xistentia | I see trouble on the way.

Entry tags:

I see trouble on the way.

Characters: Everyone! Yes, you too!
Summary: Mandy's Masquerade hosts a fantastic Halloween party with a costume contest, some very special cocktails, and a few other surprises.
Date(s): Late in the month of October.
Warnings/Notes: Please mark any threads that need content warnings.

Mandy's is looking a bit festive this evening. Arrayed with spiderwebs, pumpkins, and other ghoulish decorations, the interior resembles a spooky haunted house. Spooky, not scary! Everyone's invited to stop by and celebrate All Hallow's Eve with spirited drinks, excellent company, and a lot of that Magnus flair.

You can loosen up on the dance floor to Monster Mash, Thriller, Dead Man's Party, or maybe something from this list. The spooky sky's the limit! Visit the bar for one of several special drinks you won't soon forget. You can also sample some tasty and holiday-appropriate baked goods, courtesy of the other Mr. Lightwood-Bane. Finally, stop by the table with the MAGIC 8 BALL to learn a little more about your fellow partygoers.

Potions.
drink list

Siren Song
If you're a little tone-deaf, don't fret. This drink will turn you into a master at serenading. It won't actually give you the ability to influence anyone via magical means, but maybe if your song choice is apt, you'll woo someone either way!

Firework!
A drink that comes with a portable fireworks show hovering over its surface. Drinking it will give you the sensation of ingesting liquid pop-rocks.

Blacklight
Does what it says on the tin and makes the drinker glow under a black light. It's also kind of sour.

Frankenstein's Monster
This drink is quite shocking. Not dangerously so, but when you drink it, you'll have the impression of getting a tingling little jolt of electricity down your spine. It's aliiiiive.

To Be or Not To Be (A Daemon)
Drink this and you will find you've been magically swapped with your daemon. It only lasts ten minutes, but hey! You'll get to see how the other half lives. A note: you won't inherit one another's abilities!

Who Wore It Best?
costume contest

Congratulations to our costume contest winners!

In first place for individual costumes...

Rafa wins for his devilish costume and he'll be awarded 2 potions: the first of which will up his luck stat, granting him good fortune in an endeavor (it says "Deal with the Devil" on the bottle) and the second will up his persuasion stat, helping him to be more successful in an argument (it says "The Devil's Advocate" on the bottle).

In second place for individual costumes...

Nico plunders the second place spot and will be given a treasure chest full of chocolates that are rum flavored. Careful, they pack a bit of a punch and when consumed, they'll make whoever eats them feel especially happy. No sad drunks here!

In third place for individual costumes...

Zeke and his amazingly sunny costume are in third and he wins a sunflower plant that will never cease to bloom and seems to have a bit of a glow about it. Plus, perpetual supply of sunflower seeds?

In first place for couples costumes...

Magnus and Alec came first for their portrayal of... each other... and they win a pair of seemingly mundane t-shirts that say "Bennet" and "Darcy" on them. What's that about?

In second place for couples costumes...

Vex and Kenzi delighted with their take on the Addams' family patriarch and matriarch and won second place. As a prize, Kenzi will be given a shampoo and conditioner set that seems pretty innocuous until you check out the writing on the bottles: 'Have YOU ever wanted hair like Cousin Itt? Are you ever in luck!' Just a small amount will make her locks lustrous and smooth. Vex will be given a very lifelike and animated hand in a box.

In third place for couples costumes...

Rose and Kaz were drop dead gorgeous in their mafia-inspired garb. As prizes, they will receive the following: for Rose, a pair of magical die that make music when thrown, and for Kaz, a set of playing cards that are intricately illustrated with astonishing art that seems to move. Watch out for the face cards, they get very opinionated about your playing. They both also receive a chip that can be relinquished to Magnus for a small magical favor.

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[ it does. it really does, and the kiss to the callused part of his palm makes him close his eyes for half a second and indulge in the warmth it sends writhing up his wrist to his pulse, quickening a little more. ]

Special technique's called "caught unawares" or something like that. Apparently it's real attractive.

[ but it's not said with any hint of disdain or dislike. in fact, well. maybe it's not bad to play along like this, to let the music keep buzzing along his skin, to feel the residual ghostly presence of their mouth on his, their stubble brushing against his own in a way that made him want to press harder against their mouth.

instead he opts for stepping in even closer, despite how maybe humiliating it is to not be wearing his old clothes (thanks shep). he glances to the side a little, as if considering something, lingering, trying to give himself time to feel bad about something, anything, but he's too abuzz with whiskey and whatever weird glowing drink he'd had and the fact that janus kissed him. which is better than any drink, feels better. ]

Here's another. Don't know the name of it, but -

[ closer by a step, closer by leaning in, closer by an impulse that tugs him forward to kiss them because he's dancing in the middle of a crowd and he can kiss whoever the hell he wants. even if it's a little clumsy with nose because juno's not shy about it, not when he's been kissed first and feels it in his throat that he wants more. hell, he outright refuses to be shy. not when he wants a taste of them again, just a little more to let it linger. ]

