Daemons
Chapter 13

Mentions and Allusions of Rape or Non-Con. Gore Warning.

Lust let out a breath he’d been holding in once the curtain drew shut, a smile stretching across his face as him and the other dancers heard the applause echoing in the auditorium. The group all made their way backstage, took one look at each other, and burst into excited cheers and squeals. They’d been practicing that show since the beginning of the semester, all of them putting in several hours and long nights in order to pull it off. And they completely nailed it.

“Oh wow, they’re still going!” One of the girls commented, the group pausing their celebration for a moment to hear the applause before starting up again.

“We freaking nailed that!” Another girl commented.

One of the guys piped up, “I’m just glad you didn’t trip over your two left feet Stacie.”

“Shut up! I can dance better than you!”

“And let’s not forget the man of the hour and our savior!” Another of the girls chimed in, pulling Lust forward and hugging him tightly. “I still can’t believe you originally got cast as an extra! You pulled off the lead part amazingly!”

“She’s right, pretty sure you dance way better than Rebecca! How the hell did that bitch end up as fairy queen anyways?”

“Oh come on, we all know she’s sleeping with the professor to get the best parts and good grades.” They all burst out laughing, a couple more insults being thrown around at the bitch that Lust had replaced at the last minute. It had been chaotic, with Dream’s suicide scare really not helping things, but he’d somehow managed to pull it off in the couple days’ worth of notice that he’d had.

The purple skeleton let out a shy laugh, scratching at his cheek a bit while continuing to smile like crazy. “I’m just relieved that I didn’t let any of you down.”

“Dude are you serious? Relax, not only did you not let any of us down, you saved the whole production and played the part way better than Rebecca ever did!” One of the guys that had been playing a fairy general spoke up. “I don’t even know how you move like that, like I get that you don’t have to worry about damaging muscles or anything like that, but the way you flip and spin around just doesn’t seem possible, and I was right there next to you on the stage!”

While the guy scratched his head, trying to wrap his head around the way that Lust could move and his flexibility, another piped up. “Yeah, you got to tell us your secret Lust! Come on, don’t leave us hanging!” A few others seemed to want to know his secret, the girls moving to grab hold of the skeleton as he tried to dodge out of the question.

“Oh come on guys, it’s nothing that impressive! I just throw in some extra practice, helps with my flexibility and my confidence. Nothing special,” he insisted, which was essentially true. Since it was fun keeping his dancing trump card secret from the others, he continued to do so even if it really wasn’t anything worth keeping a secret on.

His trump card had actually came from Geno in a way. His friend had figured out shortly after meeting him that he’d been dealing with bullying and confidence issues, having to put on a front with the others to save face and avoid upsetting them. That had done little to deter the observant skeleton, who in a relatively short period of time managed to gather a surprising amount of evidence that pointed to his problems, enough that Lust couldn’t deny it. And like always, Geno had seemed to know what the perfect solution was.

The scarfed skeleton had dragged him off that same day to a nearby martial arts studio, one that performed the Brazilian martial art capoeira. He’d learned in that first visit that the martial art had originally been developed by slaves to disguise fight practice as dance, meaning that the moves were highly acrobatic and rhythmic. Upon Geno’s insistence he gave it a shot, quickly falling in love with the martial art and how naturally it complimented his skills as a dancer. It had taken some getting used to and a lot of juggling to work it into his busy schedule, but it was definitely worth it. Not only did it give him the confidence boost to not seem like an easy target, but it taught him fighting techniques in case he got into a situation like that and helped improved his dancing on top of that.

The group continued to celebrate for a while longer before the professor came backstage, giving them his own round of applause. “Wonderful job, all of you! I’m extremely impressed with how you all managed to rally together and pull this off, even with Rebecca’s regrettable injury.” Yep, she was definitely sleeping with him if he got that upset from bringing up her inability to perform. Lust couldn’t help but wonder if her cast made her unable to perform in other ways. “Anyways, I know many of you probably have plans either amongst yourselves or with loved ones that came to watch, so I won’t keep you all too long. Let’s hurry up and get what absolutely needs to be cleaned up dealt with so that you can all go.”

All of the dancers quickly dispersed so that they could get their work done and go, stripping costumes and sets to be properly sorted and put away during one of their classes. With a sigh Lust said goodbye to the crown and armor he’d worn for his part as the warrior king of the fairies, his fingers brushing against the purple heart that he’d painted over top of the hideous design Rebecca had put on it once the armor was officially going to be his. While it had been made to be lightweight and flexible so as to not impede the movements of a dancer, it had still made him feel strong and powerful and he was a little reluctant to let it go. With his friends waiting for him outside though, he wanted to hurry so as to not keep them waiting too long.

