," you finally answered truthfully.

"I have something for that then," he assured and you stared as he leaned back and rummaged in the pockets of his clothes on the floor. He produced a tiny pill container and dropped a pill into your open palm. You didn't ask why he was carrying around birth control pills, but assumed he had indeed been planning this for a while.

"Don't want any unnecessary side effects of something that I'll have to end up terminating anyway," he muttered bitterly as you popped it in and climbed into the driver's seat to swig some water from your plastic bottle in the cupholder, feeling grateful that at least he didn't administer that Fear Toxin he was always messing around with in the asylum.

"Now can we get started?" Jonathan asked impatiently and you took a breath, easing the front seat down so you were lying parallel to him. Jonathan clamored on top of your naked flesh and straddled you, his cock rubbing up against your thighs, then vaginal area and you squirmed, clutching onto his back. He pushed in gradually, but densely, and you whimpered at the stinging pain and then the growing pleasure bubbling around his cock within your walls and you clenched hard, much harder than you had with his fingers.

"Oh... Fuck, Jonathan..." you groaned and he bounced up and down lightly, thrusting with slaps of skin and you felt your bottom sticking with sweat to the leather seat as he kept at it for several minutes, gripping your hips and nearly plowing you apart. It hurt, no getting around it, and he wasn't privy to what you were feeling as he seemed entirely in his own zone, racing for his pleasure until you moaned loud enough to cause him glance down, realizing you were getting close to free falling off the edge.

"C'mon, you're so close with that pretty little pussy of yours, almost..." Jonathan breathed in your ear and as he hit the spot, finally the climaxing orgasm came with a bang and it was so intense, probably fueled by adrenaline and stress more than actual love, that you emitted a high pitched shrieking whine which trailed into a low moan of relief while it tapered off and he grunted, somehow thrusting even further. Yes, you had minimal experience, but had never ever been penetrated this far before and you dreaded how much longer he could rail you, but thankfully his own orgasm came with a grunting groan as he spilled into you and you held on, digging nails into his shoulder blades and nearly biting his neck. He panted heavily in your ear and his tickle of breath made your stomach flip.

He laid still on top of you for awhile, cock twitching and warming your insides. The windows were fogged up completely and the cold was now non-existent with the heat you and him were creating out of friction alone.

"You enjoy yourself?" you whispered hoarsely to Jonathan as his breathing slowed sluggishly and he looked like he was falling asleep, so you shoved him off your aching body and he blinked, rubbing his forehead.

"Yeah, that was satisfactory. Maybe I should bump up your paycheck."

"I'm not a prostitute, but thank you."

He smiled lazily, eyes rather unfocused, and you pulled your seat up with the lever, reaching for his glasses on the dash and handing them back to him. He, in turn, retrieved the car keys from his pants and tossed them back to you with a clanging jingle.

Casting a look around your car, there were streaky handprints on the fogged glass, thin swipes of fingers and imprinted palms decorating the back windows and you reached over to one and drew a heart outline in a patch of blank space. Jonathan's own finger speared through it, making a arrow.

"Very romantic," you commented sarcastically and moved to join him in the backseat as he started to draw a creepy face reminiscent of a familiar spooky icon (a clown? Maybe a scarecrow?) when he stopped and checked his watch.

"I need to go," Jonathan coldly stated out of the blue and began to hastily gather up his clothing, awkwardly dressing before he stepped outside and zipped up his pants, and inhaled the late October city air, somewhat out of breath. The rain had stopped and the skies were clearing, the full pearly white moon slicing through the curtain of storm clouds, and you drew your blouse around yourself with a shiver before sliding into underwear, realizing you'd never look at Dr. Crane the same since this intimately raw experience.

"So I'll be seeing you around tomorrow...?" you wondered aloud and although you meant for that to be purely work related, he clearly took it the other direction.

"Oh, I'll be seeing you." He smirked knowingly and then slammed the car door closed in your face, leaving you sore and to reel from whatever the hell this twisted specimen of a man just put you through. Did you like it?

Maybe.

Thanks for reading 🖤 First time writing for Jonathan Crane, so I hope this was halfway decent!

[hootbon]

So you said they cant kill audience members but is it different for the night cycle npc’s? Since the night cycle are so I would assume different rules apply.

And if they can’t harm them is it possible to “stun” npcs?

Like in the Friday the thirteenth game where you can stun for a bit Jason by shooting him. Can’t kill him but it sure will slow him down.

Also on that topic since Cain is technically connected to the internet through the virus and the audience. Has he ever used horror movie characters to hunt the circus members? ( scream, Friday the thirteenth, alien, Halloween, killer klowns from outer space?, etc)

The night cycle npcs can be killed.. but they’re like zombies, they’re fucking everywhere and practically unlimited since every time one dies a new one spawns somewhere else.

You can stun them too, there are items lying around that will do that.

And nah he hasn’t.. copyright infringement isn’t exactly on his list of things to do

[lovelytsunoda]

mr. ghostface // lance stroll

summary: a trip to spirit halloween with her husband plants an idea in lance's head that he can't quite shake. knowing how stressed his beloved has been lately, he just wants them to have a little bit of spooky and festive fun.

pairing: lance stroll x wife! reader

warnings: straight up p*rn guys, idk what to tell you. there’s some light roleplay, but it’s done in a very playful and loving way so it’s not too intense, a few brief mentions of anxiety, two people that are truly madly and deeply in love with each other. i am going to hell for this.

authors note: i really like this one because it gave me a chance to play around with two people exploring the kinkier side of their relationship in a fun, lighthearted and carefree way, a way that works for them so they can experience the best of both worlds sexually. i had a lot of fun with this one, and now all I need is a lance in my life :)

there were few stores that y/n stroll loved more than spirit halloween. even now; as a married adult woman, there were few things she thought she could enjoy more on a fall afternoon than walking through the halloween store with her husband, a mcdonalds milkshake in one hand and her beloveds hand in the other.

lance was having the time of his life, delighting in scaring the bejesus out of his wife using the pedals that activated the animatronics. she would always jump, and clutch his arm for dear life, even if she partially knew what was coming.

wife. husband. neither of them would ever tire of calling the other, even after one year of marriage. lance was always saying things like “I’d like you to meet my wife”, or “have you met my wife yet” whenever he met someone new or reconnected with an old friend in the paddock.

their relationship seemed to have never left the honeymoon stage, bursting at the seams with love.

“babe, babe!” lance gushed, fumbling to get a hanger off the display wall. he held up the red costume corset, dangling limply off a plastic hanger. with his other hand, he grabbed the sequinned devil ears hanging above it. “you would look so fucking hot in these.”

she blushed, choking on her milkshake. “lance! outside the house? no fucking way, I’m not that bold.”

“you don’t have to wear it outside. in fact, i was hoping you’d wear it somewhere else. somewhere a little more…intimate.” lance hummed, his hands now resting on her waist, the corset back on the display wall as he pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“baby, i don’t even think that would fit me. that’s way too small for my ribcage, much less my boobs.” she laughed, slipping her free hand into lances back pocket and resting her head against his bicep.

lance chuckled, kissing her hairline again before reaching to the wall and grabbing a plastic mask. “oh, what about this?” he laughed, slipping the scream mask over his head and turning to his wife.

“whats your favourite scary movie?” he rasped, before breaking out into laughter. “come on, babe! we could be ghostface and casey!”

she laughed, trailing her finger up lances chest before yanking the mask off his head. he pouted playfully, and she laughed before she kissed him gently.

“absolutley not:”

“oh, I’m getting the mask.” lance insisted, taking the plastic from her.

she shrugged, taking another sip of her drink. she didn’t really care if lance bought the mask or not, she just wanted their couple costume to be a little classier than a fictional serial killer and his first victim.

“it’s your money.”

_______________

she sat at the living room desk two afternoons later, finding her attention span increasingly reaching it's breaking point as her bleary eyes wandered away from her laptop screen and towards the picture window, watching the changing leaves on the trees outside. everywhere around her, fall was settling in on the quebec countryside.

"babe!" lance's voice carried from their bedroom. "are you busy? i wanna show you something!"

technically, she was busy. she had a big project due at work, but she was practically begging the universe for a distraction at this point. closing her laptop, she pushed herself back from the table and started walking through the ranch house. the tile floor was cold against her bare feet as she passed through the kitchen, poking her head down the hallway in hopes of finding her husband.

"lance?"

she heard a closet door opening behind her, and when she turned around, she jumped, shriek piercing the air.

"you and that goddamn mask."

lance laughed, face hidden behind the white plastic ghostface mask. "sorry, babe. couldn't resist."

after her initial shock faded away, she realized that aside from the black silk pajama pants on his lower half, the mask was all that her husband was wearing.

"please don't kill me, mr. ghostface." she pouted, wrapping one slender leg around her lover's, running a hand up his bare chest, feeling every muscle and ridge. "i wanna be in the sequel." she wanted to kiss him, but with the mask, that would be hard, so she settled for gently kissing his collar bone. "what's all this for?"

lance raised an arm, pushing the mask off his face. “you’ve been really stressed lately. the other day, i watched you worry about the health implications of having onion rings with your sandwich because you were worried you haven’t been eating well this month.”

and that was true: she had been more anxious than usual, and her intrusive thoughts had been much more pervasive. she’d been trying to get back into a routine, following stretching videos on YouTube and going for walks, trying new recipes. but she was still having trouble falling asleep, keeping focussed. hell, she was even having trouble keeping the routine.

not getting lost inside her own head.

she kissed him gently, resting her body weight against him. lance still made her feel like a teenager in love, her teenage dream. even after a year of marriage there was still so much to look forward to.

like, apparently, nineties slasher roleplay in bed.

"i love you." she hummed, nuzzling into his neck.

"love you more, pretty girl." lance smiled, kissing her forehead. "take fifteen minutes and go make yourself feel sexy, i'm going to get some things out of the freezer for dinner. i'll make that pasta you like?"

“sounds like a plan.”

she tiptoed into the master bedroom, closing the door behind her before stripping out of her leggings and the baggy shirt she had been wearing, trading her cotton panties and wire bra for a short corset top and silk pajama shorts in a deep royal blue. the little silver “l” pendant that she wore around her neck fell gracefully against her skin, hair falling around her shoulders.

she could hear clattering coming from the kitchen. it was lance fumbling around to get the ground beef out of the freezer and into a bowl of cold water to defrost.

she popped open the bath and body works spray on the dresser, mist dusting her skin with body glitter. her spine tingled in anticipation of what was to come, goosebumps rising on her skin as she settled on the end of the bed, one leg crossed over the other so her shorts rode up, showing off more thigh than was necessary.

lance was a sucker for thighs. specifically hers.

the door creaked open, and lance crept into the room, the mask over his face once again. he paused before the end of the bed, and she was momentarily pissed off that she couldn't see the way he was looking at her. but she knew what that look in his eye would be: pure love and adoration.

"you look stunning." he whispered, his fingers ghosting over her skin as he brushed his hand up her leg, to her thigh. "hey, don't take this super seriously, okay? we're just having a bit of fun."

"i know." she took his hand in hers, pressing a kiss to his knuckles. "just be gentle with me."

"always."

she dropped his hand, and he brought it to her face, gently caressing her cheek as she looked down at her through the mask.

“what’s your favourite scary movie?”

“hmm, the one where I make it to the end?” she quipped, smiling up at her husband.

“oh, i think I can work with that.” he hummed, running his thumb down the side of her face, down the side of her neck, over her shoulder.

she giggled, flinching under his touch when he brushed against her neck. she had always been ticklish there.

“how are you going to make it worth my while to let you make it to a sequel?”

she uncrossed her legs, spreading them wide and leaning back on her palms. the fabric of her silken shorts had moved just so that lance could see that she wasn’t wearing any panties, a slight dark spot beginning to form on the fabric.

she could hear lance exhale, his breath reverberating against the mask. “you spread your legs pretty fast, darlin’. is this what you want? to let mr. ghostface have his way with you?”

his tone was lighthearted, his voice curling up into gentle laughter at the end of the sentence. it kept the carefree nature of their usual sex life embedded in the scene, despite its adventurous nature, which she would forever be thankful for. she could see the outline of his rapidly hardening cock through his silken pants.

“oh, yes, mr. ghostface.” she purred playfully, playing right into lance’s hands as she palmed one of her tits through the cups of the corset top. “please.”

he grabbed her leg, hiking it up and over his shoulder, dragging her to the edge of the bed and spreading her open for him. she gasped, falling back onto her forearms and pressing her chest up.

“jesus christ.” lance exhaled, his fingers brushing over her sopping entrance. “you’re dripping for me, sweetheart. is this turning you on? you want me to ravish you?”

“yes, mister, please.” she whined, pressing up against the pads of his fingertips. “touch me.”

lance slipped two fingers inside her with very little warning, barely giving her time to adjust before he started flexing his digits rapidly. she moaned under his touch, falling back against the bed.