[this is the part where it becomes a little difficult to multi-task. even if the dancing at clubs has never been dancing, with the steps, with the maneuvers, with an actual expectation to demonstrate a certain level of skill, it's better not to risk carving off the side of someone's calf with the edge of their shoe or snocking shoulders, if they expect this to go uninterrupted. and they-- would.

so they plant their feet in a sea of seething bodies, let the breadth of their shoulders cup the press of juno's smaller frame. they've always liked being the tall one, but enjoying the wider breadth of their body since that magical incident is a little newer. they wrap their arms around the soft fabric hamster pudge, and a smile bursts wide and toothy over their face, making the first clash of their second kiss a little messier, clicky and enamel-slick, before janus remembers to fold their mouth over and

then they're wolfing juno down, jaw slanted against jaw. so much about sex and sensuality comes to the same geometry, of opening, exposure, questing— janus licking into the trap of their mouth, pressing a muscled thigh in between his legs. pulling juno in tight enough that it crests on hurting the long muscles in his back.

juno isn't wrong. he is a real attractive lady.]

[ opening up is

difficult.

herculean.

bad bad bad.

juno's decided that from day one, but all of the elements are aligned properly and janus is kissing him in a way that makes him forget his own name, who he is, what he's done. every iota of a terrible thing skitters off to the wayside of the music and warm mouth and a thigh pressing in at the crux of his own so that he can feel them when he presses forward. boldness shocks the guilt, impulse bites at it, pins it down. he tells the invisible, twisting viper in his gut to let him have this. his hands find the warmth of janus' hair to sink his fingers into the short length at their nape, tasting their teeth, the seam of their mouth

(that's such a nice smile, so brilliant in the dark, the kind juno probably wouldn't mind being eaten up by. he thinks about teeth - sharp as a fox, on a mouth so full that it makes him ache. so he kisses back harder without a sound, quick to muffle his own second thoughts. no.)

he could get lost in this sensation, pressing against the surrounding heat of them, indulging in how oddly safe it feels to be curled around so in a sea of people and color and heat. janus' leg between his own stirs something warm and familiar in the pit of his stomach, flickering faintly and then disappearing. once again, it becomes motion that he could float away in, but not so completely that he can't crawl back to the shoreline of his brain and collapse.

but damn if he isn't going to try and drown himself now, pulling his mouth away to let a kiss press itself to the line of their jaw and make its way down his throat like a series of kiss-damp secrets whispered into his pulse. ]

[that's a yes, isn't it? eight years after janus started to learn to kiss and have sex and be with people, skin-close, in a way that didn't actually entail murder, they still don't consider themself as particularly fluent.

but they feel reckless tonight— and more, that which is inside them and feels reckless can recognize the answering call of something within juno. a seed pit that wants to germinate and flower and claw down the sun and then fall off a cliff with the burning ball of fire wreathed in its self-destructing limbs. it's a good fantasy: that you might feel no pain for awhile. people across the multiverse chase that fantasy.]

Juno—

[it happens once or twice or three times altogether. first to punctuate a kiss on their throat, marking heat on their nerves like a gravestone marks a plot, something to stand testament to time. second when they've swerved out of the doorway together, groin to groin and mouth to mouth— intended as a question, an invitation, rather deficient in verbs and prepositions, but they're pretty sure it's a yes that their lips meet around. and then again, when they find a bed in the citadel-- one of dozens dotting the peculiar building.

and this one they murmur against juno's belly, which they find an open v between the halves of the hamster-suit, unzipped and shrugged down past his brown shoulders. it's a good tummy. janus traces the edges of muscle with their mouth, nuzzle the well of his navel. their tongue makes intimate friends with the first smoky-dark curl of hair. juno. they like his energy, you see. so like the boys they've loved before, but a whole lady, too.

they have no way of knowing, how the ceiling stares down at juno-- what that's like.]

[ he's tried this very same song and dance before: get lost in the drink, get lost with a stranger, except this time it's janus, and they aren't a stranger. they're more than an acquaintance, more than someone he's gone and picked up at a bar to spend the night with just because. but it sort of becomes nebulous around there, gray and strange. what they do is a desperate kind of fumbling dance that juno knows the steps to blind - untucking here, sliding a hand up there, furtively mumbling against their mouth that yes and don't worry and yes again just for good measure.

the bed serves its purpose, and janus is... eager, feeling pleasant under his hands. juno doesn't have many nice words lingering around for good feelings, probably because he casts them off as soon as he's done with them. they don't hang around because he's not worth hanging around with, right? still. the heat of a mouth, being stripped out of part of the costume and feeling his hips pulled at, bared a little to the chill of the room that comes with leaving such a warmed in, crowded place - it catches him breathlessly in the chest. he focuses on the mouth against him, on how it feels tracing the edge of each scar, whatever unmarked skin he's got left that isn't puckered by bullet holes or grazes, or the catch of a knife, a burn scar with a stupid story on his waist.

he wonders what keeps janus going down if the scars and marks don't affront them.