Once his costume had been put away and he’d changed back to his usual attire, Lust moved to assist the others in tearing down the stage props and backdrops, chucking them into boxes and onto carts to be sorted through and stored in the hopes that they could be repurposed for another production. He knew that his crown and sword had come from a Shakespearean play that the drama students had put on the year before, and the backdrops would likely be painted over for whatever story needed them next. Made perfect sense honestly for the fine arts department to recycle props and save on expenses the way it did.

One by one the dancers started to vanish, sneaking out in order to go hang out with their friends or family and making the rest of the work start to drag on for those that were left. What should’ve been a fifteen minute job was quickly turning into a half hour of work. The purple skeleton was seriously tempted to bail as well, feeling bad for the others having to wait longer than necessary, but any time he thought he had an opening, the professor was standing right there and watching him like a hawk. Lust knew why he’d been cast as an extra and why he was being watched unlike the others. It was because he knew that this professor hated his metaphorical guts, being an avid believer in the anti-monster movement.

If he didn’t need this class to graduate, he would’ve dropped out upon learning who would be teaching it. Since that wasn’t an option though, he was instead determined to earn an A in this class by outperforming everyone else, doing well enough that not even this racist bastard could give him anything less. It was why he put more hours in than anyone else in practice and worked hard to nail any part given to him, no matter how small. He was just lucky that the others had insisted that he be Rebecca’s understudy since many of them had been in classes with him before and knew how well he could dance. If he got anything less than an A- on his midterm performance, he’d replace whoever he had to in order to get that grade overturned.

As the half hour mark passed, Lust watched as all of the other dancers were told they could go, assuming that meant him as well. Big mistake. “And where the hell do you think you’re going?” The professor snapped at him, earning a withering look from the skeleton.

“Home, like everyone else.”

“You can’t leave yet, there’s still work to be done!” he insisted, only to get a scoff from Lust.

“And you can’t seriously expect me to stay and work my ass off to finish the work when you let everyone else go! That’s blatant discrimination!” he shouted back, already looking for a door he could run and dip out of. Despite teaching a dance class, Lust’s professor was not the fittest individual and certainly wouldn’t be fast enough to catch him.

However he clearly wasn’t intending on chasing Lust anywhere. “Might be, but you have nothing to prove it. Look, I’ll make you a deal. You stay and finish up the rest of the cleaning and I’ll bump your midterm performance grade from a B to a B+.”

“Bullshit! That performance was worth an A! I worked my ass off to nail that part when your little floozy tripped over her two left feet, I deserve that grade!”

“You deserve whatever I give you, you filthy monster,” he spat back, clearly agitated by the skeleton’s comment towards his favorite student. “Fine, if it’ll get you to shut up and finish the work, A-. Take it or leave it.”

He wanted so badly to tell him off, to take his bullshit grading and discrimination and shove it right up his ass, but he couldn’t. “Fine, I’ll stay,” he relented in a defeated tone, not reacting at the pat on the shoulder he got from the professor and instead burying his urge to snap at him. He knew he was weak, he knew that he didn’t have a backbone when he needed one, but he’d grown so used to accepting how the world worked that he could never replace the courage to fight against it. He was a monster in the world of humans, he was less than them, undeserving of so many of the freedoms and privileges the humans all took for granted. This was how the world worked, and he was too much of a coward to challenge it.

In a desperate attempt to not keep the gang waiting any longer than necessary, the purple skeleton pushed himself to finish the work faster than ever before, grumbling to himself every time the professor added something to his to-do list. Another twenty minutes passed before he finally finished it all, catching the smug bastard’s smirk as Lust went to grab his stuff and head out.

“I’ve already locked up all the main doors, so you’ll have to head out the back door,” he commented, his briefcase in hand as he went to one of the closer doors. Any cries of protest to unlock one of the closer doors for him went ignored as the professor simply went out a nearby door and locked it shut behind him, the telltale click making it so that Lust didn’t even try.

Grabbing his stuff, he headed for the back door, an emergency exit about a five minute walk from the main entrance that served as a point of exit for two other buildings in addition to the one he was in now. The door was set to always open from the inside, never the outside, allowing students studying or practicing late into the night when other doors locked to have a way out when they were done. It always seemed stupid to the skeleton to have such a system in place in the performing arts part of campus, where students often stayed late for one reason or another, but it wasn’t like he was in a position to change it. Instead he simply put his headphones on since he figured that he could at least enjoy some music on the roughly ten minute walk it would take to get to the front doors where his friends were hopefully still waiting. He felt so bad for keeping them so late, but given how all of them were monsters and had suffered racism at some point or another, he hoped that they would be understanding. Besides, they all knew how much of a dick his professor was.

