WHO: Dante, Vaughn and Merrick WHAT: Early a.m. meeting of supernatural grumbly sorts WHERE: Around the Cauldron WHEN: Just before dawn on moving day, Nov 9th RATING: TBD. Ongoing. Prompt TBD
“That doesn’t work,” Vaughn chuffed. “Going cold turkey, it’s like being asked to stop breathing. You can for a while. Then your lungs burn, you get dizzy, you start panicking. You’ll break and need to gulp oxygen afterward. Same thing.” he explained to the Goblin roustabout. Merrick sat much closer to the cirque’s central fire than the Wendigo dared, his eyes focused on the other man over the flickering light and a few empty amber bottles. The expression he wore was of snide disbelief.
“So we’re suffocating, now. Very dramatic,” Merrick emphasized with a growl.
“It’s an analogy. I’m still paying off tuition for that.” Considering how much the world had changed in the last two years, still having a balance on the collegiate loan from his 20s seemed absurd. What use did a monster have for a degree.
“Oooh, fancy. Get ‘cher money back.” Merrick smirked, reaching into a crumpled knapsack leaning against his ankle. He lobbed something small at his company. Vaughn tracked it in the velvety pre-dawn light. The snack sized Snickers bar crinkled when caught. “Have a Snickers, Betty White. You’re not you when you’re hungry.” Coming from a Goblin, even a joke sounded vaguely like an insult.
“I’m always hungry,” Vaughn countered. He thought about that for a moment while unwrapping the candy, then chuckled. “So who am I?” he asked with what small measure of theatrical gravitas as he could muster. Merrick blinked, then cackled.
“Still an ass.” The Goblin prodded the fire, agitating an upward swirl of embers. Vaughn’s grin deteriorated. He watched like a mongoose would stare down a snake, shifting uncomfortably. The sight of it spiked his adrenaline, making his limbs feel twitchy and unsettled. He would have left, but decent conversation with someone he didn’t want to hunt was a rarity, even if Goblins weren’t aces at friendly banter.
“This is shit, who eats this?” He spat, coughing up a piece of the Snickers bar as the embers settled. The sweetness was nauseating. He hadn’t remembered them tasting like that when he was a kid. He turned over the wrapper in his palm. A cartoon pumpkin was eating the capital ’S’ in the logo. “Lugging Halloween candy around? Shouldn’t it be gold, or people’s teeth?”
“I horde whatever pleases me.”
“You know there’s a show for people like you.”
The Goblin snorted. “Amateurs, them. Old lottery tickets and too many cats.” He turned his head, distracted by distant footsteps skirting the edge of the firelight. “Oy! Come ‘ere. Bring beer or say something interesting. For Pete’s sake.”