"Well, it's official," Ghastly sighed, putting his head in his hands. "We're well and truly broke."

Most of the people in the room had the decency to look ashamed, but there were some outliers, namely, Skulduggery.

He started by shrugging. "We just have to come up with a plan-"

"We're behind on rent by two months, if we don't pay next week in full we're being kicked out, and that's assuming they don't find out about Xena," Ghastly snapped. "No one wants tailored clothes anymore, and since China came to power, everyone's too busy trying to make her like them to do crime. Face it. We're out of ideas."

"Not necessarily," Valkyrie mused, also not among the ashamed. She was certainly unhappy with the situation, but money had never been a concern of hers, to a fault. One that had led her to not manage her finances well at all, selling almost everything she possessed, and ending up at Skulduggery's. He had lasted far longer on his funds as he was much smarter with his money and simply had more of it to start with, but he, too, ran out eventually when the Sanctuaries stopped needing them.

"Like what?" Dexter sighed, fearing Ghastly may be about to snap.

She thought about it for a moment. "We could beg?"

"Absolutely not!" Ghastly snapped, while Saracen seemed to consider it.

Anton, who had had to shut the hotel down now that Fletcher had made his millions by leaning in to the whole human taxi service thing, crossed his arms. "We need a new approach."

They all tried to think up an idea, not wanting to disappoint their friend. After some time, Saracen looked up. "I, er, have a bad idea?"

Ghastly hesitated. "What is it?"

"Well, you see, there's this website-"

"I swear if you mention cryptocurrency one more time-"

"It's not!" He rushed. "It's - well, a few years ago, I got myself a laptop for the first time, and I was just browsing. I'd never had anything more than a smartphone since, well, what would I need one for? So I got to googling and searching and I ended up on this, err, sex site."

Ghastly covered his face in his hands, thoroughly defeated.

Saracen hurried to continue. "It's not like that! Actually, yeah, it's just like that. You see, one of the videos mentioned getting more content on another site, so I went there, and it's got this feature where you pay people to see their pictures and videos. And it doesn't even have to be sex stuff, it can be anything! People can do anything and post it there and people pay for it!"

"What's your point?" Valkyrie asked curiously.

"Well, we're somewhat famous in the mage community, right? Why not take some photos or videos and generate money that way! We can't do magic but Anton can build, and Ghastly can sew, and we could teach people things."

"There are hundreds of videos like that on YouTube," Valkyrie deflated. "Skulduggery, tell him about YouTube."

Skulduggery gave him a short speech on the website. Valkyrie had taught him about it a few years ago and he'd made sure to make fun of every person she liked to watch.

Saracen wet his lips. "Okay, so teaching isn't a good idea! We could still sell pictures!"

"That's worse than begging," Ghastly groaned from behind his hands.

"No, he has a point," Dexter said, leaning in. "I mean, it doesn't have to be too sexual. It could be workout videos and… stuff."

"You ran out of sexual things, didn't you?" Skulduggery accused.

"I got distracted by it," Dexter grinned.

"Fine!" Ghastly cried. "Go, make your softcore porn, I'm going to think of something else!"

He took the papers where all their now joined, awful finance reports were, and stomped off to the single bedroom they had to sulk.

Valkyrie looked at Skulduggery. "We have a camera, right?"

.*****.

Some hours later, they had cleaned themselves up and were at the park to take some photos in front of a pond. Skulduggery, who couldn't be in any photos for obvious reasons, was their photographer, and fell into the position in ease.

"Anton, stop glaring, you're going to make the fans think you want to kill them," he bossed. He was in his element. "Dexter, don't touch Valkyrie."

"I think that would get more views, actually," she pointed out.

"Don't be stupid, they don't want that. Dexter, consider the worth of your life. Okay, smile!"

He took the photo, looked at it on the camera's digital screen, shook his head, and tried again.

They were there for hours, and he had them in every position and grouping imaginable. At one point, he had annoyed Valkyrie so much she'd been about to hit him, and then he'd snapped a photo and tried to act like that was his intention all along. When they got back to their awful apartment in outer Dublin, they were exhausted.

"Alright, now to learn editing," Skulduggery muttered, turning on Saracen's laptop - he'd made sure to disinfect it first.

Valkyrie sighed and threw herself onto their sofa, something they'd gotten for free and dragged back. "I'll set up our account. What should we call it? We can't be the Dead Men."

"'Alive Maidens'?" Saracen suggested.

"Shut up."

Dexter fell next to her. "'Broke and stupid'? 'Photos for money'? 'Four studs and an angry bear'?"

"Is Anton the bear?" She asked.

"Pretty sure he glared in every photo."

"Okay, let's just leave the name for now… and the profile pic…"

Some hours later, they stood around as Skulduggery sent a message to all their combined contacts that absolutely was not begging, telling everyone of their new venture, and looking at the computer screen. Their OnlyFan's profile was called 'Not_Begging' - mostly after Ghastly had realised they were really doing it - and included a photo of Valkyrie as their profile picture after the group voted. It was the only one in which she had taken her shirt off and Saracen had taken the camera for a moment, and showed her from the cleavage up. It was revealing but no more than a low cut top, and she had mussed hair and pouty lips. Skulduggery hated it.