The walk to the door wasn’t too eventful, the dancer having to step over equipment in some spots and mostly just weave through corridors that he’d walked through several times before. It was almost peaceful, the music helping him to relax after the stress of the past hour. It’s what made the bad feeling in his chest all the more noticeable as he finally got to the door. The closer he got, the stronger the feeling of trepidation got, as if something was telling him to not go out that door, to instead circle back around and try to replace another exit in one of the three buildings. “This is stupid,” he muttered to himself, shaking the feeling off of him and instead heading for the door.

Lust really wished he hadn’t opened it. The back door opened up to the lower level of a parkade, this one for the most part being void of vehicles as many students and staff had already gone home to enjoy the weekend. While the lack of cars was to be expected, the half dozen grown men certainly wasn’t. This must’ve been what his instincts were warning him about, as all of them had a vibe to them that made Lust want to back up and get out of there. So he did back up... right into the back door that had closed and locked behind him.

All of them looked like the kind of sleazy humans that not even their own kind wanted to be anywhere near. From left to right, Lust found himself picking out something distinguishing about their appearance so that he could keep track of them mentally. The redheaded boy with freckles became Ginger, the large black man beside him was simply Black. He knew that was a pretty racist name to give him, but right now he didn’t really care about being politically correct, plus it was only in his thoughts so there was no real harm. Moving on, the next guy was wearing a wife-beater tank top and ripped jeans, becoming Trash as he screamed trailer park trash to the skeleton. One of them was smoking a cigarette and clearly didn’t have a care in the world, being given the name Smoker. Of the two remaining, one was a string bean of a man, getting the nickname Skinny. That left the last one, looking like the kind of guy that wore his hat backwards because he thought it made him look gangster. So his name was Idiot, simply because Lust wanted it to be.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” Trash sneered, his beady eyes suddenly making Lust very self-conscious of his revealing clothing.

Black stepped closer, making the purple skeleton instinctively back away. “Looks like the tip we got about a hot young monster coming out this way wasn’t wrong boys.”

“What?” While his voice started feeble, it quickly grew in strength as he realized who the only person that could’ve given that tip would be. “Are you serious?! That bastard sold me out?!”

“Woah! Looks like this kitten’s got some claws!” Idiot snickered, licking his lips as his eyes scanned over his body. “What do you guys think? Should we see what all the hype about monsters is about?”

Hype? Once again it didn’t take him long to figure out what they meant. He’d read somewhere about monsters of both genders being raped and abducted to be sold off into slavery, with the cops paying little attention to it, simply because it was monsters and not humans. That’s why these men were here, they planned to have their way with him before dragging him off somewhere to be sold like a piece of meat. If they succeeded, then he’d never see his friends again, never complete his dream of becoming a world class dancer. His life as he knew it would be over.

The switch in tracks on his phone snapped him out of his terrified and spiraling thoughts, grabbing his attention as he realized what it was. It was one of the songs from his capoeira classes, one that he’d recorded for the purpose of solo practice outside of the classes. Maybe Geno had been more right than he’d realized, as simply hearing that song filled him with more courage in the face of this terrifying situation than he could’ve sworn he ever had. He already found himself shrugging off his bag and getting into a fighting stance that had been ingrained in him over the past three years. “You wanna see claws? I’ll show you some fucking claws,” he growled, determined to not go down without a fight. If he proved to be more hassle than he was worth, then maybe they’d back off and decide to replace some other target instead. No, he wouldn’t give up his life that easily.

The men only laughed at his sudden burst of confidence, not taking him seriously in the slightest. Trash was the next one to step forward, though this time Lust didn’t retreat. He held his ground and his glare, replaceing his weight already shifting in his feet to let him move at a moment’s notice. While his training would only give him so much in a real fight, it didn’t mean that he couldn’t fight dirty. Honor would have to take a back seat, this fight was life or death essentially so he didn’t have any time to fight by the proper rules he was taught.

That’s why when Trash got close enough, aiming to touch his cheek, his hand lashed out and went for the eyes. He didn’t have fingernails, so instead he simply dug his fingers in even harder as he raked them across the guy’s eyes, grinning as blood leaked from the claw marks. As the man let out a howl in pain, the others looked to each other in shock before turning to look at Lust in anger, but he was already running. Against six men at once, he honestly didn’t stand a chance, so he needed to get out of this damn parkade.

