[hr][center][img]https://txt.1001fonts.net/img/txt/b3RmLjEwNi43NjY3NjcuVTJ4dllXNWxJRVpoY21sei4w/bachelorette.regular.webp[/img] [img]https://i.imgur.com/r7scdkh.png[/img][/center]
 [right][b]Interactions:[/b]  Anya  [@Fernstone]
[code]The Halloween Festival[/code][/right][hr]

She felt odd. Sloane turned her eyes to the ground and watched the rain wash the paint away as Jack got up to leave, a small victory overshadowed by an incredible feeling of guilt. She winced as he referred to the Sycamore Tree Coven as a family just like Auri had stupidly called them one in the first meeting. Families were unshakeable burdens. Families weren’t chosen so much as they were forced onto you. People who liked their families were generally unbearable. Sloane raked her teeth over her bottom lip. Now that she considered it, Sycamore was starting to sound a lot like a family after all. Jack was playing his part of the prodigal son perfectly. 

[color=6644ff]”...I never turned down an opportunity to aid anyone, or be there in their time of need.”[/color]

How quick he was to ignore ten years of proof saying the exact opposite. Yet Sloane found herself unable to call out his hypocrisy, tempted by an overwhelming urge to call out for him to wait instead. She looked up and the words died in her throat as she came eye to eye with Anya. It looked like she had been crying. Sloane’s face contorted and twisted, glitching between flashes of abject terror punching through the caster of an expressionless death mask. How much exactly had Anya heard? Enough to hurt her? There wasn’t much that Sloane shied away from telling Anya, but her feelings were one thing that was almost never a topic of their discussions. When Sloane said everyone was a disappointment, surely Anya knew that she was exempt, right? Or what if she never realized how much she was held down by Sloane? Was this the moment where Anya rejected her too? Of course it was. Everybody did eventually. 

[color=9966CC]”...It would be rather lonely to both be hated alone, wouldn’t it?”[/color]

Sloane released a choked, staggered sigh of relief masqueraded as a laugh. She closed her eyes tight and sucked her cheeks in like she had just bitten into a lemon to keep herself from smiling like a child. Her eyes were swimming in pools of pure adoration when she opened them again. The drinks and Jack’s endless, insistent prodding had knocked the walls around Sloane’s fortress down, if only for the evening. There was no hiding the powerful and unabashed projection of the love and admiration that Sloane had long felt for Anya but kept tucked away fearing that it would reek of desperation and convince Anya to find a less pathetic friend. She felt embarrassed and warm and stupid and safe and something else, something she couldn’t quite put a descriptor to because it was something she hadn’t felt in a long time if, perhaps, ever. 

Sloane closed her eyes again, finding it more and more difficult to keep them open for some reason, but no longer tried to hide her blissful smile. Between making up for Sloane’s faux pas and trying to give her some privacy with Jack, Anya had apparently only been thinking about Sloane’s betterment while she was gone. And, unlike Jack, she offered to lend Sloane an ear without forcing her to actually speak up and talk. Anya said something that prompted Sloane to reopen her eyes, and through blurred vision she saw her hand and grabbed it. Sloane stumbled up to her feet and positioned herself at Anya’s side, and instead of letting go of Anya’s hand she grabbed it with her other one as well. Sloane rested her head on her best friend’s shoulder.

[color=silver]“I don’t want to talk about any of that,”[/color] said Sloane.

She had slurred her words more heavily than before. Yet somehow she felt lighter, like she had just taken an overstuffed backpack off of her shoulders. Sloane didn’t realize just how long she’d been carrying around the burden of everything that had been weighing on her mind, and tragically she didn’t even realize that dumping everything on Jack had been the catalyst to improving her mood. She wouldn’t remember how it had been Jack that had come after her first, or that it had been Jack to force her out of her comfort zone so that she would unload. Sadly, she would only remember that it had been Jack who had walked away whereas it had been Anya who had lifted her up from the ground. 

Like the Coven before and her parents before that, Jack had abandoned her. But Anya? Anya was always there for her. Sloane didn’t need a family; she already had a sister. Her grip tightened protectively on Anya’s arm. Sloane would keep her safe. No matter what, she would keep Anya safe. She deserved it. For all the kindness Anya had shown her she deserved so much more. So, so much more. What was even better was that Sloane wouldn’t have to do the embarrassing thing and say it. Anya would just know. She would just know that Sloane was fully bought in—hook, line, and sinker. 