“uh uh, darling. eyes on me. i want you to see who’s making you feel this good.”

his fingers brushed against her sensitive walls, and she bucked her hips against his hands before struggling up to her shaky arms, moaning even deeper at the sight in front of her: leg up on her husbands shoulder, the mask on his face, the way the muscles in his arms flexed as he finger-fucked her.

“that’s it, my good girl. my good, beautiful girl. so good for me.” lance hummed, his thumb coming down to circle her clit. “there better not be a single anxious thought in that head of yours.”

and for the first time that day, there wasn’t. she had crumbled under lances touch, her head empty the second he had kissed her in that hallway. she loved it.

loved him.

“oh god, lance,” she breathed, allowing herself to slip out of character as she reached for his wrist. “i think I’m gonna cum!”

the hand that previously kept a bruising grip on her leg dropped to reassuringly rub circles on her thigh. “I’ve got you, love. just close your eyes and ride out. cum on my fingers, you know you want to.”

she closed her eyes, arching her back as she felt her pussy contract, sucking lances fingers in and refusing to let go as she fell apart around him, whining his name as he scissored his fingers, dropping her leg and trying to guide her through her climax.

he withdrew his fingers, now covered in her release, making sure that his wife was watching before he lifted the mask just enough for her to watch him slip his fingers into his mouth, sucking up every last drop.

she whined at the sight, and would have clenched her thighs together if not for lances leg holding them open. instead, she found herself grinding against his thigh as he lovingly cradled her wrist against the mattress, leaning down to drop a kiss on her forehead.

“you’re so good, pretty girl. so perfect for me in every way. i hope you know that.”

“I know.” she giggled, pressing against him again. “thank you for doing this:”

lances nimble fingers slipped underneath the lacy cups of her top, taking her nipples in between his fingers. she writhed under him, exhaling his name.

“you don’t have to thank me, pretty girl. you just need to scream my name.”

“that can be arranged.” she was certain that her shorts were soaked; they would need some extra stain removal methods when she did the laundry.

lance could feel it too; a dark spot forming on his pants where she rubbed against him. he was starting to sweat under the mask, his hair matted to his face and his breathing heavy.

he slipped a finger underneath her bra strap, teasingly dragging it down her shoulder. she shivered under the sensations, knowing full well how she must look.

lust-drunk, face flushed and covered in a sheen of sweat, pupils dilated.

and he hadn’t even fucked her yet.

normally she’d be above begging. but not tonight. not while he was looming over her and fulfilling a fantasy she didn’t even realize that she had.

"please, please, i need your cock." she whined. "i need to be fucked, mr. ghostface. please."

under the mask, lance smirked. he wished he could kiss her, feel her whine into his mouth. “baby, baby, you never need to beg for me. because that means I’m not treating you right.”

“then put your cock in me!” she whined, nudging him with her leg.

chuckling to himself, lance pulled her shorts down her legs, dropping them to the carpet before he got up and slowly shed his own. his wife watched from the bed, butting her lip so hard he thought she might draw blood as she watched his rock-hard cock slap against his abs.

she couldn’t help it, one hand gently palming her clit as she watched lance stalk towards the bed, his breathing loud from inside the mask. despite the lack of control there appeared to be, she knew that she was 100% in control of what was about to happen.

lance gently pushed her hand away from her swollen clit, crossing her wrists over each other and holding them down with one hand. her breath hitched as he ran his cock up and down her folds, her hips bucking, trying to take what little he was giving her.

“are you ready for my cock, princess? are you ready to fucking scream my name?”

“yes, lance, please stop teasing me.”

he slid home in one swift movement, switching his grip on her wrists so that he had one wrist in each hand as he roughly drove into her.

her eyes practically rolled back in her skull as she moaned, her tight center squeezing his cock.

“oh, fuck.” she breathed, closing her eyes with an exhale. “fuck, you feel so good inside me. so deep.”

“you’re doing such a good job, pretty girl. you’re taking me like such a good girl.” lance praised, thrusting harder before loosening his grip on her wrists. “take off the mask, baby. I know you want to. let me kiss you.”

she reached up with one hand, eyes bleary from the pleasure she was feeling as she grabbed on to the black hood of the mask, gently tugging until the mask fell away.

“oh no, now I know your face.” she joked, playing along with the scene. “whatever will I do now? please don’t kill me mr. ghostface.”

lance laughed, leaning down to kiss her. he but down gently on her lip, sucking her bottom lip in between his own. “well, we have two options. I can make you my partner in crime.” he paused, reaching down to pinch her swollen clit. she jumped, squealing in pleasure. his hand still pinned one of her wrists to the bed, the other hand leaving red marks on his shoulder as he continued to pound into her. “or I could make you cum so hard that you forget my face and decide not to turn me in.”

she giggled, pretending to think it over. “I think I’ll take the orgasm.”

“good choice.”

she wrapped her legs around him, pulling his dick even deeper inside of her. he let go of her wrist, bracing himself on the bed while she dug her nails hard into his back, leaving scratches behind. he dropped his lips to her neck, pressing open mouthed kisses to her ticklish skin. she giggled, squirming underneath him.

lance loved it when she laughed during sex. to him, there was nothing sexier than seeing his wife let go. no anxiety, no self-consciousness. it made him feel close to her.

“my beautiful wife.” he grunted, rutting into her hard enough to push her body up the bed. she whined his name, arching her back to press her nipples against his chest.

the skin to skin was what she loved the most. that feeling of being as close as you possibly can to another person.

“oh, baby, right there.” it came out broken and raspy, and she found herself trying to hide her face in her husbands neck. “fuck, that feels so good.”

her walls fluttered, and lances thrusts faltered as he struggled to hold himself up. “are you close, baby? it’s okay, I’ve got you. you can let go.”

she clung on to him for dear life, skin flushed and juices dripping down her thighs. she couldn’t form words, nothing but incoherent whining coming out of her throat. she felt so full, so loved, the coil in her stomach threatening to snap as lance presses his lips to hers, sucking on her bottom lip and bringing one hand down to rub circles on her clit.

“lance, I’m cumming!” she cried, her nails digging into his back as she wrapped her body around him, shutting her eyes tightly as she pressed her face into his shoulder.

“I’ve got you, I’ve got you. you did so well, princess. you looked so pretty with my cock inside you.” he said softly, kissing her forehead as he guided her through it, feeling himself start to reach his own limits. “where do you want me to finish, pretty girl?”

she barely had the energy to respond, still trying to get her breath back as her legs shook from overstimulation, tears pressing at the corners of her eyes. “inside me, please, god, I need it.”

“fucking hell.” lance grunted, thrusting faster, his balls slapping against her sensitive skin as he went. “god I love you.”

he moaned as he dropped his head, nuzzling into her neck as he came with a howl, his cock jerking as it painted her walls white with his release. he stilled, peppering her face in kisses.

“I love you, baby. I don’t like seeing you stressed.”

she hummed, tangling her fingers in his hair and looking up at her husband. “I love you, too. thank you for saving me from myself.”

lance pulled out gently, his wife whimpering at the newfound feeling of emptiness. she clenched her thighs together, watching as her lover got up from the bed, pulling his silk pants back on.

“oh, babe, put in different pants.” she laughed, playfully throwing the ghostface mask in his direction. “those ones are probably gross as shit right now.”

“they’re not as bad as yours.” he shrugged, fishing a clean cotton t-shirt out of their shared dresser. there was something so casually intimate about sharing a dresser. “come on, let’s get you out of that corset.”

she sat up, pulling the comforter over her bottom half as she lazily leaned back into lances touch. his fingers glided down her back, unhooking the corset clasps and kissing over the red marks where the hooks had dug into her back. she raised her arms and he slipped the shirt over her head, watching the fabric billow gently over her features.

lance settled in next to her, and she rested her head against his chest, gently tracing his tattoo with her fingertip.

fortune favours the bold.

“you work too hard. it’s not healthy.” he hummed.

she sighed, leaning into his touch as he ran his fingers through her hair. “I know. once this project has been handled, the big boss is giving us some time off.”

“that’s good. maybe we can go somewhere. it doesn’t have to be anything big, maybe maine or calgary?”

“yeah, that sounds nice.” she rolled over, supporting her weight on her forearm. “thanks for this, by the way. and for keeping it fun.”

“of course. any time you want me to do all of the thinking for you, just let me know. that’s what husbands are for.” lance slowly started to sit up, easing her back down to the bed to remind her that she needed rest. “I’m gonna go start dinner. go to the bathroom, have a glass of water, and remember to rest, okay? I’ll wake you when it’s ready.”

she smiled, rubbing his arm gently as she looked up at her husband “or I could come to the kitchen and watch. you know I think it’s so hot when you cook, especially when you do it shirtless.”

“oh yeah? maybe I should get a chefs outfit for the next time we spice it up a little.”

“in your goddamn dreams.”

TAGS

@magnummagnussen @thatsdemko @oconso @libraryofloveletters @diorleclerc @lorarri @cartierre @sidcrosbyspuck @scuderiamh @silversainz @silverstonesainz

[jeanmoreaue]

Are Jean and Neil the same age?

yep which is wild!! they’re both 19 turning 20 in the next year. i think Jean’s technically about 3-4 months older if you consider Nathaniel Wesisinski’s actual birthday (January 19th, 1988) not Neil Josten’s birthday (March 31st, 1987 - since that makes him a year older lol) and the foxhole court takes place in 2006-2007 year

Jean is 19 in tsc and nora said that Jean is a scorpio on twitter so that means his birthday is somewhere in October/November (my stab in the dark is October 29th, 1987, right before halloween seems to fit the vibe) meaning that jean will probably turn 20 in the next book

[nhothicket]

is it too late for Halloween?

Some close ups and silly spare thoughts about this half-baked au below the cut ^v^

Some thoughts:

It's extremely important for this au that Etho is very enthusiastic about his clowning, okay? Nobody's forcing him to do this he is a PROUD CLOWN.

The setting is probably somewhere in the 80s-90s at an amusement park with a carnival vibe. I thought it might be fun to have all the Halloween hermits be canon, but I also see this being a world unaware of the more supernatural goings on, so I'm not sure if that could pan out. Maybe some sort of veil from the supernatural might be in play? Who knows.

Anyway! This is about Ethdubs not those other nerds.

> So, in this amusement part there's an oddities attraction of sorts. There resides Bdubs, he is a haunted heart preserved in a jar, not an actual attraction though just set dressing for the creepy shed vibe. As the story goes this jar has been passed around for decades, but its progressively gotten heavier despite being untampered with. The preservatives have gotten thick and changed colors over time. This is actually just Bdubs' spirit taking its sweet sweet time to manifest, as he slowly materializes around his heart, the preservatives turn to ectoplasm.

Most of the time he's sealed up in the jar, thanks to this mystical veil regular people usually can't hear him grouching about the tight space. The jar itself is part of his haunting, which means its technically part of him and he can't pass through it. So, until Etho realizes the disembodied voice he's been hearing come from the little building is not all in his head, Bdubs was stuck there.

> Bdubs' more human less goopy form is also a bit translucent in that form and he's not at all solid. If Etho were to poke him in the arm his finger would go through with some pressure. A firm hug would be fine at first, but he'd quickly start sinking into the ghost. It takes a lot of energy to be that physical, so Bdubs hardly does it. He's capable of leaving his heart in the jar and being a more traditional wispy ghost in that image, but... he feels left out when he can't touch things, so he'll usually choose being a bit gooey over being a beautiful beautiful man.

His heart is the only part of him that is completely physical. It is a real object in the world still, he's possessing it. It's what allows him to be more physical, so if someone were to reach into his chest and pluck it out he'd turn into a wisp. (He and Etho have both done so repeatedly to make bad jokes about heart stealing). How did Bdubs' heart get in a shady unmarked jar? Who knows. The people who ran the place probably don't even know its a real human heart anymore.

> Bdubs frequently lies about how old he was (recalling and inserting himself into historical events he wasn't even born for), Etho humors it.

> Bdubs died before Etho was born, this is the subject of mockery on both sides. (Etho would've been born maybe a decade or so after Bdubs died, he's in his 30s at present)

> Etho's gimmick is being comically good slight of hand and magic tricks. He's not supernatural, but he's like fantastical in his competence when it comes to looking magical. Etho invents (realistically jmpossible) contraptions to make his magic work.

> Horse drawn buggies would've been on their way out as Bdubs was growing up, so he could be nostalgic for that, I thought it might be cute if Etho took him out on one of those horse drawn tours as a surprise. Don't mind the clowny guy carrying around a jar with a heart in it.

> Another funny thought I had, Bdubs asking for a grand sarcophagus after getting jealous of the attention a new mummy is getting in the attraction. Etho doesn't buy him a sarcophagus, but he does get him a novelty canopic jar from the gift shop of a nearby museum.

Okay, that's all for now. ^v^;

[changingplumbob]

A Party To Die For Templates: SFS

So I may have got a tad overexcited about the Halloween CAS Challenge created by @la-llama-sims, and I made templates for every prompt. I wanted to share them on the off chance someone wanted to also do the challenge but maybe didn't have time to do much other than screenshots.