The dancer could outrun his professor easily. These men were surprisingly a different story. Ginger and Skinny were far leaner than the rest, Skinny easily able to sprint after him and tackle him to the ground while the other stood by to make sure there was no escape for the skeleton. Gritting his teeth, he flailed about his fist in a desperate attempt to hit something important. When that didn’t work and both arms were restrained, the skeleton opted instead to slam his forehead into his attacker’s nose. The man’s scream combined with the crunch of the cartilage served to temporarily disable him, both of the man’s hands flying to his now broken nose which left Lust free to wiggle out from underneath him.

Seeing his buddy screaming in pain, Ginger moved to grab the purple skeleton, but he was ready. Since he was already on the ground, it wasn’t hard for him to grab a fistful of dirt and spray it into the guy’s eyes. The redhead stumbled back, cursing and wiping at his watery eyes to try to get the dirt out.

Unfortunately any lead he’d managed to get on the others had been ruined trying to deal with these two, all four rushing towards him in an attempt to stop him from getting away. Seeing the perfect chance to put some of his training to work, Lust shifted his weight to one hand before kicking up at the groin of the nearest person, which happened to be Idiot, and using his momentum to push himself up and onto his feet. The faux gangster clearly hadn’t been expecting it, doubling over in pain before Lust’s momentum pushed him onto his back.

The others weren’t giving him a chance to rest though, as Black threw a fist aimed right at his head that the purple skeleton only barely managed to pull back from in order to avoid. The large man was built like a tank, making him by far the hardest one to deal with and the one Lust was most afraid of. Smoker had already moved behind him, making it impossible to get out of this by running. He’d have to make a hole by going after the weaker of the two.

Capoeira in practice was a fluid martial art, forcing the practitioner to keep up momentum and constantly move from one movement to the next. It was easier to chain kicks together if the body was already moving in the right direction, so that’s how they were taught to fight. With his practice music still playing through his headphones, Lust let the familiar rhythm carry his movements as he turned to face Smoker instead of Black.

The skeleton spread his legs out for balance before taking his back leg and throwing it in a wide spinning kick, fully expecting it to not connect. Smoker could clearly see his movement coming from a mile away, stepping back to avoid the kick only for another one to immediately follow it. Spinning like a top, Lust immediately bounced from one foot to the next to keep spinning forward, able to keep going and keep pushing the man backwards. Eventually the guy simply stepped to the side, Lust smirking as he planted his hand on the ground in order to shift the direction of his momentum, continuing to pursue him.

If this was one of his practice fights, Lust would be doing well by making his opponent continue to retreat as he continued to chase them with a variety of acrobatic techniques. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a practice fight, this was a real one, and his opponents had no sense of honor. Trash came out of nowhere, tackling him in the midst of his attack on Smoker. With his balance so askew from his motions, Lust collapsed onto the ground with the man practically on top of him, his headphones and the music he’d been using for motivation sent skittering away along with his phone that could’ve been used to call for help. He didn’t waste a beat though and began kicking and screaming just as he’d done when Skinny had tackled him, but Trash was a lot stronger and made a point of keeping his nose out of range of the skeleton’s skull. Before long Black came lumbering up, effectively pinning his top half while the dancer’s screams of anger changed to desperate pleas for help, praying that someone was out there and would come to his rescue while the other four men circled around him.

Tears poured down his face as his purple eye lights darted between the five faces gathered in front of him, feeling the arms holding his top half shift as several sets of hands advanced. He could barely hear the bickering among them as to who got to go first and who got what hole, trying his best to block it out while screaming his throat raw for help. His flailing legs were reduced to merely wiggling about in a vain attempt to escape and retaliate, a couple of the men moving to hold them while Trash butted his way to the front and reached out with hungry eyes. Hands tore at his jacket, ripping the bright fabric before going for his crop top. The material gave way easily, leaving his ribcage and spine completely bare. While he typically had no problem with showing off his body, he had limits and this had crossed them long ago. He felt naked, exposed, violated, and vulnerable. The worst part was how he knew they’d only started.

A chill ran through his ribs that sent a shudder down his spine, the men all hollering at the sight while Lust turned his head away in a vain attempt to escape this horrid situation in even the slightest bit. Desperate for an escape, Lust tried to think of whatever might work now that physical combat was out of the question. Could he use magic? No, Lust primarily only used his magic to summon ecto bodies for clothing, nothing offensive, especially since offensive magic would all be stopped by the magic suppression system. Well... he did have one thing he could do, but to do so would break a promise he’d made to himself over a decade ago. Did he really have no choice but to break that vow? If it was the only thing that could save him from being raped and abducted, then maybe... His internal debate was cut short as Trash started fiddling with the hem of his jeans, clearly eager to get the tight fitting denim off of him. This was it, he either had to break his vow or pray for a miracle to show up and save him.

