AN: I'M SORRY! SORRYSORRYSORRY! I work in a pretty Halloween-specific line of business and things went nuts in my life this week, so I couldn't finish up the seasonal section in time. I've got one more Halloweeny bit to share after this one, then I promise Erik and Co. will catch up to the rest of us in the real world. (Writing a real-time fic is challenging, people, never do it.) As a result, I scrambled to put this bit together, so forgive me if it seems slightly rushed and decidedly un-clever in places. But hey, the kids can't be witty ALL the time, can they? And now, my faithful reviewers, I love you all! (And I KNOW more of you are reading this, please do drop me a comment if you have the time, keeps me motivated and makes me smile):
The Little Corinthian: It is a rather twisted film, isn't it? But I confess, I am sick as well since I LOVE those movies! I think they're interesting and actually kind of funny if you have a very specific, mildly off-kilter sense of humor. At least the Cenobites need to be summoned, unlike other movie villains who just turn up without any apparent provocation.
Mominator124: Ha, as far as Freddy is concerned, she's on her own. She brought this on herself, he tried to tell her, but would she listen? No, Miss Thing just had to get her little feminist panties in a twist and demand to watch a scary horror movie like one of the guys. Yes, Meg is a guy. It takes serious balls to watch that movie without dry heaving. And thanks for the editing advice, I did replace it with new, correct spelling.
TrashedXandXScattered: Thanks! I'm glad you're enjoying it! I hope this update is "soon" enough for you. And I'm glad you like Erik, he's one of those people who is incredibly difficult to know, but rewarding to know, if that makes any sense. He's one of my more interesting characters to write, his dialogue and actions always come very quickly to me, but it's harder to write his thoughts. I channel Christine's mind more easily, but weirdly enough, I'm never sure exactly what she's going to say.
Disclaimer: I think we all get it by now. Phantom? Not mine. My pop-culture references? Not mine. Do I own Jenga? No, though I was part of a game wherein the notion of Make-Out Jenga was born, so I suppose I can claim partial ownership of that, but I'm still not making money from this.
I was feeling done in, couldn't win
I'd only ever kissed before.
I thought there's no use getting into heavy petting
It only leads to trouble and seat wetting...
Now all I want to know is how to go
I've tasted blood and I want more
I'll put up no resistance, I want to stay the distance
I've got an itch to scratch, I need assistance:
Toucha toucha toucha touch me, I wanna be dirty
Thrill me chill me fulfil me
Creature of the night.
-The Rocky Horror Show
It wasn't just a movie. It was a nightmare. A phantasmagoria of blood, gore, hell, sweat, tears and lust all with a vaguely kinky overtone of great pain.
It was only twenty minutes into the movie before Christine gave up all pretense of bravery and proceeded to hide her face in Erik's sleeve, stubbornly not glancing curiously at the screen during any curse, howl of agony or blasphemous dialogue. No matter how tempted she was to look.
Besides, by the time Freddy and Raoul returned, suitably trashed, Freddy gave a running commentary of the entire movie that was graphic enough for Christine's churning stomach.
"Oh, shit, he doesn't have any fucking skin! I forgot he didn't have any fucking skin! What the fuck is wrong with this movie?"
"I don't have any idea, but I'm sure you'll tell us," Erik grumbled, sinking into the couch and discreetly trying to move away from Christine, who had latched onto his arm as though it was a spindly, oversized quilt to hide under. His escape attempts were entirely thwarted, however, when Christine proceeded to follow him, stubbornly clinging to his arm without looking up even for a moment.
Movie night was turning out to be decidedly not fun. Meg was watching the movie with all the interest of a long-time fangirl, but she appeared to be the only one having any fun. The look on Ahmed's face as Freddy drunkenly expounded on every skinless exploit and every demonic growl clearly communicated the fact that, if he didn't shut up, soon he would be the one lacking all dermal structures.
"I'm bored," Erik declared airily, earning a horrified look from Raoul.
"You're bored?" he asked, a kind of awed wonder in his tone. "How...how can you be bored?" For Raoul was feeling may emotions at the moment, none of them close to boredom, predominantly he feared of the sort of company he was keeping. People who had these sorts of movies in their house were just not normal.
Actually, it was quite easy. Watch a movie enough times, it begins to lose its edge. Watch a movie enough times with people who don't appreciate it, then it gets downright annoying.