Tutorial below on how to make your own cards using the templates if you are unfamiliar with photo software, all you need is the template and a screenshot of your sim! Very little technical skill required to so feel free to jump in for Simblreen (the month of October on simblr). Remember to go to the original creator post to check out the prompts and the hashtag given for creations is #LLPTDF. Hope to see some of your creations next month, keep them for the spooky season 🎃👻🦇

Strap in and follow along as I make Glenn here (he won't do the spellcaster prompt for Simblreen, it's dress up after all, but it makes sense for a demo)

Step one: Grab the zipped folder of templates on SFS HERE. Unzip the folder and put it somewhere easy to find in your documents, I have a tumblr specific folder my templates are normally sorted in.

Step two: Open your photo editing program of choice. I use paint.net which is old but for this demonstration I will use Photopea, the online free alternative to adobe. You will see the screen below

Step three: Click "Open From Computer" right in the middle under the main title. Find the screenshot you have taken that you would like to use and open it. Now the hole in my template is 744x991 but you can make it slightly bigger if you don't want to fuss as much with lining things up exactly. To resize image from the top bar (Image -> Image Size) We're going to use the crop tool when we have our picture.

Step four: Pull on the squares at the edges to change the size. If you need click View in the top bar and you can zoom in to allow finer selecting. When you have the right size click the tick and copy the image. Keyboard shortcuts are Ctrl+A to select all, then Ctrl+C to copy.

Step five: Open the template you want to use (File -> Open, from the top bar). Add a new layer using either the top bar (Layer -> New -> Layer) or the icons on the bottom right.

Step six: With the new layer selected paste the image, Ctrl+V.

Step seven: On the right of the screen you'll be able to see layer order. Drag the layer with your sim underneath the background layer. This is what will let you slot in your picture.

Step eight: Finishing touches! Unless you are super duper lucky your sim won't appear in the exact right place, you'll have to move them around using the move tool. For precision you'll need to zoom in and move your field of vision using the hand tool.

You'll know it's in the right place when you can no longer see any of the negative space behind it. I like to check both corners to make sure I've got it. This is where having a sim image slightly larger will make it easier.

If you like you can finish now. From the top bar File -> Export as -> PNG or JPG. The picture will save to your downloads folder. If you want to add your own text, keep reading, as I've left space at the bottom for your username, the sim name, and a profile pic or other logo.

Step nine: From the bar on the right select the large T to add some text, it will automatically spawn in a new layer. Scroll through text options and find one you like (the text style I used isn't in photopea so we will find another). Depending on the type of text you will likely need to play around with the size as well.

Step ten: Start typing. When you're done you can highlight what you have written and use that size box to adjust how big the text is. Select the move tool from the right to move your text where you want it. Repeat step nine if you want text on the other side. I've chosen to put my username on one side, and my sim's name on the other.

Step eleven: Logo time. Open a pre shrunk logo (I scaled my pride plumbobs down to 125x125) and copy. Back on the template add a new layer then paste your image (for some reason I had to copy twice before it would do the right thing, I don't have an explanation sorry). Then using the move tool and the hand tool get your image where you want it.

From the top bar File -> Export as -> PNG or JPG. Again it will have saved to your downloads folder.

Voila, we have a Glenn card! Hopefully you have a your sim card. I spent hours doing up all the templates so feel free to fill them with your sims for the challenge. All I ask is that you don't claim templates as your own work or shove them behind a paywall because rude and the whole premise of Simblreen is free treats! Obviously you do NOT need the templates to participate in the challenge, the cards are just how I'll be presenting mine. Like CAS challenges the possibilities are most often only limited by your imagination.

[oreramar]

Florist Talk: a flower shop calendar

So I talked about the average day in a flower shop. Now it's time to talk about the average year (usual disclaimer: US-centric, small town sort of knowledge is to be found here. Adjust as needed for a different setting, whether real or fictional; these notes are merely meant to provide grounding or ideas for your writing).

So, Month By Month:

January

Business is basically dead for most of this month.

It's too early for springy colors but nobody wants the red and white Xmas color combo anymore. Floral limbo.

Prep for V-day begins in earnest sometime around here.

Earliest V-day orders might start coming in middle-to-end of the month. Sometimes people think ordering super early means they can get roses for cheaper. This is not the case; they will be charged the price of the roses they're gonna get, not the roses that exist a month before.

February

VALENTINE'S DAY ALL HANDS ON DECK OH GOD SOMEONE HELP US

A longer post will be dedicated to V-day itself eventually. For now, know that there's usually a lull in business immediately after the day itself.

There may be leftover roses. Nobody will want the leftover roses. If your Florbo over-ordered these supplies, they will have a difficult time shifting them. Write a fic and have them donate roses to an elderly care facility or something.

March

Kinda dead for the most part, aside from a little bit of prep toward Palm Sunday and Easter and Prom (see April)

I always make stuff for St Patrick's day but very few people want flowers for St Patrick's day so there's not much point. Maybe this could be different in a community with more people who go all in on St Paddy's.

When there are orders, this is when people start to ask for "springy" flowers.

April

If there are Christian Churches around they might want Easter Lilies ordered in for Easter, and Palm Branches for Palm Sunday.

Sometimes people will ask for flowering mum plants too, usually in white, yellow, or lavender. The wholesalers always seem to send way more lavender mums than any others, like they're trying to get rid of them.

Prom Season - technically can stretch from mid-late March through April. Depends on how many high schools are in the area. This means lots of corsages and boutonnieres. If there's a single big school that's very local then that means one very, very busy weekend spent doing nothing but assembling these things the day before and getting them picked up and paid for the day of. Might make a focused post on these one day.

Secretary's Day / Administrative Professionals' Day - late April. Technically there's a Day for this but it also covers the entire week of that day as well. Businesses and Bosses buy small flowers or maybe candy bouquets for their various Admins. Can get a little busy.

May

Teachers Appreciation Day / Week - early in May, lots of school deliveries.

Nurses Appreciation Day/Week - the next week in May, lots of hospital/clinic deliveries.

MOTHER'S DAY OH GOD OH - oh it's not quite as bad, actually. People get their Mother's Day flowers the entire week before so it's less concentrated. Still a big one.

US has Memorial Day right at the end. This means arrangements made for placing in the local cemetery. Can be busy but isn't usually too bad.

June

Dead business. So bored.

July

Dead business. So bored.

Attempt at July 4th table arrangements. Not many tend to sell.

August

Dead business. So bored.

September

School is back in session, which means that any student, teacher, or school admin staff who has a birthday or anniversary on a weekday might get sent flowers or balloons or candy bouquets or things like that, which means Flower Shop business.

Preferred floral designs shift toward "fall" and "autumny" colors and flowers somewhere between August and September.

October

Not a lot going on specifically, but business still tends to be busier than in summer. Also, despite all efforts, Halloween does not tend to involve a lot of flower orders, which is a real shame because you can do some real fun things with orange, purple, and bright green flowers, and with hot glue strands on twigs to make cobwebs, and with black painted bowl vases to resemble cauldrons...

November

US has Thanskgiving this month and some people want fancy flower and taper candle centerpieces for their tables. A responsible florist will include tags warning people not to burn those candles unattended because while the floral arrangement isn't going to be dry by any means, it is still technically flammable, especially if the candle has burned very low and for a very long time.

December

Christmas also involves fancy flower and taper candle centerpieces for tables. Also like 80% of all floral arrangements are being done in red and/or white.

And that's more or less it. Set your writing appropriately for how busy you want the Florbo to be with their flower job - if the plot demands Florbo have a lot of free time or be very very bored, look at the summer months, or the downtime of early January or late February. If you wish for them to be overwhelmingly busy, set it the week before Valentine's or Mother's day, or pick an April weekend for a local Prom and give them like forty corsages to make on a single Friday. A more moderate or variable day to day structure might be in May, or one of the Autumn months, when there's usually plenty of everyday type stuff to do plus the wild card busy days around big funerals or the like, with random dead days peppered in there.

Happy writing!

[blind0raven]

Well Mickey isn't entirely wrong here

Most of the time Mickey uses a magical object to perform magic himself

For example, the 2 most popular ones that I know of:

Yen Sid's hat! Mickey only performs magic when he wore Yen Sid's hat. This is also seen again in like the House of Mouse Villain's take over special (I can't remember what it's actually called but it was a Halloween special and I have the caset of it somewhere!), and in a ride attraction in Disney World where even Donald did magic while wearing the hat!

The magic paintbrush! In the game "Epic Mickey" Mickey, again, uses Yen Sid's magic paintbrush having access to Paint and Thinner to be able to get through his adventure, something he technically caused due to messing around with Yen Sid's stuff... again

Honestly Mickey, I know you're Yen Sid's apprentice and you technically would be using his stuff to practice... but man you get in alot of trouble and mischief with his stuff...

Like I even remember this one computer game where you used his magic book and you got in trouble AGAIN!!!

(I would also like to bring up the Keyblade too for an example, but I'm not exactly knowledgeable on Kingdom Hearts if Mickey only uses magic through items such as his Keyblade too so uh, please share if you know!)

And also

Mickey is right, he's not a WIZARD... he's a Sorceror!

Name difference, he was Yen Sid's apprentice! The most powerful sorceror! Mickey himself is a Sorceror, possibly still an apprentice but stil!

Although maybe this version Mickey "isn't" even his apprentice so he could also not be a sorceror too...

But honestly with the Epic Mickey references or even likelyness... its hard to not be convinced...

[love-and-monsters]

Halloween Poll Story

Multiple gendered eldritch god X gn human, second person, 8,024 words.

Happy Halloween! This story was the result of polls you all voted on. I hope you enjoy some spooky Halloween romance. Just as a heads up, I might not be around on this blog too much for a while after this for reasons I will explain in a later post. But I thank you all for your support.

Content warnings: Possession and mind control of innocents, implied manipulation, some possessive/obsessive behavior.

Summary: You have been working as a cursebreaker for years, clearing curses on items sent for recycling. But an unusual curse turns your mundane job in a surprising direction and catches the attention of a powerful being.

Perhaps things would have gone better if you were less exhausted. A notification had shot you out of bed at nearly five thirty, letting you know that the E train had been temporarily closed due to an infestation of direrats. The only other way to your work was the D train, which took a more roundabout route, and a connecting bus. When you’d arrived at the station, the D train was teeming with people also trying to make it to work on time, so you’d needed to shove your way past people to actually make it on in time. The bus had barely been better, and when you tried to grab your breakfast, you’d been dive-bombed by a pigeon-griffon and dropped your hash-brown.

Your work was a bit quieter than usual when you entered. It was never quiet- there was always banging and whirring and mechanical noises from the various pieces of equipment. But the usual chatter and shouting was softer than usual. Everyone seemed focused on their own work. You followed their lead and headed to your work station for the day’s load.

Being a cursebreaker at a recycling plant was an easy job. Identify the curse, stamp it out, and break down whatever the curse had been attached to for processing. Nine times out of ten, it was just removing the curse sigil, easy enough to do with a solvent or paint remover. Technically, anyone could remove a sigil, but most places employed a cursebreaker to do it regardless- a cursebreaker could identify the curse itself, something that was important in case it was booby-trapped. A cursebreaker might be more expensive to employ than your average worker, but it paid for itself when they prevented a curse that turned everyone within six miles into stone from activating.

Most of the time, the job was easy, anyway. You’d just been getting into the groove of it, scrubbing away paint like a champ, when a more complicated curse slid across your desk. Metaphorically speaking. You didn’t have a desk. It was booby trapped, stubborn, and overly complicated. Unweaving the magic took so long that you blew through your lunch break, and it sapped your reserves. Holding a curse in stasis took energy, and this one had been fighting you the whole way. You tossed it aside, relieved that it was over and ready to get back to simple, prank-level curses that could be removed with acetone.

And the next one was like that! And the next one. And the one after that. And then you ran into a problem.

Most curses you got were attached to objects, usually small ones that could be carried around and hidden somewhere before activation. Jewelry was most common, but sometimes they were things like hand mirrors or books. Furniture was not uncommon either. Sometimes even random bits of garbage. The curses were usually painted on, or carved into them if you wanted to get fancy. Easy to get rid of, if you combined removing the sigil with deactivating the curse. But the next curse was… not that.

It was metal. Maybe wrought iron, though you couldn’t tell for sure. It sort of looked like a wrought iron fence. But it was not painted or carved with a sigil. It was a sigil. And it was huge, almost bigger than a hubcap.

You lifted it up to feel the weight in your hands. It was lighter than you expected, but still quite solidly built. Even through your gloves, you could feel the faint heat it emitted. Powerful stuff. More powerful than you’d been anticipating. That… wasn’t good.

See, you weren’t necessarily a good cursebreaker. Good cursebreakers either went into government positions or private contracting firms. Both of those jobs were cushy, or as cushy as a job only two steps away from disarming bombs could be. Curses were dangerous shit, and if you could disarm the manmade curses or even the significantly nastier natural curses, you were set for life.