That miracle made itself known not even a second later, one glowing red eye light suddenly materializing behind the guy trying to take his pants off. All Lust could see from his position was a large shadow with something like a stick raised above their head, the stick-like object crashing down moments later into the top of Trash’s skull. The man’s eyes instantly rolled up into the back of his head, his limp body collapsing onto the skeleton’s lap.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” The stranger asked in an amused and yet pissed voice, echoing Trash’s words from the very beginning of this whole nightmare. All the others backed off, Black even letting Lust go in favor of backing off from the newcomer. All the dancer could do was huddle in fear and hope that they weren’t here for him as well.

The stranger started walking forward, stepping into the light enough that all of them could see his features clearly. He was another skeleton, one blood red eye light peering at them while a crooked smile that sent a chill down Lust’s spine was plastered across his face. They looked pretty normal, wearing a jean jacket that covered a tacky plaid shirt and added too much denim to the outfit when combined with the stressed jeans he wore. The weird thing was, the purple skeleton honestly thought he pulled it off despite wearing what he’d normally consider to be fashion faux pas... was he seriously judging the guy’s clothes at a time like this? Focus Lust, focus! That mental command to pay attention only served to highlight the tire iron gripped tightly in his hand, the one end splattered with fresh crimson that undoubtedly came from Trash. Dear god, this was the most terrifying miracle ever!

The lithe skeleton froze as that single red eye darted over to look at him, the skeleton’s features softening just a bit before hardening as he turned back to the five remaining men. “So, you think it’s a lot of fun to scare the shit out of someone? You think it’s a great idea to gang up on someone half your size and virtually defenseless, to corner them and attack them when they have nowhere to go? Pathetic,” he spat, lazily spinning the tire iron in his grip. “I’ve dealt with a lot of scum before, and you’re no different. You wanna gang up on someone? Why don’t you try me on for size?” The skeleton spread his arms wide, openly inviting the gang to attack him. Was he insane?!

The other men seemed to share Lust’s thoughts on the newcomer, all of them laughing, albeit some of them doing so hesitantly. Black stepped up, being physically the biggest and most intimidating. The crazy skeleton made no move to even defend himself as the musclebound man threw a punch at him, Lust flinching and squeezing his eyes shut as he expected to hear the sickening crunch of bone.

What he instead heard were gasps and cries of outrage from the other men assembled, opening his eyes only to see the other skeleton lazily holding back Black’s fist as if it were nothing. The human was clearly putting his weight into the punch, yet the stranger merely grinned as he started twisting the arm effortlessly. This left Black wide open as he struggled to pull his arm away, the skeleton taking that opportunity to deliver several hard whacks with the piece of metal in his grip. One connected with his arm, everyone flinching at the sound of the bones breaking from the impact. Before the man could even scream however, another hit to his ribs created another sickening crunch, the taller skeleton merely grinning through the whole thing as he delivered the final blow to the man’s temple. Black hit the ground within seconds.

“Well, that was fun... who’s next?” The crazy skeleton asked, sounding almost deranged as he turned his attention to the four remaining attackers. All of them shuffled back, looking to each other nervously. They had a choice to either run together or fight together. The second the stranger took a step towards them, they all decided to run. The skeleton blinked a couple times in surprise before laughing like a madman. “You seriously think I’ll let you fuckers get away?! After what you did to him?! No, you’ll all pay with your fucking heads!”

Lust was stunned by the declaration made as the other skeleton chased after the four remaining men, finally pushing Trash’s body off of him and kicking it away, throwing in a few extra kicks just to make himself feel better before sliding away. Was that other monster really doing this all because of him? If that was the case, then he had to guess his motivation was either helping a fellow monster out or an extreme dislike of human trash or rapists. The second one seemed more reasonable given the circumstances, as helping him wouldn’t require chasing them down and brutally beating their heads in with a... oh god... All it took was one look in the general direction of the screams he could now hear to feel completely sick, turning over and closing his eyes to not look at the grotesque mess the other was making in the abandoned corner of the parkade he’d chased them to. There was so much blood, and the screams, god the screams wouldn’t stop. The dancer moved to block out as much of the sound as he could, not sure if he honestly wanted the screams to stop since he knew what it would mean.

Eventually the screams came to an end, an eerie silence filling the parkade in its place. Too scared to look, Lust chose to stay curled up in a ball, quietly sobbing to himself and praying that he wasn’t escaping one nightmare to end up in another one. With only one person still standing it was easy to tell who was causing the sound of slow, methodical footsteps towards the terrified dancer, each one causing him to flinch before they eventually stopped right behind him.

