Gun in hand, Seymour was at the dentist's office door. Heart racing as he knocked—three sharp, echoing raps of sound. Heart lurching painfully in anticipation as the receptionist let him in. And the knowledge all the while that he was going to do it. He was going to kill Orin Scrivello, D.D.S. and all.

Only Seymour didn't really know how to kill someone. He barely knew how to shoot a gun. He didn't even know why Mr. Muschnik had a gun.

He had a feeling that things weren't going to go exactly to plan.

He sat in the chair and saw Orin's leering smile.

His blood ran cold.

He reached for the gun.

And for one reason or another, be it fear, a stupid kindness, meekness, or even pity, he couldn't do it.

And somehow Orin ended up with the gun in his hand instead.

Seymour closed his eyes tightly, scrunched himself up into a tiny ball of terrified energy. He tried very hard to fold himself into the chair. If he was going to die, at least let it come quickly.

But after a minute he realized he hadn't died.

He peered cautiously out of just one eye.

Orin was smiling.

Grinning, really.

It should have been frightening. But for some reason, all Seymour felt was a feverish excitement. Almost a high.

Orin twirled the gun lithely through slim fingers. "Did anyone ever tell you, Krelborne"—he grinned through perfect teeth—"that you're actually a very attractive boy?"

Seymour swallowed, but instead of replying, he noticed something rather alarming.

It was that at the mention of the word "attractive," he'd started to notice something himself.

The dentist's sleek hair. His bright, wild, dangerous eyes. His figure the perfect mix of slender and muscle. The way the black leather accentuated his gleaming smile.

Speaking of which, that smile now grew suddenly deeper, darker though bright white. Seymour had a sudden sinking suspicion that somehow Orin knew.

"I didn't think so," Orin oozed out the words, and it wasn't that he stepped closer to Seymour and touched him so much as that Seymour blinked and found the dentist's hand snaking across the bottom of his chin. "I mean, the glasses, the stupid haircut, the clothes… you do a pretty good impression of an ugly, worthless drip. Sure had me fooled for a while there." His eyes gleamed. "But not anymore."

Seymour looked up at him.

Slowly, Orin placed the gun down on the table beside him, careful not to make a sharp movement. As if just a thought would make the gun go off. Then he removed Seymour's glasses just as carefully, sliding them from his face, like sliding a puzzle piece into place.

He placed them on the table beside the gun. He smiled. "Much better."

Seymour blinked.

His eyes lingered on the gun.

Orin laughed very lightly, seeing where Seymour's eyes went. He fingered the gun lightly, for once with a gossamer touch. "You're very eager, aren't you, Krelborne." His fingers traced the outline of the gun, his expression deviant. Why did Seymour feel like Orin wasn't touching the gun, but him? "To kill me? Is that what you wanted?" He lifted the gun in his hands, feeling the weight rest between them. He held it aloft in the air, pointing it straight at Seymour's chest. Finger loosely on the trigger. "Or did you have something else in mind?"

Seymour didn't answer.

Orin chuckled again and hit the gun a few times against his other hand. "Don't be afraid, Krelborne. As far as what I've got in here stashed away, this gun is the least of your problems."

Seymour's dry mouth finally managed to climb up onto the cliff of words. "It wasn't supposed to be a problem. I was going to kill you." He said it matter-of-factly, like it wasn't an insult that somebody wanted to off you.

Orin nodded, eyes on the gun, like killing your friends was a perfectly normal Saturday afternoon activity. "I see." He gave the gun a little twirl. "Then why don't you do it?"

Seymour tilted his head very slightly.

"Why don't you kill me?" the dentist clarified, and to Seymour's great surprise he reached forward and handed Seymour the gun. He took it with trembling hands. "Why don't you just shoot and kill me? Right now?"

As if in a play and this was his scripted cue, Seymour raised the gun to point at Orin's heart. His hand wasn't shaking, anymore. But the angry fervor of warfare was gone from his lackluster eyes.

Ten seconds went by. Then thirty. Then a minute.

He didn't pull the trigger.

Orin's smile gleamed.

"I thought so."

Seymour put the gun down on the table beside him. It seemed silly now to pretend.

The dentist lovingly stroked the edge of a sharp dental tool Seymour hadn't seen in his hands. He seemed off in his own world. Imagining. "You know, Krelborne…" The dentist sighed. "There are a lot of things one can do with dental tools. Besides the obvious, I mean."

The words came out of Seymour's mouth before he even realized he'd thought them. "What, like stabbing people? Whipping them?" When Orin's surprised eyes swiveled to him, surprised yet pleased, he pressed on almost sarcastically, "Tying them up? Hitting them? Making them cry for mercy?" Almost sarcastically. But almost not.

Orin gave him a curious look. "Why, Seymour, my dear. I had no idea you were into such things. I'd thought of you as somewhat of a drip. An attractive drip, yes, but a drip nonetheless."

Seymour's mouth felt suddenly very dry. "Into these things?" he breathed the words.

With a smile far too kind to be sincere, Orin nodded. "I'm sure you know what I mean."

Slowly, expression stony and determined, Seymour locked into his eyes. And then very deliberately, he said, "Of course I am. Didn't you know that? But I'll only do it on one condition."

Orin looked at him with an expression of mild amusement. "Yes, dear?"

Seymour had never been more serious in his life. "I top."

And to his deep surprise, Orin grinned. "Excellent."