Unfortunately, your level of skill was only good for a recycling plant- undoing the piddly little curses that people slapped onto garbage that ended up in the dump. So much of the job was just scrubbing away poorly-constructed sigils that they didn’t bother to pay well for it, and they didn’t bother to check credentials that closely. So if you hadn’t quite passed the full cursebreaker exam and your license was technically only provisional… well, it didn’t matter much, did it?

Except now, looking down at a sigil that was more complicated than it had any right to be, it mattered.

You could call someone. Get it bumped up the chain of command, have the sigil taken elsewhere. But that could risk someone poking their nose into why you couldn’t, and you didn’t want to take the chance that someone would take a closer look at your credentials and see they didn’t pass muster. You needed this job.

Then again, trying to break a curse without knowing what you were doing… that could end in ways a lot worse than unemployment. Okay, new plan. The sigil looked impressive. But it was, possibly, not actually that dangerous. People did that sometimes, tried to make sigils look more impressive than they were to impress clients, especially rich ones. So maybe you just needed to tweak a little bit and it would fall apart.

You placed a hand on the very edge of the sigil and extended your senses into it, just enough to see the shape of it. The sigil itself would reveal information once it was fully surrounded by your senses and it would-

A white hot bolt of pain snapped through your arm, ignoring your heavy work glove. You snatched your hand away on pure instinct, and the sigil wobbled and clattered to the ground. The sound barely registered with you. There was just the blazing, boring heat in your hand. It didn’t feel like a burn. It felt like a white hot worm was twisting and boring its way through your flesh.

You staggered back, panic flaring through you. Cursebreakers were resistant to most curses- you were all schooled in those basics. But being resistant wasn’t the same as being immune, and the curse was in you. There were only precious minutes before it fully activated. Minutes that you couldn’t waste. But the pain was so much you couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t-

The pain vanished. It didn’t go away instantly. It gradually cooled away, more like sticking a hot piece of metal in water and letting the heat steam off. You slumped against the back wall of your workstation, panting heavily. Sweat poured down your face behind your mask. Trembles worked through your body, making your hands unsteady. What had that been? You could still feel where the pain had been, like something on the inside of your arm had been burned raw.

Cautiously, you approached the sigil. It sat innocently on the ground. You kicked it. The metal scraped on the floor, but there was no pain. After a moment of hyping yourself up, you picked it up with your good hand.

Nothing. The sigil wasn’t biting anymore, at least. But you hadn’t just been holding it when the pain happened. You set it on the table and eyed it cautiously. The sigil had activated when you’d pushed your magic into it. Not even a large amount of magic, just enough to get the shape of it. If it had defensive elements that sensitive in it, the entire thing was far beyond your pay grade.

You debated on it for a moment, chewing your tongue in frustration. You needed to turn the sigil in. That was what you were supposed to do. It was too powerful for you to break down properly, and trying to break it down improperly risked some serious issues. But you would need to tell your boss for that, and you didn’t really want to risk losing your job.

You wrestled with it for a moment. The sigil didn’t seem to be immediately dangerous, and there weren’t great records kept about what items were given to who and when times they needed to be cleared by. So…

You propped the sigil up against one of the far walls of your workspace and turned to the next curse on your pile. It would keep. You could decide what to do later, maybe after a good night’s sleep.

The rest of the sigils went by easily. Your arm didn’t hurt anymore, though there was a vague, weird feeling in it. Not quite like a tingling, which was usually what residual magic felt like. More like… a weird coolness? Almost like there was cold air touching your arm, but from the inside.

It was a weird sensation. You tried not to dwell on it too much.

The direrat nest had been cleared by the time you left work. A bit strange. Direrats could chew up sections of track, given enough time, so even small nests often needed days of repair work. But you weren’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. You boarded the E train, which mercifully had only a few people, so there were seats, and dozed on your way home.

Perhaps that had been a bad idea, because you’d been groggy your entire walk home. And even though you probably should have eaten something and gotten some chores done, the only thing you wanted to do was crawl into bed.

Your arm still ached, even as you tucked yourself in to sleep.

Most nights, you didn’t dream. This night, you did. The dreams were disorienting, disconnected, and bewildering. Images of flying, falling, looking down over cities and up through the depths of the ocean. And the strange, consistent feeling of slithering through something like a wet tunnel, with walls on all sides and a single-minded determination to reach your destination.

You blinked your eyes open and groaned. It was like you’d barely gotten any sleep at all. Your head was fuzzy and pounding, though not with pain. It felt more like your blood was just pulsing around your brain.

It took several minutes before you could manage to force yourself out of bed. Your arm felt… strange. Not bad. Not even tingly, which was, again, the normal thing magic would have done. It felt a little warm, and it seemed to pulse in the same rhythm as your head.

For a moment, you entertained the idea of just calling in sick to work and avoiding the whole mess. You didn’t feel sick, but you did feel weird. But your therapist had been telling you to ‘avoid avoidant behavior’ and it wasn’t like you were getting paid for not working. After taking some time to mull it over, you decided to go in.

After showering and feeling somewhat more human, you headed out. The sky was cloudy, but not just a normal fall storm- there was a nearly green tinge to the clouds, like a summer thunderstorm before a tornado. You tucked your coat closer around your shoulders. Your arm and head pulsed.

The streets seemed emptier than usual. Even early in the morning, there were usually a decent amount of people around. It wasn’t entirely strange, considering that it looked like there was going to be a bad storm, but the streets were eerily quiet. It was unsettling. Your arm and head pulsed.

The ride to work was quiet. You dozed a little. It was peaceful. The tunnels were quiet and dark and traveling through them felt right. Your dreams and the real world merged in a strangely pleasant way. Your arm and head pulsed.

Work was the same as usual, with the same ambient noises. You stepped into your station and froze.

The sigil was gone.

You’d left it propped up against your workstation, just next to the table everything rested on. It was unmissable. Even if it had fallen over or rolled, it would have been visible from the entrance. It was gone.

Your blood ran cold. And at that exact moment, your boss appeared at the entrance of the hall. “C’mon back. I gotta talk to you.”

If possible, your blood ran even colder. You nodded and followed him.

It was a short walk to his office. That was nice. It didn’t give you much time to think about all the different ways you were fucked.

He stepped inside the office, gestured for you to head in as well, and closed the door behind him. The room seemed weirdly dim- it had a window, but the light was gray thanks to the clouds, and the fluorescent lights were off. There was a votive flickering at the corner of the room. Weird. Were candles allowed in this building?

Your boss sat at his desk, drawing your attention toward him. As you looked, your blood turned to an icy slush in your veins.

That was where the sigil had gone. It was sitting behind his desk, just barely visible. It didn’t look restrained- that was something of a relief. Maybe it hadn’t been as bad at you’d been thinking and you were just going to get scolded for not taking care of it the day you’d been assigned it. Maybe you could bluff your way out of it.

Your boss leaned over your desk. He was a big man, bearded, large stomach and beefy arms. He could definitely be intimidating when he wanted to. And you were expecting him to glower and glare and demand explanations.

What you weren’t expecting was him to smile. “How’s your arm?”

You’d stopped paying attention to it, in the cold terror you’d felt when you’d been called. But now that your attention was drawn back to it- it was warm. Pulsing. That strange feeling was still there. Maybe stronger than it was before. You glanced down at your arm, but it looked normal. Same as it always does. “It’s fine. Of course.” You clear your throat. “Why do you ask?”

His smile widened. The lighting of the room made it look… almost unnatural. Like it wa too wide. “It was your point of contact. Mortals can react unpredictably to it.”

A slow, prickling sensation crawled up your spine. That smile… that was wrong. Your boss didn’t smile like that. You’d been working here for a year and a half. He’d never smiled at anyone like that before. He didn’t smile, period. Especially not to someone who fucked up the rules. And you couldn’t imagine him calling anyone ‘mortal’ either.

Good cursebreakers used their brains. They thought about what they did, had models and scientific understandings of curses. Years of knowledge, practical and from books. A good cursebreaker survived by thinking about things, coming up with theories and applying their smarts.

You were a bad cursebreaker. Bad cursebreakers survived on their instincts. And your instincts were saying to get the fuck out.

It took seconds to get out of the room. Only a minute to get out of the building. You fled down the street, not trying to go anywhere in particular. Just trying to get away. After several blocks, your lungs and legs were screaming for a break and you had to stagger to a stop.

No one was following behind you. And, after taking a moment to assess, you realized that you probably hadn’t been followed at all. There had been no footsteps following you as you ran.

You took a moment to think about that. He hadn’t bothered to pursue you, which meant either he didn’t care where you went or what you did. Or he figured he was going to find you anyway. Both those options were chilling. It meant he believed, at least, that you were powerless to do anything against him.

Bereft of anything else to do, you slipped into a nearby café and contented yourself with nursing a small coffee. And thinking. Your boss- no, that hadn’t been your boss. In retrospect, you should have seen it sooner. He had a slight accent that this voice hadn’t had. In fact, the accent your boss had spoken in had been identical to yours.

Your arm pulsed with warmth again.

You fumbled for your sleeve and yanked it up. Again, there were no physical marks on your arm. Except…

On your palm. Right where the sigil had initially touched your skin. There was a tiny spot, almost like a burn. You didn’t remember seeing it when you last looked at your arm, though it was small enough that it would have been easy to miss. You ran your finger over it. The mark didn’t hurt, though touching it did make the warmth pulse strangely.

You’d already had your suspicions, but this more or less confirmed it- whatever was happening to you, to your boss, it was because of the sigil. It had affected you, somehow, as well as affecting other people.

Okay. You knew now that it was due to the sigil. Now what? Go to the government? There was a cursebreaker office only a few stops away by train. They would know what to do. Probably. If you’d been infected by touching the sigil and your boss had done the same when he moved it, then another cursebreaker should be able to fix it by breaking the curse without touching. Not easy, but possible.

You headed back out into the storm. It hadn’t started raining, but it looked like it might do any second. It felt a little like there were eyes on you as you headed for the station. Maybe your guilt conscience was prickling at you.

The train ride was mostly empty. That was a little unusual, but you were grateful for it. You just wanted to curl up in the back of the car and close your eyes.

Once the train stopped, you hurried toward the cursebreaker’s office. You’d only been there a couple times, and neither visit had been pleasant. Nausea curled in your stomach as you headed through the large doors at the front.

It was a typical office building, with a few plants and an overly-fancy looking waiting room. A bored-looking secretary sat at a desk, clicking away at a keyboard.

You approached and she, predictably, glanced up. Then she beamed. A wide, overjoyed smile. It was so out of place it stopped you in your tracks. It wasn’t the smile of someone greeting another shitty customer. It was the sort of smile you give when a loved one you haven’t seen for years shows up unexpectedly at your door.

“Hi!” she said, leaning over the counter toward you. “What can I help you with?             You glanced over your shoulder, just in case she was maybe addressing someone else. There was no one else there. “Um. Hi. I was looking for a cursebreaker?” You couldn’t help the hesitation in your voice. It was just weird, the way she was looking at you.

“I see.” She didn’t look back at her computer. Her gaze on you was unrelenting. “And what do you need a cursebreaker for?”

You felt a prickle of sweat bead on the back of your neck, despite the coldness of the room. “I need to break a curse.” Surely this wasn’t protocol, to make someone explain their curse issue in the lobby. Even if no one else was around.

She smiled indulgently. “I can take you to one of our cursebreakers, then. I believe Tamson will be available right now.” She stood. “Follow me.”

“I’m sure I can figure out their office if you just give me a number,” you said. You sort of didn’t want to spend more time with her than you had to. There was something about her that was just… Unsettling.

“Now, we wouldn’t want you to get lost,” she said. “And it’s certainly no trouble. Slow day, after all.” She laughed to herself, like it was some kind of clever joke you didn’t get.

There was a part of you that was considering just leaving, but you weren’t sure what else to do. And cursebreakers were always vaguely weird, right? Everyone said so. Maybe their secretaries were weird too.

You followed her down a series of halls lined with doors until she came to one marked ‘Aaron Tamson.’ She didn’t even bother to knock before opening the door.

Tamson was sitting at his desk, staring right at the door when you walked in. Like he’d been expecting you to be there right at that moment. He must have heard your footsteps. The secretary stepped into the room behind you and closed the door.

“Thank you, Molly,” Tamson said. You glanced over your shoulder at her. She was standing right in front of the door. Blocking the doorway. Like a guard.

Your stomach curdled. Your arm pulsed with warmth. Did they know why you were here? Was this the prelude to an arrest? No, they would have called their actual guards, if that was the case. Not a secretary. But they were definitely trying to keep you here.

“Don’t mind Molly,” Tamson said. “You just gave us such a surprise when you ran before. We don’t want that happening again.”

“Wha- what are you talking about?” A bit of anger made its way into your voice. Anger was good. Anger felt safe. Like maybe you could fight your way out of this. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I just- I just need a cursebreaker.”