He waited for something to happen, his entire body tense and ready to move at a moment’s notice. That notice came in the form of a hand touching his shoulder, the smaller skeleton letting out a panicked yelp as he frantically scooted away, holding his arms protectively in front of his bare chest. What he wasn’t expecting was how the other made no move to pursue him, staying where he’d originally knelt down. The stranger almost looked a little hurt by his action but quickly brushed it off, sending his a soft smile as he slowly and very carefully took off his jacket. “You’re shaking, are you cold?” He gently asked, his voice holding none of the anger or madness from before. It was actually quite soft, surprising the purple skeleton as the taller monster in front of him covered in blood splatters hadn’t seemed like someone capable of being so nice when he initially came to Lust’s rescue. “Here, take my jacket, you clearly need it right now more than me.”

A shaky hand stretched out to take the piece of denim, snatching it back to him the second his fingers made contact. His jumpy behavior didn’t seem to upset the taller anymore though, the other skeleton instead patiently moving to sit cross legged on the ground across from him. It gave the dancer enough confidence to slip on the jacket, instantly snuggling into the warmth that still lingered as he became aware of just how cold he’d gotten laying on the pavement of the parkade for so long. “T-Thanks,” he mumbled out, still not quite sure if he could trust him. Something inside him wanted to, but he just couldn’t yet bring himself to.

“No problem, I’m just glad I got here when I did. You’re not hurt are you? They better not have hurt you.” While he’d started out sounding quite happy, his voice had quickly dropped back to the one tinged with fury. In his current mental state it was enough to freak Lust out a bit.

“N-No I’m fine! T-They didn’t really hurt me, they just...”

“Scared you?” He gave a nod as he retreated further into the jacket, those terrifying minutes before the stranger’s intervention replaying in his head. “Well, it’s good that you’re not hurt, otherwise I’d actually have to kill those bastards.”

“Wait, they’re still alive?” He meekly asked, not sure whether or not he was happy about that.

“Yeah, at least I think so. I might’ve hit some of them too hard in the head, but I’m sure they’ll survive. I can quickly change that if you want.”

“No! Oh god no! Please, just...” More tears poured from his sockets as he just wanted to get out of here. He wanted to go meet his friends and have some fun with them, try to forget this and instead focus on how amazing his performance had gone. But he knew that no matter how much he tried, the night would forever be tainted with all of the shit that came afterwards. “I just wanna see my friends,” he cried, breaking down in tears and further curling in on himself, essentially burying his head in his knees as he continued to sob.

From his curled up position, Lust never noticed when the other skeleton got up and moved to sit right beside him. An arm hesitantly wrapped around him, the smaller stiffening at the unfamiliar contact before replaceing himself craving the comfort of the simple gesture. Before he even realized it he was sobbing on the taller’s shoulder, clinging to him while the stranger’s arms wrapped around him. The other skeleton began rubbing little circles in his back in an effort to help him calm down, Lust continuing to wail for some time before it actually started to help.

A solid ten minutes passed before he ran out of tears to shed, hiccupping and sniffling as he continued to cling to the taller skeleton. The stranger had been silent the entire time, focusing on offering him comfort and support while he cried his eyes out. “Are you feeling a little better now?” The taller asked quietly, earning a nod in response. “Come on, why don’t I take you back to your friends? They were starting to get worried when I left.”

“Wait, you know my friends?” He asked in surprise, finally tearing his flushed face away from the stranger’s now soaked shoulder to look at him.

He gave a small laugh in return, scratching a bit at his cheek. “Yeah actually, your friend Ink invited me to come see you dance in the hopes that he could set you up with me.”

Now Lust was giggling a bit too, covering his mouth a bit as he smiled. “Really? Ink’s given me some really strange blind dates before, but this one probably has to take the cake.”

“To be fair, my brother is his boyfriend, and he dragged me along since Ink asked him for help and I was the only one available.”

“Well, I’m certainly glad that you were available, otherwise I might not have ever seen my friends again.” The thought was still quite a sobering one, but thankfully the stranger pulled him to his feet before he could really lose himself in that terrifying what-if scenario. “By the way, I have absolutely no idea what your name is,” he pointed out, about thirty seconds away from mentally naming him Hero.

“Oh, yeah I guess I never did tell you that,” he chuckled, moving to support Lust since he was still quite shaky. “The name’s Horror.” While the name certainly wasn’t a pleasant one, Lust had never been one to judge people strictly by names considering what his name was and what it often stood for.

“Well, nice to properly meet you Horror, my name’s Lust.”