Seymour cocked an eyebrow, though glassesless he couldn't have been able to see Orin very well. "Really? I thought you'd resist more than that. You always seemed like an obvious sadist to me."

Orin offered Seymour a pretend pout. "Really? Whatever gave you that idea?"

"Well, you know. The whole song about how you get off on people's pain was kind of a giveaway." Seymour was starting to smirk himself now. It was good to see him happy. He looked better that way. More confident. Scarier. More real. "And also the fact how you kind of beat Audrey senseless all the time."

"Aw, that doesn't mean anything." Orin waved these accusations away. "Hitting her's just something to pass the time. I mean, it's so obvious she's not going to hit me. She's boring and wears too much makeup." His voice dripped with obvious distaste. "And she's a woman. Which is obviously a huge turn-off."

Seymour nodded quite calmly. "I'm bisexual, actually. Until about five minutes ago, I was in love with that Audrey." He paused delicately, and admitted with the tone of the slightly embarrassed, "I kind of wanted to beat her senseless too."

"She's very easy to do that to," Orin supplied helpfully.

Seymour nodded again, his eyes straying to the gun in his hand. He turned over the hard metal, examining the label on the back. "You know, as much as I love beating and things, guns aren't really very useful in S&M. I mean, if I kill you, the fun's automatically over."

Orin's eyes were sympathetically bright. "Yes. Unless you die alongside me."

Seymour shook his head disapprovingly. "No, no. I'm sure they don't allow S&M in heaven."

"Oh?" Orin pulled Seymour closer by the collar, his fingers cold against Seymour's bony neck. He breathed onto his patient's face—"But what happens if we end up in Hell?"

"I've never done anything wrong in my life," Seymour whispered in response, breath taken away by this sudden closeness.

Orin's eyes touched Seymour's with their intensity. "Then change that," he breathed, and shoved his lips onto his.

Seymour was more than happy to oblige.

—

Audrey sat in the chair in the middle of the flower shop. She was very alone. And wearing too much makeup. And very confused.

"Where did Seymour go?" she asked in that highly annoying, high-pitched accent of hers that only God knows where it came from. "He left on lunch break twelve hours ago and hasn't come back yet. And Orin has yet to pick me up for our six o'clock date."

The plant rumbled a low murmur of faked sympathy. "Sweetie, somehow I don't think they're coming back."

Audrey frowned, her expression one of deep concern. "But I can't run the flower shop all by myself. Somebody else has to answer the phone."

If the plant could raise an eyebrow, it would have. As it was, he just sort of tilted his head upwards a bit. "Honey, your boyfriend could be dead for all you know and all you care about is someone to answer the freakin' phone?"

Audrey nodded, eyes screwed up in a stupid concentration for someone who thinks she's smart. "Yes. What else are boyfriends for?"

Audrey II's mouth thing curled into a devilish smirk. "Would you like me to show you?"

"Show me?" Audrey turned to look at him for the first time, eyebrows arched above tiny blue eyes. "But you're not my boyfriend. Seymour is my boyfriend." She frowned suddenly, that expression of dull deliberation creasing her forehead again. "Oh wait, no. Orin's my boyfriend, actually… sorry, I forget sometimes…"

"Oh?" The plant purred, his feelers creeping dangerously closer. "It sounds like neither of them can be particularly good boyfriends, if you forget…"

Audrey nodded somberly. "Yes. I know. Orin's really into hitting and things, and Seymour's boring and way too un-dominating. I can't identify with either of them. There must be something in-between." She paused delicately, as if uncomfortable with continuing on, but did so anyway, if n0t a little slower and more cautiously. "To be honest, if I had to pick, I think I'd want something close to a tentacle up my ass. But you know, with Seymour and Orin that's just never going to happen." She paused again, nodded slightly, and went on, "Actually, I'm not really into men. Or women. Or humans of any kind. I'd much rather have…"

And all the time she'd been talking, the creepers had been coming closer. The plant's thin, tentacle-like rope of root tapped her lightly on the shoulder. Audrey II opened its wide mouth in a smile. "You'd much rather have a plant?" he suggested, sugar-sweet.

Audrey's eyes widened, and she turned her body fully around to face him. "How'd you know?"

The creeper crept its way into her lap, resting there comfortably on the folds of her dress. Audrey II's smile grew more dangerous than happy. "I'm very smart, for a plant. So I'm guessing you'd like me to tentacle-rape you?"

Audrey frowned suddenly again, and shook her head very vehemently. "No, no. No no no. You misunderstood me completely. I don't want to be tentacle-raped. I'm not a tentacle-rapee. I'm a tentacle-raper." She shook her head and very politely removed the plant's root from her lap, placing it back on the floor. "I want to fuck a plant in the ass. But, you know, being a human woman and all, that's kind of hard to have happen. But thank you anyway."

The plant's snout showed a vague disappointment, but he wasn't the kind of plant to rape a woman who didn't want to be raped. He sighed and flung his tentacles in the air. "I'm more of a feedee, anyway."

Audrey nodded empathetically. The two of them couldn't have sex, but at least they could have a very effective group therapy session about their collective unobtainable fetishes.

On the other hand, Orin and Seymour went to bed very happy, if not both considerably bruised. Orin wrapped his arms around Seymour's waist and grinned, this time not a mere smirk but the perfect smile of a truly happy man.

Seymour slapped him. And they both had everything they'd ever wanted.