He laughed. Molly, behind you, joined in his laughter, making it an eerie chorus. Your skin prickled and your arm throbbed with heat. “Oh, come now. We both know that’s not true. You bit off a bit more than you could chew in the curse department, and I think that’s frowned on by most humans, yes? Poor thing. You couldn’t possibly have known what you were getting into.”             Cold sweat dripped down the back of your neck, contrasting with the uncomfortable heat in your arm. “You know about that?”             “I don’t see how we couldn’t.” Molly spoke that time, and you whirled to look at her. There was something unsettling about her expression. Not just in the way she was smiling, which was still creepy just due to the situation, but the fact that her expression was the exact same as Tamson’s. Not just that they were both smiling, but the way the corners of their mouths were positioned, the amount their eyes crinkled at the edges. It was subtle, but looking at two very different people with completely identical expressions made your uncanny senses go off like crazy.

This was not ‘two slightly weird people trying to intimidate you because they knew about your crimes.’ This was wrong.

“Please, don’t be so frightened,” Tamson said. You spun back toward him. He was standing, leaning over the desk. “Nobody here wants to hurt you.”

“Yeah?” Your voice was shrill, trembling. “Then why are you trapping me in the fucking room?”

“Not trapping,” Molly said. “Not like that, anyway. We just want you to listen to what we have to say.”

“All I want,” you said, “is to get a cursebreaker and to destroy that sigil and to have things go back to normal.”

Molly’s brows drew together. “No,” she said in a gentling voice. “You don’t want that. You just think you do right now.”

“Let us explain first,” Tamson said. “Then we’ll see how you feel afterward, all right?”

You swallowed. “I don’t have a choice, do I?”

“There are always choices,” Molly said. “But you won’t be leaving the room until we’ve said our piece.”

You slumped into the chair used for consultations. “Okay. Then talk.”

They smiled. The same smile again. And then they spoke. In unison. “The sigil is ours. We did not make it, but it belongs to us. We do not know the circumstances of its creation, only that it gave us a pathway into this world. We could see into this world, this realm, and see the million tiny spots of magic. But the pathway was not large enough for us- a window, to use your terms, instead of a door. We needed a door.

“The sigil was taken, moved. We were powerless to stop it, but we could nudge. Make our sigil less obvious. Let it drift, until it came upon a place where we could extend our power.”

The sweat on the back of your neck was like ice and your stomach was rolling. “Which was me.”

“Correct.” Molly and Tamson gestured toward you in the same motion. “Think of it was an incomplete circuit. With one last application of energy, you completed the circuit. And thus, we were freed.”

The picture of what the hell was going on was becoming slowly clearer in your mind. Other realms. Needing to use doorways to come through to your world. They were old creatures, creatures from a place not quite like Earth. Sometimes, they were referred to as gods- people had even worshipped them a long time ago. But eventually, with the advent of cursebreakers, they’d been sealed away. The only fragments of their power that remained on Earth were the curses that people could use. The ultimate curses were ones that would bring the old gods back, the ones the allowed them to extend their reach into Earth once more.

The curse you’d been working on hadn’t looked like that. It had looked like, if not a normal curse, than at least a human one. But if they’d been able to disguise it, then maybe you wouldn’t have known.

Your arm was radiating heat. Not like burning, but like there was just warmth pulsing out from inside it. You glanced down at it. That little burn spot you’d noticed before seemed… bigger? Or maybe you were just imagining things due to stress. “Are you going to kill me now?” It seemed a logical step. Murder the person who knows about you so they can’t stop you. Why they were telling you this, you didn’t know. Maybe it was like a weird, elder god brag.

There was silence for a moment. Then Tamson stepped forward and slipped his fingers under your chin. You had been looking down at the ground, so he had to press a bit to get you to lift your gaze to his. Molly pressed in close to your side. “You think we’re going to kill you?” It was hard to get a read on his tone. He could have been sympathetic. He could also have been winding you up you it was funnier when he stabbed you.

“You are the one who called us into the realm. You reached out to us and brought us in through your form,” Molly said. Her voice was very close to your ear. “Your magic was the spark that allowed us to enter. Through you, we became whole.”

You shivered. “Does that mean- I’m still important to you so you’re not going to kill me?” Maybe if they killed you, the sigil would no longer work.

Tamson’s brows drew together, but he smiled. “Yes. I think that’s a good way to put it.”

Okay. That was… good, right? Terrifying, but good. You were going to live, and the longer you lived, the more time you had to figure a way out of this. “Okay.”

“Good,” Molly said. She headed toward the door, tugging it open. “Then let’s get going. Lots to do.”

Tamson puts his hand on your back, pushing you relentlessly forward. You dug your heels in, stumbling a little when he kept moving. “What? Where are we going?”

“There’s much to set up, I assure you. But currently, we’re going to collect the sigil,” Tamson said. He pressed both his hands to your back, practically shoving you in earnest while Molly doubled back to grab your arm and started pulling you down the hall. Your legs were barely moving at all, but they were dragging you along with little issue. Weren’t cursebreakers supposed to be sort of noodley? Did being possessed by an elder god give you weird strength?

By the time they got to the door, they were practically carrying you, supporting your weight at either shoulder. A couple people were doing… something on the sidewalk, sketching something out on the ground, and they smiled at you as you passed. A prickle shot up your spine and your arm pulsed again. You were getting real sick of that sensation.

“Are, uh. Are those…” you trailed off, casting your eyes deliberately at the people on the sidewalk.

“Part of us, yes,” Molly said.

You swallowed. “Is- is there anyone here who isn’t?”

Tamson laughed. “Looking for someone else to talk to?” His tone was light, but your stomach sank like a rock. That had been so stupid. Never let your captors know you’re looking for an exit plan, that’s like the first rule of being kidnapped. “There are others. Some people have more fortitude. Some bodies just aren’t needed right now. But you won’t be seeing many of them out and about.” He flicked a finger up toward the sky. “The storm, I’m afraid. Most people won’t venture out into such things,”

The sky rumbled ominously with his words. You shuddered. “It’s just a storm,” you said, trying to push forward. There was no hiding the tremble in your voice, though. Molly gave you a sympathetic look, leaning in like she was trying to comfort you.

“It is a storm, yes, but it’s also a manifestation of our power. Think of it like this- when we poured into this world, we moved to take bodies. But not all bodies could contain us. So a part of us possessed the storm. We’re in many places at once. And no mortal would wander out into a storm made of our power.”

“Except me,” you said. The thunderstorm didn’t register as anything unusual with you. Did other people really see it as so strange?

“Well, you are touched with our power,” Tamson said. “You’re hardly a mortal anymore.”

Your arm burned. Not painfully, but certainly enough to get your attention. You flinched. Both Molly and Tamson took that as an opportunity to secure their grip on you.

They pulled your toward the street and a car pulled up. You weren’t a car expert, but it looked fancy. Did elder gods care about that? Or were they trying to impress you specifically? Tamson and Molly shoved you inside, settling on either side of you. The backseat was tight, but both of them still seemed closer to you than necessary.

The car ride gave you time to think. You were not the only person in the city who wasn’t possessed, but anyone who was possessed was probably cowering in their houses. Further, you didn’t know how far this whole thing spread. If you could look at your phone without them seeing, you could get a better idea of how bad things were. People commuted into the city- there had to be some sort of awareness that something had gone wrong. Unless it had spread a lot further than you’d thought. If you could just check the news, you’d at least be able to get your bearings.

Molly leaned against your shoulder. She hadn’t let go of your arm since you’d gotten into the car. “Thinking hard?             You jumped. “Don’t look so worried,” Tamson sighed, directing your attention to him. “You’re as jumpy as a frightened kitten.”

“You really don’t believe we’re not going to hurt you, hm?” Molly sighed. She gave you the saddest set of doe-eyes you’d ever seen.

“I don’t have a lot of reasons to think you won’t,” you said.

“We already said we weren’t going to,” Tamson insisted.

“Yeah, well, you’ll forgive me for not thinking an interdimensional creature that possessed a bunch of people is going to tell the truth all the time,” you muttered. Molly and Tamson frowned, their expressions perfectly in sync once more.

“We’ve never lied,” Tamson said. “We’re not lying now.”

“You keep saying that. It doesn’t mean I’m going to trust you.”

“All things in good time, then,” Molly said. “You’ll see.”

The car pulled to a stop outside your work and Molly swung the door open. You boss smiled at you as he passed the sigil inside. Molly practically shoved it at you so it was sitting on your lap. As soon as it came in contact with you, your arm blazed with heat. Sweat started to bead on your brow. Tamson sighed, leaning against you. “There, you see? The power it contains and the power you contain… They’re quite closely linked now. One and the same.”

Without a conscious thought, you started tracing the lines of the sigil with your bad arm. The warmth pulsed as deep as your core, like something in your soul was stirring.

You were so entranced that you didn’t notice the car was moving until it stopped again. Molly tugged gently on your arm. “Come along, dear.”

You blinked. The car had parked outside of a church, one of the more ornate ones in the city with stained glass windows sending colored light onto the sidewalk. Tamson and Molly pulled you inside, with you still clinging to the sigil.

Inside, the church was surprisingly dark. Candles illuminated the stained glass, but most of the seats and the pulpit were shadowed. You tripped over the uneven flooring and Molly steadied you. “Watch your step.”

“I can’t watch anything,” you snapped back. “It’s pitch fucking black!”

“We’ll watch for you,” Tamson suggested. “If it was bright, it would spoil the surprise.”

“What surprise?” Neither of them answered, just giggled in unison. You ground your teeth.

Both of them hauled you up to the pulpit, then past it and into a tucked away little corner. It seemed to be designed as somewhere for the choir to stay, given the closets holding robes and the dinky electric piano tucked into a corner. Tamson hovered next to me while Molly took the sigil. “I apologizer for not taking you home right now, but churches are just such lovely places to coalesce energy.”

“What are you coalescing energy for?” you asked.

“For you,” Tamson said, simple as you please. You blinked. You’d been expecting a plan to take over the world/galaxy/universe, not… that.

“Sorry, for me?”

“Yes,” Molly said from where she was mounting the sigil on the wall. “Humans are so woefully deficient, after all.

“Defi- I really don’t understand what’s going on.” You made a halfhearted attempt and running away, but Tamson just grabbed you in what seemed to be a really enthusiastic hug. You felt rather squished against his chest.

“You don’t need to understand. We’re going to take care of everything,” he smiled. Molly’s smile, equally beatific, radiated across the room.

“I might not need to understand, but I’d like to,” you pushed, tentative. They didn’t seem keen on actually hurting you. Maybe if you nudged them, they would be more willing to explain.

Tamson’s expression shifted, almost like he was considering it. He traced a hand along your arm, touch feather-light. The warm and pulsing almost seemed to subside for a moment. You’d gotten so used to it that without it, your arm felt cold.

“Isn’t it usually the case that the paladin receives some of their patron’s power?” he asked, so quiet it was almost like he was musing to himself.

Your brain stuttered over the word. “The paladin?”

“There are other words for it,” Molly said. You startled. She’d practically appeared right in front of you. “Priest or priestess? Disciple? Chosen one? All similar concepts. One who serves and is served by us or our kin.”

“I’m not serving you,” you sputtered. Molly and Tamson shrugged in unison.

“You did. You opened the gateway, did you not?” Their voices were in sync again, a perfect chorus. You shuddered, but the only place to retreat back into was Tamson’s embrace.

“Not- not on purpose.”

“No? And yet, your magic jumped so eagerly to us. We felt it, dear paladin. Dear walker of Earth.” They were cooing at you, pressing up into your personal space. “We know you, dearest to us. Down to your heart. When your magic opened the gateway, the first thing we knew of this beautiful place was you. We reached through you and we knew you and we knew you would be ours.”

“I didn’t ask to be yours,” you said. Your voice was strangled. Your body was fighting itself. You should be leaning away from them, and there was some terrified, rational part of yourself that wanted you to do that, but there was another part that said to lean in. They were close to you, warm and sweet. Perhaps you’d just hadn’t been held in a long time, but your entire body yearned for the contact. They couldn’t be telling the truth, that they cared about you. But you wanted them to be.

“Maybe you didn’t ask with words,” Molly said. “But we know you and we know your longing.”

“For things to be different. Safer. A world where you never need to be afraid, or stressed, or in pain. You have brought us here, and we saw your heart and your pain and we adored you, because no one can ever see that deeply into another’s soul and not adore them. So we will protect you, now. Our dear paladin,” Tamson sighed.

“Together, we will bring this world into a new age,” they said, their voices unified again. No, not just their voices. You could hear, faintly, other voices saying the exact same thing. Like the entire city was speaking in unison.

“I-” you choked out. It felt like you couldn’t breathe, like you were going into shock. Your companions (companion?) didn’t seem bothered. Tamson rocked back and forth in a slow, soothing motion. Molly brushed her fingers along your scalp and made comforting noises. You closed your eyes for a moment, sagging with the utter exhaustion of the day.

“It’s all right,” Molly said. “Let it all go.” Your arm was warm, still, and it still pulsed, but there was something pleasant about it. Like lying against someone’s chest and hearing their heartbeat. Like the warmth of a fire on a chilly night.