Skulduggery sat back. "And now we wait."

"We need to go to bed," Valkyrie muttered, and left them to stare.

The next day, their photos had a few paid looks, but considering how cheap they had to keep it while they waited to get some momentum going, they only generated ten euros, which they immediately took out and put towards an editing app. They were also able to see their comments, which were mostly question marks and people asking to see Dexter, Saracen, Valkyrie, or a combination of the three.

Anton and Erskine didn't seem too offended. In fact, Erskine had cheered when he realised they had actually made money in just a few hours.

"We need to give the people what they want!" He grinned, gathering their things. "Let me go talk to someone, and you three get pretty. I have a great idea! Be ready to get naked!"

"I'm always ready to-" Valkyrie stopped, seeing Ghastly staring at her. "Sorry."

Erskine called them to meet him at an address in the early afternoon. He'd managed to convince a friend of a friend somehow that they ought to borrow his studio, and now they were there.

"Take your shoes off, he said if there's anything at all out of place he'd bill us for a full cleaning," Erskine fretted, getting them ready. "Okay, Dexter first!"

This time, Erskine and Skulduggery worked together to set the small stage Erskine had pulled together, made out of cardboard boxes with bedding over the top to look like a rather convincing bed. It was cheap, as it lacked a headboard, but it was a sexier place than the park.

Dexter was instructed to lean back and act moody with his muscles out, looking into the distance. His photos came out great. Saracen joined him after some time, and then Valkyrie also.

She got in between them. "Like this?"

Skulduggery growled. "No."

"Yes!" Erskine grinned. "Put your hand on Saracen's chest, and Dexter, you hold Val - perfect! Oh, adjust your bra - yeah, you got it. Keep taking photos Skulduggery, stop slacking!"

They spent well into the night there, redoing Valkyrie's makeup until her face was raw, and slowly losing their fear of Skulduggery's anger. Their last photos were of Valkyrie nude and her body being covered only by Dexter.

If Skulduggery had had ears, they'd have been steaming.

"I hate you," he whispered to Dexter.

"You did great!" Erskine cheered.

"I want a shower," Valkyrie complained.

They got 'home' and Erskine oversaw the editing to make sure Skulduggery didn't delete anything, and when the photos were ready, Anton scoured them to make sure there was nothing wrong, and with the models final approval, the first set were posted.

It didn't create any storm, but a few were bought and they could afford a few groceries. Two days later, they posted the next set, getting the same result, and two days later, the same again.

Then, it happened.

It seemed that in a matter of an hour, they went from having two members and a handful of regular one time buyers, and then, the whole magical community seemed to know about them. Hundreds of memberships were bought, and messages started pouring in.

"They love it!" Valkyrie grinned. "How much money do we have? Can we get pizza?"

"No pizza," Skulduggery said, monitoring closely. "Someone just tipped us…"

"We need to reply to people," she said. "Not you, I'll do it."

Valkyrie took over the comments and read them out as they came.

"People want nudes, I keep sending winky faces," she reported. "Should we send the next set now?"

"We should keep a routine," Skulduggery insisted. "People love routine."

"They seem to like tits more," she countered. "At least twenty people have asked to be my sugar daddy. Should we take a few up on their offers? We'd just have to manage messaging them and giving them a few exclusive photos. It wouldn't be so hard."

Skulduggery gave her a look, but Erskine nodded quickly. "That's a great idea! I'll find those accounts and message them."

"Perhaps we're taking this a bit far," Skulduggery muttered.

"Oh my god! Someone just tipped a hundred euros!" Valkyrie called.

"Let's upload the next set," Skulduggery said, shoving Valkyrie out of the way.

Less than ten minutes later, the next set were uploading a day early, and their new internet following went wild, with memberships flooding in. This was their last set, the most nude ones. It was still tasteful, but left very little to the imagination.

By the time rent came, they had enough to pay, and get themselves food. They were able to rent a better studio with a real bed where Valkyrie and Dexter were their main models, up until they found a niche with Anton and Erskine, which people also adored. Saracen had his own fanclub in which he had fully nude and semi-nude photos.

The day Valkyrie switched with Anton for April fools though…

That day, they'd posted Anton softly kissing Dexter's neck, Dexter's back arching, and the shadow of Valkyrie with a strap, holding Erskine down from behind. It had been intended as a joke from their side, but apparently they'd gotten so used to the content, they'd forgotten that other people didn't see it that way. They'd utterly loved the switch.

The same time next year, they were certainly famous, and had their own homes. Nothing luxurious, but enough. They were asked continuously to make videos, but a line was drawn when they had enough money to live on as they just didn't need the extra work. Their best investment was accountants so they never messed up their finances again. They even had merch, the bestselling being an annual calendar that was commonplace in even the prudest magical home.

They tried to get Ghastly involved, primarily as their editor and to sweet talk the sugar daddies and mummies they had their hands deeply in the pockets of, but he always refused - he had his own venture, making sewing videos with Xena as his mascot, and was now worth millions. Sometimes, he'd buy them things just to prove his ideas were better than theirs.