Beta: Inanimate Obsessor/Incothe

Thanks to: tasty cheez (Ack, sorry again!), Inanimate Obsessor, and Yeyana Valentine for paying attention to chapter three.

Aegri Somnia: A Sick Man's Dreams: Chapter Four: Uncharacteristic

Another movie played its ending credits on the screen, the last for the night. They were alone in Todd Casil's house, his neglectful parents long since dead and buried, not that Todd minded much. Life had improved dramatically once they'd gone, though it had been difficult at first. He had loved them, and they had tolerated him, and that had been something to be grateful for. And there had always been the Diablos a few easy blocks away. There had always been the Antichrist to lean on.

Todd sat up, using Pepito's broad chest as leverage. "Argh, where'd the remote g—ah ha!" He yanked it out from between two couch cushions and turned the TV off. He yawned and stretched his arms, shoulders popping loudly in the quiet left in the wake of bad credit music. He adjusted his glasses and caught sight of the time glowing green from the VCR. "Aw geez, it's almost midnight."

Pepito looked at him with lazy bedroom eyes. "So?"

"So? I have work tomorrow. And so do you, in case it slipped your mind." Todd dodged the other's groping claws with a laugh.

"Oh, it is such hell damning mankind!" Pepito cried dramatically, falling into the cushions with an arm over his face. Todd hit him in the gut hard with a pillow.

"Stop whining and help me clean up. At least your clients don't try to eat you if negotiations go sour."

"You'd be surprised."

Pepito rose and the two began clearing away popcorn kernels, soda cans, wrappers to a variety of things, and plenty of take-out cartons which had held food from all over the globe. After a minute, with a mild envy that laced his razored teeth he asked, "How is it you are never bothered by any pests with this mess?" He discovered a half-empty pizza box under the sofa, overlooked from the last movie night, with something burbling merrily inside. "Buen, Earthly pests, at any rate."

"Well, there was that treaty with the mutant sewer rats ages ago, and there was the agreement with the radioactive cockroaches before that—oof—they, they didn't really have hands so we just kind of did it telepathically—that was a weird day--...and before that there was a, uh, a pact with the mole people--"

"With all these treaties and whatnot, they agreed to leave you alone?"

"And not—waaaagh!"

"Amigo?"

"I'm okay, the dust mites in the carpet just tried to eat my shoelaces again." A pause as he tried to find his train of thought. "And not kill me, torture me, experiment on me, et cetera. That's always nice."

"Yes. But what do they get in return?"

Todd's head peered around the corner of the kitchen doorway, a curious glint in his eyes. "I--"

Pepito dropped the pizza box, the thing inside protesting audibly, and waved his hands hastily. "Never mind; I'd rather not know."

A staccato round of blithe snickering. "Good man."

Pepito walked into the kitchen and punched Todd playfully in the arm. "Your pride is showing, amigo. Not a very safe thing to flaunt before the newly inaugurated Lord of the Underworld." He hugged the supple waist close, resting his strong chin into the crook between Todd's neck and left shoulder.

Todd appeared unfazed. "A job which I still think is too big for a youngster like yourself."

"Youngster? What is this blasphemy?"

"You are almost a year younger than me, and you will never be capable of enough charismatic dick-wiggling to change Time's mind--and I know you've tried."

Pepito let go briefly, aghast, and Todd took advantage of the few minutes to attack the dishes, which had begun to pile up, as it was easier to do chores without the Antichrist hanging off your hips.

"My my, Todd Casil. If our lives weren't so inextricably entwined and you were any other mucus faced arrogant mortal, my thinking suggests you would be suffering a rather warm spanking right about now." A hand began stroking Todd's weathered torso; the other took a firm hold on his ass, nails scratching against denim.

"I tremble in fear, oh mighty one. I wonder if I should begin to pray." Todd replied, sarcasm lightly threaded in each syllable. He pushed against the groping hands. "Oh dear; I believe my glasses are fogging up."

"Someone is behaving most out of character tonight," Pepito commented, slipping closer, if that were possible. "It must have been all those gorn movies we watched. Your mind is so easily manipulated by the media."

With age Todd seemed to become more and more unaffected by that which had once traumatized him, and so only smiled, dropping the sponge to press scarred fingers to the other's sharp face. "But not by you."

"Ah, ah," Pepito freed one hand to wave graceful claws in his face before letting it slip back down. "Father's dabbled in everything, and I have inherited everything from Him. I am in everything you witness, at least a little."

"But, that doesn't mean I listen."

Thick black claws burrowed through layers of human skin, not quite drawing blood. "You're being rather cheeky tonight as well. Mayhap I'll skip the spanking and get straight to the part where you scream for mercy." He chuckled low in the back of his throat, but the human in his arms neither joined him nor parried him with a witty, cool-eyed comeback. Rather, Pepito felt the hard muscles beneath cotton and scar tissue tauten, all the sleepy, comfortable leisure gone in an instant, and he knew he'd done something very, very wrong.

My beta won't stop telling me I've warped Todd into myself, and that all the kitchen scenes are taking place in my old kitchen. This disturbs me. STOP IT INCOTHE. Right now.

Oh and gorn is a new genre of movie. Gore + porn gorn. It's fuckin' gross, but I totally see these two watching 'em for the hell of it.

See you in a week. A.N.