[color=silver]“But it’s whatever you want. I want whatever you want,”[/color] said Sloane with the dreamy cadence of a sleep talker. [color=silver]“But if what you want was another drink that’d be pretty cool. Even though you’re obviously already [i]so[/i] drunk. Don’t pretend like you aren’t, either, I can read you like an open, um, like an open…did I leave our tab open? Oh, and my painting. Jack forgot my painting.  Sheesh, he’s so inconsiderate sometimes. Don’t forget my painting, okay?”[/color]

She shook Anya’s arm towards the blank canvas sitting on a stack of rubbish. 

[color=silver]“Jasper made it for me,”[/color] said Sloane in a hushed tone, as if she were sharing a massive secret. She let out another bizarrely girlish giggle. [color=silver]“[i]He’s obsessed![/i]”[/color]

[hr] [center][img]https://txt.1001fonts.net/img/txt/b3RmLjEwNi5kYWE1MjAuVTNWc2JIa2dUV05RYUdWeWMyOXUuMA,,/roughsketch.regular.webp[/img][img]https://i.imgur.com/xHVRvPV.png[/img][/center]
[right][b]Interactions: Auri (Deus Text Machina) [@Punished GN][/b] 
[code] The Halloween Festival.[/code][/right][hr]

That dude was obsessed.

A drop of rain cut through the leaves and plinked off of Sully’s forehead as he continued lying on the ground. He had no real drive nor desire to get up. He had taken plenty of hits when he was younger and had always been able to get back up, but this felt different. He had thoroughly gotten his ass whooped. Hell, he had barely even been able to defend himself. If Dean had just wanted to kick Sully’s ass or if he had been Father Wolf then Sully would’ve basically just thrown himself headfirst into the grave and pulled the dirt over the top of himself. Even if he hadn't been so wasted he doubted he could’ve done much better. Sully groaned, lightly pounding his forehead with his closed fist. What the fuck had he been thinking. What an idiot. 

He pulled the jacket Dean had returned to him over his face as the rain picked up. If he was lucky maybe he would sink into the mud and not have to deal with what was to come. Could he really stumble out of the woods with his face all busted open and try to keep on partying? Could he stand having to see Leon, knowing that if he had been in Sully’s shoes he would’ve laid the smackdown on Dean so hard that not only would Dean stop being such a creepy stalker but that he’d turn himself into the police because he would feel safer behind bars than out walking the streets where Leon roamed. Sully breathed in deeply and listened to the sound of rain hitting his jacket. It was soothing. The blood on his face was pleasantly warm. He exhaled. Closed his eyes.

No, wait!

Sully sat up, the jacket falling off of his face and plopping into his lap. His white toga was now mostly brown. A trickle of blood extended his mustache down to his weak jawline that was already beginning to regrow stubble. He fumbled around with his coat and found his phone. He needed to warn Tayla, and to do that he needed to get her number. Auri would have it. The situation was such an emergency that he almost called her but hung up before the first ring, looking over his shoulder. Dean could still be around, watching, waiting. He saw nothing but twisted trees looming over his right shoulder, but over his left! Sully sharply turned, fist raised, ready to slug the whole bunch of nothing sneaking up on his back, and grunted as he felt a muscle in his side pinch. He moaned in pain and sent out a mostly legible text to Auri that only asked for Tayla’s number as well as marking next Thursday in his Calendar. 

Sully slowly made his way up to his feet. He needed to come up with a plan for how to handle Dean, but before that he needed a drink, and before-before that he needed to find his way out of the woods. Sully began to stumble ahead, his body like lead, focusing only on putting one foot in front of the other, then the other. He reached out to the trees to support himself as he got mud on his only pair of dress shoes, the remnants of the pilot costume he had started the night in. He no longer felt like Dionysus. There was nothing godly about his situation. Perhaps he was Theseus and the forest his version of the  labyrinth, but he didn’t feel all too heroic either. Nah, he wasn’t even Greek. He was just a big, fat, stupid, drunk loser named Sullivan wearing a dirty bed sheet. 

When he emerged from the woods he didn’t know where he was, but the haunted house wasn’t in sight. A quiet curse crossed Sully’s lips as he pulled out his phone, forgot entirely about how it offered him access to absolutely every piece of information in the world including a map with his precise location, and turned the flashlight on instead. Cracker Island wasn’t too big. He’d just follow the treeline and circle around until he made it back to the haunted house. He had already gotten jumped once tonight. There was probably some universal law that existed that would prevent him from being jumped again. Yep, this time, surely, nothing bad would happen.

A twig snapped behind him.

And with a shout Sully broke into a dead sprint, running for his life, as the terrified opossum that had snuck up on the curious looking Sasquatch curled up into a ball and played dead.