juno hums instead of asking, sliding fingers down to keep himself occupied, not just with the sensation of their mouth against his stomach, but with the feel of their hair through his fingers, finding the shape of their skull and cradling it with a callused hand as he shifts, suddenly very self aware of just how low janus is now, breath cresting where dark hair starts to slip down a little further.

he lifts a knee gently to frame them, heel pressing into the bed as he adjusts. juno feels that familiar little pull in his stomach before it stops short, because when he looks up at that ceiling, he thinks long and hard about a warm mouth against his skin, pale hands, dark hair slipping past between his knuckles. he thinks about a bedroom far far away, and the feeling of a missing eye and the pinprick of a scar on nureyev's throat and... and -

his fingers flex a little in their hair, body arches to try and provoke itself into listening a little more. the response is less than desirable, an ache he can't sooth away by knuckling it harder into listening to him.

swallowing a little, he sits up on his free elbow, other hand using a thumb to rub a soft circle behind janus' ear. ]

Hey -

[ look up. up here.

and he swallows a little more, like nothing's going down, like his throat's too dry to do much but quiver a bit. his hand is a suggestion, up to his mouth, slightly damp from before still, ]

- Kiss me [ and then to clarify: ] up here again.

[ it could work. ]

[janus is drunk, but not so drunk that they cannot tell something is a little bit amiss. and they are also confident and self-assured in many domains of their life, but not so self-absorbed so as to be actually offended that the peak of juno's trousers isn't elevating as quickly as they'd like.

but it's still a pretty smooth move, on juno's part. asking for a kiss. maybe there's a tipsy corner of janus' mind that holds up the moment to a prism and observes the shadow that comes out of the other end. but that's just one tipsy corner. the rest of janus' mind is quite preoccupied with compliance. the pleasures of compliance. their mouth skips its way back up juno's belly, curved with a smile that's tangible against his skin. optimistic.

they can afford to be. juno's kind. they think-- he must believe them to be beautiful. the scent of his skin, cupping its tiny shares of salt and oil fill janus' head with a certain giddy happiness. they don't love these trysts quite the way that rosie does, the excitement of someone new, the thrill of pursuit and to be pursued-- but he likes learning people. of getting just close enough, for long enough, to thaw without burning. it's no cruel thing, that they aren't thinking of ezekiel at all. they don't wonder who juno might be thinking about, either.

stretching back up, janus flops on him. affectionately rubs their nose across his brown shoulder, and then kiss his mouth.]

Hey yourself.

[an elbow keeps their weight off his chest, but their hair tickles his cheek and cages a little warmth in, anyway. their ear is pliant and round in juno's fingers. human.] I thought in the future, belly buttons would be squared-off and transmit our thoughts to each other.

[ janus moves up and juno lets out a sigh that’s mostly built up of some relief, the sensation built of friction, skin on skin. he shifts his hands and drags them over janus’ shoulders briefly as he leads them up to his mouth, feels the tip of their pretty nose against the crook of his shoulder, then against his cheek as they kiss. and for a few seconds it’s ok again, the guilt welling in the pit of his stomach coldly but the sensation pacifying enough that he can enjoy it because god if janus doesn’t taste sweet.

he basks in it, lets out a barely there chuckle between their mouths as he presses his thighs to bracket their body against his, to maybe let some of the friction between their hips deliver a sense of urgency to his less than cooperative parts.

his hand comes back to cup the curve of janus’ cheek, to smooth a thumb over the ridge of a cheekbone that should probably be illegal? ]

Yeah? Whoever told you that one’s a big fat liar.

[ he leans in and presses another kiss to the corner of their mouth, breath shuddering slightly. another, warm and full, tasting like alcohol that tips his brain this side of happy, just a mile northwest of sad with a final destination of self-loathing.

because even as he prays for the friction to do something, it only feels good in a far off, behind the fogged up glass kind of way. ]

Are they? [janus asks, which is a silly, pointless question, not even they know what it means! but they're happy right now, in a space where nothing has to mean much of anything, except that you are not unkind, that you do nothing cruel, and the bed and the darkness will provide.

so they kiss him. and it goes well enough for awhile, feeling his mouth, the brush of hamstersuit fabric against their arm, the creak of bedsprings, the receptive cant and tilt of their hips and tummya nd thighs against the surface of the mattress. they like the closeness which is not too close, this darkness that is not wet like things better left unimagined. sure, says juno's body, why not? and you don't have to think of anything clever or tactful when a body is telling you that.

but then

but then the body divulges-- a soundless cough and an airless sigh, a moment's doubt. longer than a moment, which becomes clear when janus fumbles over his flanks and scoops a kiss off his stubbly jaw and takes a long few seconds to truly listen. like trying to sing around a cold, laugh through a broken rib. speak hello when you've forgotten their name. (or maybe when you're preoccupied with the name of another.)

they keep trying. but only for a minute or two. and then-- with a sigh, the kind that actually does have a little bit of air to it, they gently roll themself off of him. i mean, it's a pretty good ceiling if juno had found such inspiration on it.]

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I see trouble on the way.

annnd lmk if not ok, but some powerprosing

:DD we all good

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( nsfw ) yells bc when u fuck up their pronoun :weary: i'm sorry janus

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lmk if this is not ok