After some amount of time, Tamson shifted his weight, lifting you up a little. You moved to get away instinctively, and tumbled right into Molly. She made no effort to hold onto you, but you didn’t move that far away from her.

“We weren’t sure if you were feeling up to walking,” Tamson explained. “It’s time to go downstairs.”

“What’s downstairs?” you asked.

“You’ll see,” Molly said. She linked her arm with yours. “We’ll show you.”

You allowed yourself to be led, with one of them on either arm. You actually passed a few other people as you made your way to the basement. No one you recognized, though all of them broke into beaming smiles when they saw you. They also bowed at the waist, a reverence that you hadn’t been expecting.

The basement was down a set of stairs in the back of the church. Now, you’d been a church basement once before, due to being dragged there for some kind of event, and that time, it had resembled a sort of dingy little storage area. There were a couple different rooms, the paint was peeling, it smelled kind of musty. This was not the sort of church basement you were expecting.

The area was spacious, almost cavernous. It was so big, in fact, that it didn’t actually seem to fit under the church. Maybe it was an optical illusion, but the ceiling seemed too high.

The entire place was bathed in purple light, though there was no visible source. The area just seemed suffused in it. Smaller points of reddish light came from candles that were stationed all around the… room? It was hard to call it a room. The walls were undefined, fading into darkness. In the center of the room, there was a platform, with more candles clustered thickly around it. Molly and Tamson guided you toward it.

“Am I supposed to sit here?” you asked, eyeing the platform. There was a fancy, throne-like chair in the center. It looked iron-like, with an ornate designed along the back of it. The pattern looked a little familiar.

“Yes, of course.” Molly pushed you up closer to it and you paused. Yes, the back of the throne was familiar- it was made up of a lot of tiny little sigils, all intertwining with each other to create one, large pattern.

“How is this possible?” you asked, stretching your hand out to touch it, though you thought better of it before actually touching it.

“It’s remarkably easy to warp physical things within our realm of power,” Tamson said. “And when the sigils are fully formed, we can bring more power into the world and affect more.”

“It’s a wonderful system,” Molly sighed, leaning her head on your shoulder. You shivered. “And you shall be part of it now.”

“I sit here and what, you give me your power?” Suspicion was starting to prickle over your skin again. It looked dangerously close to something that would suck your soul out or mind control you.

“We offer you some of our power, as our paladin.” Tamson put his hand on your lower back and gave you a little push toward the throne. You slid a cautious step closer. Tamson pushed a little harder. This time, you dug your heels in, feeling a bit like a stubborn child trying to avoid going to a doctor’s appointment or something. Tamson paused, with a questioning little, “hm?”

“What’s wrong?” Molly asked, her breath a inch from your ear. You froze. “It’s all right. The power is frightening, but we’ll be right here with you. We’ll help, adored one.”

“I don’t know. I can’t-” Your arm was overly warm, making sweat prickle along your body. Your breathing was quick and shallow.

“It’s all right,” Tamson said. “Are you frightened of us?”

You pressed your lips together and didn’t answer.

“Yes. It’s all right. We can show you that you don’t need to be,” Molly offered. She reached down and lifted your arm, the one that was still warm. The heat was centered at your hand, radiating outward. Her fingers felt cool against your skin. “Here.”

You glanced down at what she was indicating. The red part of your palm had spread. It no longer looked like a small burn mark or spot. It looked like a pattern, the red mark splitting into multiple red lines that created an ornate picture. Something you recognized.

The sigil had appeared on your skin.

You trembled. It wasn’t complete yet, but you could see the red spreading, bit by bit. It would be complete soon.

Molly smiled. “You see our connection,” she murmured. “The mark of our favor on your skin.”

“It’s not done yet,” you said. You couldn’t keep the shake out of your voice. “What happens when it’s…”

“We can show you,” Molly said. She pressed a finger to the center of the sigil and something at the back of your mind unfurled.

It was like you had been curled in a tiny ball for your entire life and just now you were getting the chance to stand up and stretch your limbs. There was pain, almost like your brain was splitting open, but it was relieving as well. You could feel your body shuddering, but your body wasn’t important. Why would something as constrained as a body be important? You could see and feel the entire building, like you were surrounding it with your mind.

Something else touched your mind, gentle as a nudge. It was difficult to describe what your senses were doing, but the best description was that you ‘turned’ to ‘look’ at what had nudged you.

It was them. You could ‘see’ them. They were ‘curled’ around the bodies of Tamson and Molly, and you could ‘see’ other parts of them extending into the other bodies in the city and stretching up into the sky. They were bigger than you, much, much bigger, even in your expanded form. They ‘nudged’ you again, affectionate and warm. Each touch gave you a str age sense of what they were feeling, like their feelings were akin to body warmth. Their love pressed against you with every ‘touch.’ You reached out to them, following their ‘motions’ and trying to reclaim the adoration they were giving off. It was so much and so overwhelming and so good. You had never felt as genuinely cared for- their mind gave off pure gratitude and love for your entire being, for your humanity, for your soul.

With a near-painful abruptness, you were back in your own body. Your face was wet. Tears, yes, but also sweat and drool. Molly and Tamson were cooing at you, holding you in both their arms. Your body was sore, and not pleasantly so. You felt like you’d been sprinting for miles and been hit by a truck.

“What was that?” you groaned.

“Us,” Tamson said. “You, as well, though mortals are poorly suited for such a strenuous experience. You could only endure it due to our influence.”

You groaned again and made an attempt to get up. Molly and Tamson lifted their arms in time to catch you as you fell. Tamson allowed you to lean against him until your breathing stabilized again.

“Do you see now?” Molly asked. “The depth of our affection for you? How we adore you?”

You shuddered. Yes. You could feel it in your chest. The certainty of it. Tamson stroked your head and you leaned against him with a shuddering sigh.

“Come now,” Molly said. You whined as she tried to pull you upward. “I know you are tired, but you need our power.”

Tamson joined in on the tugging at you. “Just a modicum of our power and you’ll feel better. We promise.” With both their coaxing, you were dragged to your feet and hauled over to the throne. You were pretty boneless at first, but you were soon moving with them, reaching for the throne.

They carefully placed you on the seat and you sagged into it. The chair was not comfortable, but it made your arm steadily heat up. Your skin tingled.

There was a sensation like being watched. Like hundreds of eyes falling on you. No being watched in an oppressive fashion, either, but like reverence. Molly and Tamson knelt at either side of the throne, their hands on yours, drinking in the sight of you.

And then- it wasn’t like before, like your body had split open and sent the inner essence of you billowing up. It was more like there was a crack in your back and some of your essence had instead, slipped out, curling and billowing outward. You were still within your body, but you could extend more of yourself outward.

You fumbled, trying to acclimate yourself to new senses. Power surged through you and, fumbling, you scrabbled against the edges of reality, trying to orient yourself, and nearly tore it.

Their presence curled around you, lifting you up and away from the edge and balancing you next to them. There, now, my dearest. None of that. I am here with you now. Their ‘voice’ was warm, kindly, and almost… awestruck.

Dimly, back in your body, you were aware of the city folk bowing their heads in your direction, whispers of prayers and praises on their lips. All echoes of what this being felt for you. But you could only stretch your mind out toward them, and shudder in joy and relief when they stretched back and suffused you with adoration.

Come, adored one. We have much to do now. A city is only a fraction of what we can do, and you deserve continents upon continents of love.

You were a bad cursebreaker. Maybe you could be a good god.

[waitmyturtles]

THE MORNING AFTER: ONLY FRIENDS, EPISODE 9 EDITION -- SEX, RELIEF, HYPOCRISY, AND A MEDITATION FOR THE HOES

There's a lot to dig into, so let's git it. This episode was more complicated than it actually seemed on the surface -- THANKS, TOP.

@lurkingshan and @respectthepetty came OUTTA the GATES as soon as yesterday's episode dropped, swinging their chanclas at the hypocrisies that larded this episode. Shan read almost every last one of these motherfuckers for filth in her post, naming Atom (there goes my NeoTitle dreams already) for unfairly shaming Boston; Ray, for clearly cheating on Mew; and Sand, for equivocating Ray to Boston -- all while Boston is actually still clearly communicating his preferences to not date, despite people all around him judging him for the sex he has. RTP Senpai points out that Sand is pissed off at Top for stealing Sand's ex-boyfriend -- but that Sand full well knows that while he's sleeping with Ray, Ray was technically still dating Mew. So -- is Sand stealing Mew's boyfriend from Ray? Why, oh yes he is, and Sand ain't holding himself accountable for it, Big Boba Kanaphan Eyes.

Hypocrisy. It was the name of the game of this episode. Or.... was it? It was actually way more complicated than that.

Atom in particular, just like -- where's my chappal -- but let me get back to him in a sec. As the hypocrisies were starting to click in, I saw something else going on in this episode, an opposite to the hypocrisy. I saw some clear revelations, and a learning and leaning into love through the inexperienced eyes of Mew, as compared to the painfully experienced eyes of Yo.

The episode started with Mew waking up at the hostel, unaware of Top's behaviors after Mew passed out at the Halloween party. (Top, by the way, was just -- CHEF'S KISS -- drippingly condescending, hypocritical, and sneaky this episode. Force just laid it awl out. What a performance. More on this in a bit.) Mew parties with Yo, who is like, the friend we need the MOST in this series, and asks her about whether or not he SHOULD like Ray. And Yo has to remind Mew to check himself before he wrecks himself over any sense of obligation he may have to Ray.

Yo's starting to help Mew's thoughts tickle away from obligation to a reality of his heart. At least -- one reality.

I thought of this scene when we went on the camping trip with Sand and Nick, and we had, I think, the best scene in all of Only Friends so far (cc @wen-kexing-apologist and @lurkingshan who were very, VERY right) -- in Sand and Nick clicking into their moment where they're both single, they both real cute, and why don't we see if something's there? Because that happens among friends, sometimes, and if you don't try, you won't know, right? Especially in a queer friend community that will almost always be smaller than a het community, making love that much harder to find. So you might dibble and dabble with your friends here and there.

And they smooched, and they laughed, and they were like, this doesn't work, and they laughed more, and moved on. And they were just so mad cool about it.

The way that this particular line of engagement ended with two pairs -- with Sand and Nick finding clarity, and Ray and Mew together at the social services office and communicating, to confirm that Ray and Mew just would not work together -- was a kind of relief that I haven't experienced in Only Friends yet. The slight lift I got from seeing these considerations and interactions reminded me of how I felt when the tide of trauma began to turn in Bed Friend, where the second act of that series was just trauma pummel after trauma pummel -- how much more could Uea take, I wondered. As we saw, in this episode of Only Friends, clarity roll through SandNick and RayMew, I felt relieved that there was some closure, somewhere, among some of these individuals who had tried, even ever so briefly, to pair up.

But -- this being Only Friends, heh -- it was not only relief that I felt in this episode, but we also still saw a lot of sticky toxicity and hypocritical judgements.

Atom couldn't just leave Boston ALONE. As ever, Boston has communicated to his hook-up that he's not a dating guy, not a relationship guy. And Atom doesn't take the hint.

I love that at this point in the series, at episode 9, we STILL have people judging one-night stands as "awful." What a stark reminder of the ways in which people use judgements against sex to forever condemn those who choose to engage in casual sex.

After episode 6, I wrote a little about the phenomenon of having "feelings" after sex. Many, many people have a biological urge (or even a socially expectant urge) to care/have feelings for for the person they have slept with, whether they had sex after a one-night stand, a friends-with-benefits arrangement, sex in a relationship, etc. Others, like Boston, don't.

Either of these phenomena are okay and utterly normal -- as long as you're accountable to yourself for your feelings, and not placing on anyone else any obligation to respond to those feelings that are only emanating from you, yourself.

In other words: even if Atom had "feelings" for Boston after sex -- what is Boston's responsibility to respond in kind to those feelings?

Boston had the right answer to Atom here. Boston says to Atom: no one (meaning, me, Boston) asked you to care for me. And I'm not here to hold that caring for you. I don't owe you that, Atom. That's not what's assumed when two people have sex as casually as we did.

Compare this to Nick's farewell monologue to Boston (right before Boston is about to have a hook-up, oh my god, Nick). Nick had a thing to say about his feelings ("I like you, Boston, and I am sorry for everything I did, and I am going to move on from you"), he said his piece, and he moved on.

At first, I was CRINGING at what was happening, because I thought Nick would make an embarrassingly grand and dramaaaaatic farewell, of a kind that I saw many of my drunk girlfriends make to their exes at bars when I was in my 20s, all with an intent of making their exes feel guilty for the break-ups that had previously happened.

But Nick, in that moment, actually owned his feelings, despite the timing of the conversation. And we saw Boston respond, ready to approach Nick -- and Nick had bounced and moved on with Daddy Dan, right then and there.