“You know I know that right? Ink told me a bit about you so I’d know who to pay attention to during the dance.”

“Shut up, I know. Let me have my chance to properly introduce myself though,” he playfully complained, having Horror help him back over to his bag that he’d discarded at the beginning of the mess as well as his phone that had been knocked out of his pocket when he’d been tackled.

Horror only laughed at his comment before helping him gather his things and leave the parkade, a place that Lust would probably never want to enter ever again. “You danced beautifully, by the way.”

“Really? Thanks.” The simple comment filled with him with a surprising amount of happiness, a warm violet blush spreading across his cheeks as the pair walked the five minutes to the front of the building. “Now if only I could fight as well as I danced,” he sighed, once again being reminded of just how weak he was.

“Hey, I don’t think you did too badly. I noticed that you went for the eyes on all of them for the most part, which was a great move. Breaking that guy’s nose was actually really good, how did you do it?”

“With my forehead,” he admitted sheepishly, feeling slightly embarrassed as he said it out loud.

Horror merely laughed softly, rubbing his shoulder for support. “Hey, don’t be embarrassed, that proved that you could think on your feet. Honestly considering the odds were against you from the beginning you did really well. If someone taught you how to properly fight in a brawl like that, I’m sure you could manage yourself fine.”

The two of them continued to talk for a bit longer before they came in sight of the others, the bulk of them racing towards him with worried expressions on their faces and only Geno and Cross taking a bit longer due to the wheelchair. “Lust what happened? We were so worried, you were taking forever to show up!” Blue commented, his starry eyes taking note of the strange jacket he was wearing. “Um, why are you wearing that?”

That simple question was enough to have him bawling again, his friends moving to surround him in hugs as Horror took a step back to be with another skeleton he recognized as Error, the skeleton he’d helped set up a date between him and Ink. Guess those two were official now.

As Lust slowly managed to blubber out the story of what had almost happened to him, the looks of worry on the others’ faces changed to looks of shock, fear, and anger. Cross looked ready to storm back there and kill the bastards until Horror chimed in that he’d already beaten him to the punch. Blue, Ink, and Dream had moved him to sit on the nearby steps, helping him calm down as best as they could while Sci looked on fearfully. And then there was Geno, an unreadable expression on his face when Lust finally looked up at his uncharacteristic silence. “Geno? What’s wrong?”

Instead of answering his question, the scarfed skeleton turned to Sci. “I need your laptop.”

The sudden attention startled the bespectacled skeleton a bit before he turned to address the request. “Okay first, how do you know I have it? And second, why do you need it?”

“Because you always have it and I need to make sure that this never happens to him again.” A hand shot out expectantly, with Sci reluctantly handing it over and making a comment to not do anything illegal. Geno made no comment in response, instead diving into work on whatever idea he’d concocted up.

“Geno, you better not be stressing yourself out too much,” Dream warned, shooting him a serious look as the golden skeleton had somehow managed to get their stubborn friend to promise not to overdo it while helping out for the next while. Sure it had been specifically involving the suicide scare since Geno had put himself back in the chair because of how worked up he got, but apparently Dream planned to use that promise to keep tabs on the scarfed skeleton for as long as he could.

“Relax, I’m not doing anything too stressful, just making sure that Lust gets the justice he deserves and that Horror isn’t blamed for anything.” He turned the screen around, though all the dancer saw was a messy jumble of windows and gibberish code. He didn’t even try to comprehend it considering Geno was a genius when it came to coding. Whatever he was doing probably would be well beyond whatever Lust could understand and possibly slightly illegal.

Sci was about the only person that could understand any of what Geno ever did when he started doing stuff like this, the scientist peering over his shoulder only to start freaking out. “I told you nothing illegal! You’re messing with security camera footage! That has to be ill-” He was cut off as Cross suddenly silenced him, shooting him a look that everyone knew was a warning to not scream what their friend was currently doing to the entire world.

“What... exactly are you doing?” Lust hesitantly asked, figuring he had a shot of getting an answer since this was being done for him.

The scarfed skeleton looked up for a second before getting back to work, smirking as he continued. “First off I’m deleting any incriminating footage with Horror present, making it seem like these guys were smart enough to kill security feeds right before doing what they had planned. And since you said that your professor was likely the bastard that set you up in this whole mess...” He then turned the screen back around to show off his finished work. The edited footage showed his professor at the scene during all of this happening, looking as seamless as if he’d actually been there. Right when Horror came into the mess, the cameras all cut out, but a split second before made it look like his prof had been the one to kill the feed. When the cameras came back online the evidence of Horror’s handiwork was clear, and somehow edited to replace the skeleton with his garbage prof. “I took the footage of your prof from old footage so they likely won’t notice that it’s spliced in. Still have to go through nearby security cameras and edit out any footage that has him during the same time, but-”

“Not with my laptop you aren’t!” Sci yelled as he swiped the device back, glaring at their chair bound friend who merely shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know why I trust you with my stuff anymore, you’re gonna get me put on some watch list if I don’t end up in jail.”