Honestly, Hellraiser was a terrific movie to watch while getting high out of one's mind, it brought back some of the old sense of excitement and surprise of the first time viewing. Mostly because he forgot the sequence of action in the movie and so every arrival of a Cenobite was a surprise and Pinhead just became so much cooler when the world was slightly blurry around the edges. Removing Christine from his shirt with minor difficulty, Erik stood up and crossed to the DVD player, turning the machine off entirely. Frowning a bit over his shoulder at his friends, Erik offered blandly, "So, that was too intense. Want to watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown? I mean, it's kind of intense, Christine, you might want to leave the house now - "
Whatever else he was going to exaggerate with was cut off when Christine threw one of the couch cushions at Erik's head. "You're such a jerk," she said, peeking out between the fingers of her left hand (her non-throwing hand) to assure herself that the devil movie was well and truly gone. Erik's only response to that accusation was to grin hideously at her. Not to be out-done, Christine replied by sticking her tongue out at him. Much maturity abounded this pre-Halloween eve.
Not to be outdone by the conspicuous show of adult behavior from the others, Freddy had a suggestion for how to pass the rest of the night. In his semi-intoxicated state, it seemed like a fantastic plan, especially considering that just two weeks ago, this suggestion had been ruined as a result of his own clumsiness.
"Guys!" he shouted, just a little too loudly for the size of the room and the number of occupants.
"Ow." That was Ahmed, holding his ears and looking more than usually disgruntled.
"Sorry, but I think we should play Make-Out Jenga!" With his eyes alight and teeth gleaming as he grinned hugely at everyone in the room, it was difficult not to fall under the spell of Freddy's charisma.
Meg succeeded, however. She was pissed that the movie had been turned off, it was a horror classic and they hadn't even gotten to the hospital scene which was one of the best scenes in the movie, in her humble opinion. One of the best scenes in any horror movie and they ruined it because her roomie was a pussy (but a quiet pussy) and Raoul and Freddy were drunk. She was rather over this little get-together and had been thinking about going back to the dorms and watching it illegally on the internet. Since Freddy had ruined her movie experience, she had little to no interest in kissing him.
"No," she denied flatly. "I don't want to get the swine flu."
"None of us have the swine flu," Christine countered, quite reasonably. Make-Out Jenga sounded like a much better idea than watching movies about sexually confused demons. Or whatever they were, she hadn't really been paying attention. Watching horror movies wasn't the way to prove that she was an autonomous adult-person who could kiss people and feel nothing. Like certain blonde haired, blue eyed boys who grinned vaguely when people brought up Make-Out Jenga. Little did Christine know that Raoul's vacant expression and slightly twitchy appearance was due to the rather large Jägerbomb Freddy had concocted for him, without Raoul's permission. She might have been more sympathetic if she had known, since she currently thought that he was just a big jerk. A bigger jerk than Erik and that was quite a feat since Erik was one of the biggest jerk to have ever jerked.
"Meg," Freddy whined dramatically, flopping face-first onto the floor, crawling pathetically over to her. "Come on. Please. It'll be fun!"
Meg sighed dramatically, but gave in. Watching horror movies alone in the dorm was a rather depressing idea. Besides, she might walk in on Sorelli having a midnight tryst (again) and that was just awkward. She saw enough of Sorelli's ass and tits in the dressing room, it was not necessary to see that much of her friend that often. Or that much of her boyfriends. Sorelli didn't really have a 'type,' but recently she'd been seeing a lot of Guidos from New Jersey. They tended to be a hairy bunch of boys and they made the room smell of Abercrombie and Fitch cologne for days afterward. It gave Meg a headache which was why she had been spending so much time at the boys' house to begin with. They might be obnoxious, but at least they didn't smell weird.
Then, naturally, Ahmed broke out the pot and invalidated Meg's previous commendation. "I need it," he said defensively when she gave him a piercing look. "If I'm going to be kissing you people, I need to be under the influence."
Meg rolled her eyes. "If you need to get up in the morning you need to be under the influence. You guys are so not able to cope with life. Maybe if you sought out your therapists more often - "
"Silence, Nancy Reagan," Erik insisted as he cracked a few windows. Christine, Meg and Raoul declined the use of herbal enhancement, though the girls did agree to sample some mixed drinks, courtesy of Freddy's limited bartending skills. Unlike Raoul, however, they did not gulp their beverages quickly, but took slow slips, trying not to wince too visibly. Freddy was awfully generous with the rum.
Make-Out Jenga was a game simple is set-up and even simpler in execution. Once Raoul and Christine's names were added to blank wooden blocks in Sharpie, they set up the typical Jenga tower and proceeded to...play Jenga. It really was that simple. Naturally, the game was a bit more difficult when the players' coordination was not exactly up to standard for individuals of their age, but nevertheless, it was fairly straightforward. Since there were a number of blocks that featured the names of individuals who were not present at that particular game, there were a few fairly subdued rounds.
At least until Charlotte's name was pulled, prompting Freddy to shout, "WAIT!" as Christine tried to put the block back on the top of the tower, nearly toppling the whole game then and there. He bolted from the room, running into the bathroom and drawing some strange looks. Well, Christine's face looked strange because she had a tendency to stick her tongue out and look a bit cross-eyed when she was concentrating. Everyone else just looked confused and wondered where Freddy had disappeared to.