What a MIRROR of behavior between Atom ("Boston, you owe me") and Nick ("I thought about this, and I'm going to end it, for your happiness and for mine"). While Boston and his reputation still remain as a kind of bottom standard for people who want to feel superior when they compare themselves to him (ex: Top, Ray, Sand), Boston himself is direct about his feelings, or lack thereof, and Nick demonstrated that he himself has moved on from equivocating about a feeling of like/love that at least, he thinks, is not there anymore. (Which, from Boston's eyes -- we know now is not the case, as Boston continues to give hints of regret.)

I gotta tell y'all something. I was a party girl, like this group of friends, in my 20s. And I was heavily judged for being a ho. The terms slut, ho, whore -- were all used to describe my behavior in dripping judgement that I wasn't, instead, seeking safe and Puritanical monogamy. I was having fun with and in sex, and I was very heavily judged for it. Maybe, in part, it was because some of my friends had a harder time finding sex? Perhaps. But because sex is so EASY to judge, based on the majority popular judgements against sex -- isn't it easier to roll with the tide, than to think outside of the box and to not judge someone for having casual sex?

While Boston's ho reputation precedes him -- it is a reputation based on an unfair, almost Puritanical judgement against sex, and against people who have sex. (Once again: hello, Khai.) I give major applause to the hoes in this episode of Only Friends. All while people around them are judging sex, and judging people like Boston for having sex: Boston and Nick are not hiding anything -- they are not trying to equivocate away their actions. Their own timing isn't right. Nick knows he's about to go and hit that with a new dude. But they both have clarity about what's happening inside of them at their given moments, and they've become better about communicating what's happening inside of them over the course of the series. It's yet to be seen if the timing will work out for Boston and Nick -- but they're inching towards a clearer line of openness than we've seen in the past.

So. While awwwwlllll of this is going on: Top continues to try to infuse himself in Mew's life. Man. THIS GUY.

Top? Shut the hell up. Condescending foo. And then showing up to invite yourself to accompany Mew's moms? All while Mew doesn't know that you crossed his boundaries the last episode? And that you recorded Ray smooching Sand? Stooping to the very same tactics that got you, Top, caught? AND YOU CALLED A BOOTY CALL? While trying to win back Mew?

And...... amazingly. For Top, it worked. Or at least, it was working for a second. Mew was reconsidering.

To me -- in my opinion -- Top's behavior seems conniving, sniveling, more about winning than about love. But he also knows that he still has a hook in Mew, and was pulling rapidly on the fishing line.

And Mew... Mew began to follow that fishing line again, showing up to Top's building, and hopping into that elevator, with another person that Top had on his hook. And, good lord, now with Mond (MOND!) in the mix, we're going to have ANOTHER dramatic pile-up next week.

God, for me, while there were these notes of relief in this episode, these moments of clarity among people like Sand, Nick, and Boston, I just, like, wanted to tear MY HAIR OUT when I saw Mew and Boeing both approach Top's door at the same time. What the fuck will happen next.

And while Top will try to convince Mew to stay with him, surely, in episode 10 -- Top will also continue to judge Boston to Mew, I am sure. Top will judge Ray. Top will try to "heal" and "protect" and "take care" of Mew.

Top, leveraging judgement against sex by others to build up his own supposed moral and ethical fabric, "taking care" of Mew and leading Mew to think that Top is still a viable candidate for dating -- Cheum even interprets Top's behavior at the Halloween party as "taking care" of Mew -- will it come crumbling down as Boeing the Ex shows up for a little boing-boing?

Dudes, I have no idea, because Top keeps catching breaks! For people at The Top -- that's so often how it works in society, no?

Like I said: this was a hella complicated episode. We have three more to go. This episode captured in a snapshot a group of gloriously imperfect people making equivocating decisions as they bumble along, minute by minute. SandNick and RayMew got CLARITY. Boston got CLARITY on his feelings for Nick. Cheum is getting CLARITY on her association with the hostel. Atom got CLARITY on where Boston stood. I don't know that we have CLARITY on SandRay yet, but.... I dunno, I'll let the capitalists at GMMTV decide that, ha.

Where we don't have clarity is now with Top and Mew, with Top acting clearly duplicitously, and how Mew is going to manage this latest fall-out. I have no idea if Boeing will serve as competition to Mew, if Boeing will be the lug nut in the polycule we're all dying for -- I have no idea. I just know that Top -- who purports himself to be above all moral judgement, winning the hearts and minds of at least two moms from out of town, wtf -- will face yet another challenge in winning Mew's heart that he likely has a stronger chance of winning, due to his station in life. Top was about to come out on Top in this episode, and I wouldn't be surprised if he hangs on for another playoff win next week. We shall see.

I'm tagging the Ephemerality Squad in permanent fury over the permanence of people judging sex, let's go! @ranchthoughts @chickenstrangers @twig-tea @distant-screaming @thatgirl4815 (THATGIRL WITH THE THEORY THAT BOEING MAY NOT BE THE EX THAT TOP AND SAND SHARE, OH SHIT!) @lurkingshan @neuroticbookworm @wen-kexing-apologist @clara-maybe-ontheroad @kayatoasted

[menlove]

now I'm curious bc a lot more ppl r choosing that option or listing it among multiples than I thought so

*for the purpose of this poll this is different from "no (religious reasons)". for example, someone who grew up in a religion that doesn't celebrate halloween but who still wanted to and was not allowed by their parents bc it went against their faith would choose "no (religious reasons)". but someone who grew up in a religion that didn't celebrate it but had no interest and it genuinely just was Not on their radar at all would choose this one. if it's somewhere in between, just choose the one that you feel best reflects your child feelings about the situation.

[somedaylazysomeday]

A Deal With a Demon - Part Four

You try to help Beetlejuice set up the store's information, but you both get a little distracted.

Beetlejuice x fem!reader

Rating: Explicit. Not suitable for minors.

Word Count: 4100

Warnings: References to demons and witchcraft, background references to a sex shop, oral sex (fem receiving), coming untouched.

Previous | Masterlist

---

You took a deep breath in through your nose, reveling in the rush of it: Halloween. Or, as witches knew it, All Hallows’ Eve. 

Witches with a strong connection to nature got a little more out of the solstices - dark and light at winter and spring, respectively - but All Hallows’ Eve was more egalitarian. 

It was a magical time for everyone, really. The changing leaves were just at their most vibrant and the skies stretched a pale blue overhead. The crisp chill of fall gave each breath a hint of spice and the ground felt solid as iron beneath your booted feet. Spices from baked treats and flavored drinks filled the air. The world seemed to be simultaneously holding its breath and flinging itself vicariously through every moment.

The magic was growing stronger. It felt like you were tapping into the power without any effort at all, and the energy danced over your skin like a series of tingling electric shocks. 

Your senses were heightened, too. Your sight (and Sight) was improved, and you could hear even the faintest sound with clarity. A thousand invisible textures danced under your fingertips, and you could smell anything in the neighborhood from your home.

Which was why you hardly needed Beetlejuice to voice his complaints aloud: “This is so boring.” 

“You’re the one who decided to start a small business,” you pointed out, watching the leaves flutter past the open window. It was far more relaxing than focusing on the pouting pleasure demon in your living room or the intimidating number of forms spread around your ancient laptop. 

When you sensed that Beetlejuice was getting ready to launch another complaint, you gave him a stern look. “And you’re the one who decided that hypnotizing someone to give you a business license was better than doing all of the paperwork.” 

“It is better,” he muttered mutinously. “So why are we doin’ all-a this?” 

“Because,” you explained again, “if someone goes to dig up information about the store - and they will - everything needs to be legitimate.”

Maybe the explanation was harsher than was strictly necessary, but this was the dozenth time you had delivered it. You had run out of patience several hours before and relied on magical means instead. When Beetlejuice’s expression went pouty yet again, you drained what was left of the calming potion at your elbow. Well, technically, second calming potion. You had chugged the first to keep from committing murder against a being who was already dead. 

Wait. Were demons technically alive even though they had never been born? And if they couldn’t be said to be alive, they could hardly be dead, either. Maybe demons existed somewhere outside of the alive/dead dichotomy. 

You shook off the philosophical musings as Beetlejuice started muttering to himself. 

That was certainly enough of that. You weren’t about to let a petulant demon ruin your day, especially not All Hallows’ Eve. “Beetlejuice.” 

The demon in question flinched violently at your use of his name. When he saw the sternness on your face, he seemed to settle in for work. “Okay, fine, let’s do paperwork. But I’m not gonna be excited about it.” 

“Noted,” you said dryly. “Luckily for you, I’ve done most of the hard work myself. I just need some information about dates and where the funding is supposedly from. And we need to pick a new name.” 

“Ooh, a new name,” Beetlejuice said, instantly distracted by that. “What were ya thinkin’? I know I said you could change it, but I kinda like the one we got now...”

“No, it needs to be changed,” you reminded him. “If for no other reason than that it’s not very sexy.” 

Beetlejuice looked offended, baring greenish teeth at that. “Are you sayin’ my name’s not sexy, toots?” 

“It’s not,” you confirmed, but hurried to offer more of an explanation. “But only because the customers haven’t met you yet. You’re not sexy because of your name; the name is sexy because of you.”

“Oh.” He visibly relaxed. “That’s true. I am pretty irresistible.” 

You glanced at a spare piece of paper, hiding a smile. If Beetlejuice was always going to be this easily managed, maybe there was hope for this store. “I have a few ideas written down if you want to take a look. Let me know if there are any that stand out.” 

“Boring,” Beetlejuice announced, scorching a hole through the first name with his fingertip. He continued down the list even as the edges of the first hole continued to smoke and curl. “Overused. Stupid. Boring. Boring. Boring.” 

By your count, that was all of the names you had written. “Well, I guess I’m going to have to find a new copy of that particular form…”

“It needs to be something catchy,” Beetlejuice said, ignoring you and tossing the paper away in favor of framing an imaginary sign in the air. You did your best to listen as you scrambled to pick up the smoldering paper before it caught anything on fire. “It needs to snap, ya know? Grab your attention. But still be somethin’ we can work with. The name can’t overpower the store itself. Otherwise, it’s like… Ya know when you meet the worst, most boring person, but they’ve got a name like… like…”

“Beetlejuice?” you supplied dryly. 

He pointed a blackened fingernail at you. “Watch it, babes. That’s two digs at my name and two times you’ve used it. I’m gonna start taking it personally.” 

“Wish you’d take your business seriously,” you quipped, only partially joking. 

“That’s it,” he growled, eyes flashing in a way that felt more like an animal’s eyes at night than a person. Honestly, deer should have come to mind given your typical life experiences, but all you could think of was a crocodile. “I’m done listenin’ to this kind of abuse.” 

“Is there a different kind you’d prefer?” you asked, betting on the fact that Beetlejuice hadn’t seen enough old movies to be familiar with the joke. 

Sure enough, it took him a moment to work through that, but after he had finished absorbing it, his stained fingertips shot out in your direction. The grasp on your upper arm wasn’t tight, but it was… odd. Beetlejuice’s hands didn’t have the right amount of give in them, not like a normal person’s.

Before you could be swept away in another round of philosophical musings about demons, Beetlejuice used that grip to pull you toward himself. 

You watched, fascinated as his figure grew larger in your perspective, then he was gone. It wasn’t until your hands and knees hit the floor that you realized he had let you go mid-pull, flinging you past himself and onto the ground. 

“What the fuck?” you demanded. 

At the same time, Beetlejuice asked, “What the fuck?” 

While you were glaring at him, the demon was staring down at his own hands, studying them like he would see something moving beneath his pale, dirt-stained skin. 

You took a moment to collect yourself, making sure nothing was broken, sprained, or otherwise damaged. With that done, you tried to demand to know why Beetlejuice had tossed you across the room, but he was so busy talking to you that he didn’t answer any of your questions. And, to be fair, you weren’t answering any of his. And so, you decided to be the bigger person and stop talking. (It definitely wasn’t because you couldn’t concentrate if both of you were speaking at once and trying was going to give you a migraine. Not at all.)

“Fine!” you snapped, throwing your hands in the air and scrambling to your feet. “You talk first. Go!” 

“What the fuck was that? Why are you crawling with magic?” Beetlejuice demanded. Something in his tone told you it wasn’t the first time he had asked it. 

You gave him the stare that deserved. Maybe demons didn’t have as strong a connection to the day as witches, but there was no way he couldn’t feel the way magic hung thick in the air. You could feel it pulse, feel it breathe. You could have been locked in a windowless basement, wrapped in a tarp, and suffering from history’s worst head cold and you still would have known what day it was.

But you tried to be kind. It helped that you counted to ten, then twenty as you took your position on the couch once more. That brief break helped keep your tone even as you answered, “It’s All Hallows’ Eve.” 

Beetlejuice looked blank for a moment, then let out a cackle that belonged on every Halloween sound effect CD you’d grown up hearing. “That explains the power. The way it’s just spillin’ outta you.” 

The way he said it turned an already-odd statement into something dirty. When he licked his lips, tongue only serving to draw attention to his overly sharp teeth, you could tell it had been on purpose. “Don’t you dare. We still have work to do.” 