“Oh come on, I made sure there’s absolutely no way to trace the edits back to your computer. Just make sure to close everything down and probably restart it just to be sure. I’ll just make the final edits and checks on my computer at home I guess.” The scientist merely glared as he made a point of shutting everything down before storing the computer, still clearly upset that Geno used his precious laptop in such a way.

Lust was still baffled by what his friend had just done for him, looking to him wide eyed. “Geno, you just did all of that... for me?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I?” He responded nonchalantly, not seeing any problem in his actions. “The police would’ve gone looking for Horror and possibly you if they found a bunch of humans beat up and the only other two people at the scene were two monsters. Even if the footage showed you about to be raped, there would still be a disgustingly high chance of the police charging you with assault if they couldn’t replace a culprit. I can do some more digging and see if I can tie the professor to those guys legitimately, but now he’ll be their prime suspect. It might not be enough to convict him, but I’m sure it’ll at least get him to back off of you if he isn’t fired or suspended because of this. At the very least, I’ll make sure that he’s too scared to ever target you again.”

As his friend laid out his plan to spare him both from being a suspect and to get his insane professor away from him, the dancer couldn’t help but burst into tears again, these ones at least far happier. “Thank you Geno, I honestly don’t know what I did to deserve a friend like you, like any of you, but I’m so grateful that I’ve got you all.”

That seemed to put a smile on everyone’s face, Blue jumping up from his side with plenty of energy. “Well then, I say we need to go out and have some fun! You don’t need to do your work on this right away, do you Geno?” He asked, all of them simply accepting that their friend was going to continue setting this up to protect Lust even if it was illegal. After all, in a world controlled by humans, monsters needed to look out for themselves. When Blue got a shake of his head in response, the energetic skeleton only got more excited. “Then I think what we need to do is have some late night fun! After all, we still need to celebrate how amazing you were on that stage!”

“One of the shopping malls is still open for a few hours,” Dream piped up, practically feeding off of Blue’s energy as he got to his feet as well. “We could go do some shopping and get you something else cute to replace the clothes that those guys wrecked.”

“Yeah! And once we’re done there we can go grab dinner!” Ink chimed in, standing up and pulling Lust up with him. “And you’re definitely not paying for anything tonight!”

Cross was the next to throw a suggestion, surprisingly into it despite usually being one of the calmest in the bunch. “We’ve all got transit passes too, so there’s nothing saying we can’t got out for a couple drink after dinner too.”

“You guys,” Lust sighed, smiling despite the tears rolling down his cheeks. “You really are the best.”

“Well, sounds like you’ve all got a fun night ahead of you,” Error cut in, Horror standing next to him. “I think we’ll head home then, don’t want to intrude on your night after all.” Ink went to complain until he was silenced by a cute little kiss, Blue and Dream squealing in the background while Lust was happy he had a hand in those two getting together. “It’ll be fine Ink, we’ll hang out another night, go hang with your friends. They need you right now more than I do.”

With that the two groups started to separate, each heading a different direction until Lust realized that he was still wearing Horror’s jacket. “Horror, wait!” He called out, running over to speak to the other skeleton for a minute as he stopped. “Um... thanks again for saving me, I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t shown up when you did. Did you want your jacket back? I could ask Cross about borrowing his maybe, or maybe Ink has something stashed in his impossibly full bag that I could use.”

The other simply shook his head, stilling the dancer’s hands as he started moving to take it off. “Nah, you keep it for now. I’ll take it as my excuse to see you again sometime in order to get it back. Maybe then we can have that proper date Ink wanted to set us up on~” In one quick move, Lust’s hand was gently held in Horror’s the taller skeleton bending down to place a gentle kiss on the back of it. All Lust could do was blush a vibrant purple as Horror let go with a wink, waving goodbye as he walked off to catch up with his brother.

The purple skeleton stood there in almost a daze for a bit before the sudden presence of his friends crowded around him snapped him out of it. All it took was for him to turn around with his face still lit up for Ink to start celebrating and muttering something about ‘I ship it’, while Blue and Dream started grumbling. Not having a clue what was going on, he merely chuckled and shook his head at his crazy friends before following them towards what sounded like a really fun night of celebration. His friends might’ve been absolutely crazy sometimes, but they really were the best.