The bathroom was, evidently, the answer to that unasked question since he ran back into the room not a minute later, shirt stuffed with two rolls of toilet paper. "I'm Charlotte!" he pronounced happily, sticking his newly-endowed chest out proudly a second before he pounced on Christine. "Kiss me, you fool!"
It was a rather bad kiss, all things told. Freddy's new boobs dug awkwardly into Christine's own chest and she narrowly avoided banging her head really hard against the couch. Also, as Raoul had done only a few weeks before, Freddy half-missed her mouth and wound up licking the side of her nose, totally accidentally. What was this? Was her mouth partially deformed or something? Asymmetrical? Was there a reason she had never been kissed properly?
When Freddy went up for air, Christine discreetly wiped her face off with her sleeve. Ew. Now her face smelled like beer. Totally gross. Maybe they should go back to watching the gender confused bondage demons.
It was Erik's turn now and though he was just as fucked up as the rest of the group by this point, his coordination seemed to be slightly better. He removed his block, eyebrows shooting up slightly as he squinted at the name. "Sorry Christine," he said, shrugging a little and unfolding himself from where he had been sitting cross-legged on the floor.
It took Christine a moment to realize that Erik was going to kiss her and she groaned a little internally, not really wanting any more boy-slobber on her face. Maybe she should orient her lips a little to the left. Make for a better target this time.
Erik had the courtesy not to knock his intended victim to the floor. Rather he crouched down next to her, tilting her chin up and urging Christine to sit up on her knees to make the angle less awkward. She didn't have time to twist her lips before Erik's were upon them, but she did close her eyes, just in case the unnatural planes of her face made him slip and poke his tongue into her eye or something.
As it turned out, she needn't have worried. Say what you might about Erik's sexiness factor, the fact could not be denied that he was a damn good kisser. Or maybe it was just because her previous two experiences had been so decidedly...wet. By contrast, Erik's lips were a little dry, but had a surety and confidence that Freddy and Raoul both lacked, respectively. Well, Freddy made up for his lack of surety with an abundance of confidence. Erik just...kissed her. Very, very well. When Christine felt his tongue dart out between his lips however, she pulled back with a surprised squeak, causing Erik to back off as well with a crooked smile on his face.
"Oh, come now, Christine," he teased, sitting back on his haunches. "The name of the game is Make-Out Jenga, after all."
She was bright red at this point and watching all of her fantasies of maturity fly freely out the window. In tutus. Bright pink ballerina tutus with ribbons in their hair. God, she was such a little girl. "Sorry!" she blurted out, taking a long sip of her drink for liquid courage. "We could...we could try that again?"
But Ahmed was shaking his head. "Uh-uh, little girl," he said, wagging his finger. "It's like chess. You put the piece down, you can't pick it back up."
Erik just grinned again and sat down next to her, staring dreamily up at the ceiling, cheerful and at peace. This wasn't a game he minded, curiously enough, considering the fact that he was not one for having people invade his personal space. This a safe invasion of personal space, done in the spirit of competition which Erik was more than comfortable with. Besides, turnabout being fair play, he was free to invade the space of others and make them uncomfortable, one of his personal favorite pastimes.
It appeared that he would get to exercise his discomfiting muscles when Raoul pulled his name. Up until this point, the blonde boy looked happy enough, having lived through Meg pouncing into his lap knees first and possibly permanently effecting his ability to procreate. Now he bit his lip and looked worriedly up at Erik who was already moving toward him with a slightly predatory gleam in his eyes.
"Don't look so glum, chum," the taller boy said and never before had a rhyming endearment sounded so threatening. Deftly avoiding Raoul's manhood, Erik straddled the shorter (if slightly broader) young man, tilting his chin up none too gently. "This won't hurt a bit," he reassured Raoul, smiling just briefly enough to show his teeth before he planted one on him.
It seemed to last an awfully long time, long enough that the other players began to worry that perhaps Erik was trying to strangle Raoul with his tongue. Hadn't the Peter Pan costume incident been punishment enough? When would the madness cease? Ahmed was in the process of crawling over to them, ready to pry Erik off with the jaws of life if necessary, but at that moment, the boys broke apart. Erik wore an expression of utter self-satisfaction while Raoul just looked slightly dazed – moreso than usual, anyway.
As if in a trance, he brought his hand up to his lips and Meg asked him, a trace of genuine worry in her voice, "Did he bite you?"
That snapped Raoul out of it, well and truly. He blinked at Meg as if he only realized she was there. "Nah," he said, lowering his hand and smiling sheepishly at her. "No blood." Clearing his throat somewhat awkwardly, he directed his gaze at Freddy and asked, "Uh, do you have any more of that Jägerstuff? I think I need more. A lot more."