“C’mon, babes,” he purred, clearly not dissuaded by your sharp tone. “You know I feed on sex. It’ll make both of us feel better.” 

“And then I end up doing the rest of this by myself?” you demanded, gesturing broadly to the mass of papers across your coffee table. “I’ll pass, thanks. At least choose a name. Then we’ll have sex before you leave. Okay?” 

“I think better when my dick doesn’t have dibs on the blood supply,” Beetlejuice countered, unabashedly adjusting himself. “It just makes sense - I suck a little power from the person I fuck and ya have way too much power going on right now. I’m not gonna be able to focus until the two of us get down and dirty.”

“Well, we can cross sweet-talking off your list of skills,” you said dryly. 

Beetlejuice scoffed. “Toots, we both know dirty talk is the most important skill. Fuck sweet-talking. Besides, we both know how good I am with my tongue.” 

You rolled your eyes, though it wasn’t easy to look away from the dizzying display created by his waggling eyebrows. “Beej…” 

“Okay, I’ll make a deal with ya.” That got your attention. If there was one thing Beetlejuice took seriously, it was a deal. “Lemme remind ya how much ya like my tongue, then I’ll do as much boring paperwork as ya want.”

It seemed like a good deal. That in itself was suspicious. You narrowed your eyes at him. “Don’t you disappear as soon as the terms of the deal are complete?” 

“What? No, that’s not true! Who told ya-?” Beetlejuice dropped his offended act when you didn’t seem even slightly convinced. “Okay, I usually do, but it’s not a requirement. It’s just a convenient out, ya know? But I don’t have to leave right away. Don’t’cha remember the first deal we made?”

“Yeah, I do remember,” you admitted. The demon nodded, but otherwise, kept watching you expectantly. You sighed despite yourself. You didn’t want to break your concentration streak, but Beetlejuice had already done that. And you couldn’t deny that part of you was eager to see how the extra power would impact sex. 

So you fixed Beetlejuice with a hard stare. “And you promise that you’ll actually help afterward?” 

“Absolutely, doll,” he said, nodding too many times. “Anything ya want, I’ll do it. I promise. I swear.” 

“And it’s not going to hurt when you siphon power from me?” you checked. 

He shrugged. “Ya haven’t complained any of the other times.” 

The suspicion you felt must have been clear on your face, since Beetlejuice rose up on his knees. With the broken springs and worn cushions of your couch, your faces were on the same level. “One way to check.” 

Well, surely there was nothing to lose by this point… You leaned forward, tasting the mossy rain scent of Beetlejuice on the air an instant before your lips met. Someone gasped and you weren’t entirely sure whether it was you or the demon. The power had gathered where you touched him, like static electricity in a globe. It focused on the places where your skin touched, making your lips and tongue tingle as you explored just how strong an effect the magic had on you.

When you parted, both you and Beetlejuice were panting. He watched you intently, pupils blown wide with desire. You couldn’t blame him - it had felt amazing, and if he was right, you were actually losing power. How incredible would it feel if you had been gaining it instead?

“Okay,” you relented. “I guess we can- ah!”

Without warning, Beetlejuice worked his magic and stripped every stitch of clothing from you. His shirt was gone, but he was still wearing his pants. One grubby sock clung to his foot. If pressed, you would have bet that he didn’t own a pair of socks, let alone wear them. 

Before you could begin processing that, he had muscled his way between your legs and grabbed behind your knees. After a hard yank, he buried his face between your legs as you gasped and clutched his head.

Your hands flew to his hair, burying in the thick, shockingly soft strands as you tried to catch your breath and moan at the same time. “Beetle-”

Sharp teeth sank into the tender skin of your inner thigh and you let out a soft cry. “None’a that. You know the rules,” Beetlejuice murmured against you, kissing your leg gently before he set to work sucking a mark into your flesh. Just as the pressure of his lips seemed to reach an apex, the magic felt like it took a deep breath, gathering where Beetlejuice was pressed. 

The resulting pulse of magic made you groan… and pulled a whimper out of Beetlejuice. 

Before you could fully soak that noise in, though it was echoing deliciously in your ears, Beetlejuice moved back toward more sensitive places. His tongue slid out of his mouth… and out… and out, until the tip of it was wriggling against you without him moving any closer to your core. It was disturbing, almost enough to shake you from your lustful stupor, but then it brushed over your clit and you stopped caring. 

 Beetlejuice reined himself in, bringing his tongue back to a normal length as he nosed up and down your slit, laving everything with attention. Well, almost everything. He seemed to be pointedly avoiding your clit then. Part of you was grumpy about that, but with the intensity of everything else, you had to wonder if you would survive him making direct contact with all of the nerves gathered there. 

But you hardly had a moment to note the lack of stimulation before your attention was drawn elsewhere. One thick, cool finger pierced the heart of you and thrust ever deeper until it was buried as far as he could reach. The intrusion felt sharp and intense, but right in a way that felt far too important considering that it was nothing more than a finger. 

You knew he was a powerful demon and you had a half a beat to wonder if he could shift forms, or alter his usual one. Gifting himself several extra mouths and tongues was the only way you could picture him being everywhere it felt like he was. 

Of course, all of those musings were there one instant and gone the next. That was approximately how long it took the sensations to hit you, and then the only thing you could do was desperately bury your hands in Beetlejuice’s hair and ride his tongue.

He gave you plenty to work with, too. He had proven several times that he had far too long a tongue for a typical human, and he seemed determined to coax every inch of it into the tight clasp of your core. As soon as you got used to the odd flexibility of the muscle inside of you, your body clenched so hard that you thought you would push him back out. At any rate, you were quickly getting addicted to the sensation. 

When Beetlejuice withdrew his tongue, it was to give his full attention to that wonderfully sensitive bud at the top of your slit. He didn’t ease into it - no, he wrapped his lips around it and sucked hard. 

You shrieked, thighs fighting to close and push him out, but the demon simply tossed your legs over his shoulders. With your calves and feet dangling helplessly down his back, your kicks were ineffective. You were utterly at his mercy as he feasted on you, and Beetlejuice had never struck you as the merciful type. Your hips danced in his steely grip and even you couldn’t tell whether you were trying to move closer to him or further away. 

Your climax hit you out of nowhere, fully blindsiding both you and Beetlejuice. Your throat hurt with the noises you were forcing from it, but you couldn’t hear any of them. The flood of pleasure rushing through your brain made it ignore silly things, like your sense of hearing. Your fingers were sank deep in Beetlejuice’s hair, wrapped so tightly that your fingers ached with it. You used that grip to hold him against you, hips bucking as you rode his face.

The orgasm was like a feedback loop - the sounds he made sent a wave of wetness between your thighs and a wave of magic absolutely everywhere on your body. When the magic tingled its way through you, it impacted Beetlejuice as well. He was moaning helplessly, fingers convulsing on your hips. The few times you were able to pry your eyes open, you found that he had his closed. 

The pleasure stretched on and on, lasting until your body was aching and your folds were too sensitive to be touched. Beetlejuice was still working you, trying to draw out sensations that had already concluded. You couldn’t fully blame him, though: you were still holding him in place and he didn’t have a choice. 

When you managed to release your grip on his hair, Beetlejuice flopped backward, the hard impact leaving him sprawled on the floor. 

“That was… incredible,” you panted out at last.

“You’re tellin’ me, babes,” Beetlejuice said, sitting up with a wince and a glance at his crotch. “If I don’t take care’a this soon, I’m gonna peel off some skin with these pants.”

“Did you..?” you started, trailing off awkwardly. Ridiculous as it was, it seemed indelicate to ask your demonic lover if he had come in his pants. Instead, you just gave a vague sort of wave. “You know…”

“Go off like a kid who just saw his first nudie mag?” Beetlejuice asked, waggling his eyebrows. “Yeah, sure fuckin’ did.” 

“‘Nudie mag’?” you echoed, grimacing. “Are you a Beastie Boy circa 1992? Never say that again.”

“That song was ‘86, but fine,” he agreed easily. “How about-?”

“Why didn’t you just magic your pants away when you did everything else?” you asked loudly, talking over the first of what promised to be a long list of euphemisms for porn. 

“Hey, it takes a lot of concentration to do what I do,” Beetlejuice informed you haughtily. “And I was a little occupied. It seemed more important to get ya naked than make sure I was, too. Just couldn’t wait to get my mouth on that cunt…” 

His gaze got a little intent at that. Your face warmed with embarrassment and your core gave a throb of either eagerness or dismay, you weren’t sure which. But since you weren’t ready to even think about going for another round, you put on your sternest look and tone. “Beetlejuice.”

“Okay, okay,” he agreed gracelessly. “I got my shirt off, but the pants… Well, it’s a delicate area. I actually went too far the other way. This isn’t even mine.” 

You watched Beetlejuice’s toes wriggling in the filthy sock - especially easy given the large hole over his big toe - and shook your head. “Anyway, I hope that was enough of a break for you. We still have work to do for your store.” 

Beetlejuice pursed his lips and made a loud farting sound. “I still think the name is fine.” 

“Yeah?” you asked challengingly. “Let me go ahead and try it out: Bee-”

A mossy-smelling hand clapped over your mouth before you could fully finish the first syllable. “Anyone ever told ya that you’re too mean for how pretty you are?” 

You would have accused him of sucking up if he didn’t sound so disgruntled. “No.” 

Beetlejuice didn’t seem to have any trouble deciphering the muffled word you’d said behind his hand. “Then you’re either meaner to me than you are to them or they’re idiots.”

“Enough sweet talk practice,” you declared. “What do you want to name your store?” 

“I dunno.” Beetlejuice folded one arm behind his head, and there was something about the angle of his elbow that looked either painful or inhuman. You started getting dizzy when you thought about it, so you focused on the wet spot on the crotch of his obnoxiously striped pants to distract yourself. It worked remarkably well. 

Beetlejuice was, of course, fully unaware of your inner distraction. He sighed, rolling his eyes so hard that you could only see the blankness of sclera between his eyelids. “Can’t we do somethin’ easy, like ‘Wicked’?” 

“I think there could be some confusion there,” you reminded him, half-chuckling. Your amusement faded when Beetlejuice gave you a nonplussed stare. “You know, the hit Broadway musical about a girl with green skin? Could be a relative, you know, though I don’t think hers was rot.”

“Mold,” he corrected. “I have mold, not rot. I wish I had rot. And I don’t really keep up on the Broadway musicals, toots. They’re always canceling the good ones and sending them out on a tour that’s probably just as good, but lacks the dependability of a permanent theater.” 

“What are you talking about?” you asked. “Just… not Wicked, okay?”

“Sure, fine,” Beetlejuice agreed, sticking his tongue out in concentration. “What about somethin’ that means the same thing?” 

“A synonym?” you mused. “Sure. Let’s see… Bad, wrong, evil, corrupt…”

“Nah, not the right vibe.” 

You nodded. “There are other meanings that lean more into the religious aspect of things, if that’s more along the lines of what you want. Immoral, ungodly, unholy…”

“Unholy has a nice ring to it,” Beetlejuice admitted. “But I don’t wanna give people the wrong idea. My store has plenty of holes in it.” 

Even when you made the noise that boast deserved, Beetlejuice was still grinning. You decided to push past it. “Hateful, rotten, villainous, impure, sinful…”

“That one,” Beetlejuice said decisively, sitting up and running a hand over the hair that you had mussed so thoroughly. “Sinful. It’s got everything I like. Sinning… and being… full. Yeah, Sinful. We’ll have to change the logo.” 

You nodded slowly, trying to commit his choice to memory. You really weren’t ready to stand up yet.

“And we’ll have to change the border.” When you glanced down, Beetlejuice was giving you a knowing look. “I know how much you don’t like the dick snake.” 

“I thought it was clever, having it designed as an ouroboros,” you objected. “Maybe we should add lips to where it’s eating the head. Then it’ll look more like a blow job and less like torture.” 

“Whatever floats their boat,” Beetlejuice told you with a shrug. “I don’t object to a little C&B torture.”

“Okay, I’m done with this conversation.” You stood from the couch, brushing random fuzz from your bare ass. There was a price to be paid for being naked and sweating on cushions that were falling apart. “Give me my clothes back. Now that you’ve picked a name, I can get started on all of the branding.” 

“Ooh, branding is fun.” 

You didn’t need to be psychic to know that he wasn’t talking about company branding… or to recognize that he was messing with you. Rather than reacting, you just threw a skeptical stare over your shoulder. “If you say so. Once we’ve figured out the logo, you can get it branded somewhere delicate. Now, are you giving me my clothes back or do I have to go find something to wear?” 

Beetlejuice pouted, but your clothes were back in a moment. In recognition of his lack of complaining, you decided not to mention that you were missing underwear. 

Again.

---

Author's Note - Thanks for reading and Happy Halloween! In case I offended anyone, I have not had the chance to watch Beetlejuice the Musical on tour. I'm sure it's just as good, but I couldn't resist a little fourth-wall breaking.

I don't offer a taglist for mature works, but you can find more on my masterlist.