Lower Fens Witching Hour

[Max Kuryakin]

As Dune offered the plate, Max accepted it, noting how many more slices his plate had on it compared to hers. He didn't argue, knowing Dune knew how much she wanted and it wasn't as if he would turn down a big helping. He dropped his hand off the small of her back, leaving her open to go to the kitchen table if she wanted, but he turned to lean against the counter, bracing the edge of the plate against his stomach as he held it, huffing a little chuckle at Dune's question.

“Nothing like she did with you. She was just weird, the whole evening, really focused on Goki even if he totally blew her off. She wasn't interested in me, but I stuck around to make sure he was good, you know? Because, well, pretty early on, she did this... magic trick, I guess? A pretty cruel one.” Max frowned, thinking back. He'd felt the shiver of magic right next to him and the girl who'd spilled her drink had gone down. She'd gotten help quick, but Max knew she'd hurt her ankle seriously. “A girl who’d interrupted us went down like a sack of bricks, hurt her ankle–broke it, maybe? I can't say for sure it was her, but I felt the magic and then that happened, so I'm going to trust my gut. I didn't want to just leave Goki to deal with her.”

[Angela Dune]

After heaping up her plate with a generous, if smaller, serving, Dune scooped it up and decided the kitchen table wasn’t her speed. Tucking a paper towel roll under her arm, tipped her head for the living room and tromped off.

Dropping herself into the plush pile cushions on the couch, sending some tumbling off onto the floor, she patted the couch next to her. She was quiet while Max told her the story, listening intently, even if it felt like her brain was pickled in alcohol.

The fact that Sarah had been interested in Goki made Dune laugh-snort through her nose as she navigated her first gooey slice. Goki was notoriously closed off around women, and she didn’t see Sarah’s brand of demanding brattiness doing her a lot of favors with him. It had worked on Dune like a charm but she liked making girls like that squirm. However, Goki was just as likely to get in a pissing match with anyone who looked at him wrong so it was probably good Max had stuck around. Made sure his head was screwed on straight, especially when the witch was apparently totally cool with tossing out hexes.

And she believed that it had been a hex too. It seemed just like Sarah, and if Max could feel magic, well, it was pretty much calling a duck a duck.

“What the hell,” Dune wondered, mouth full but hidden behind a scrap of paper towel as she wiped her lips. She crumpled it in her fist as she kept chewing. “Nah, yeah, she’s a piece of fuckin’ work, I can see it. Did she leave you guys alone, or what?”

[Max Kuryakin]

Once she'd piled up her slices, Max muddling through his story about their mutual person of interest, Dune picked up her plate and wandered into the living room. He kept talking, frowning over that shiver of magic he felt, but didn't sit as he talked, just leaned against the doorway into the living room as he described the curse she'd thrown at someone. Hex? Hell if he knew what the terminology was.

When Dune spoke through her mouthful, wonderment reflecting some of Max's. Yeah. What the hell. At her question, he pushed off from the doorway and stepped over to slump into the couch, plate steady in his hand as he reached for a slice with the other. He didn't stick in his mouth just yet, answering Dune.

“Yes and no? After that, she wheedled a drink out of us. Kept trying with Goki, and didn't seem to get that he wasn't interested. Talked a bit, and then she ran off, left her drink there. Untouched, I think?” Pausing his story, Max took a bite of the slice, speaking out of the corner of his mouth as he continued. “And then all the girls in the club started coughing smoke. We had to evacuate.”

Max angled a look at Dune, eyebrow quirked as he ate his slice and wondered what conclusion she might draw from that. He had his suspicions. Goki had been agitated about the chick and finding this out now... well, it didn't take a genius to take a bit of a leap in logic and land on the right answer.

[Angela Dune]

Dune shifted when Max settled in next to her, squirming around to fold her legs up under her, cross legged. She faced him, back on the armrest, knees near his thigh. As she listened, she nibbled carefully around her first bite, chewing off the two forks it left in the point of the pizza.

“Oh shit-” she said as he shared, a little prickle of alarm easing through her drunken haze. Hand pausing halfway to her mouth with her pizza slice, put it down and gestured in a circle around her head. “Coughing on smoke? Like she started a fire? Or coughing smoke up?” Her brightly colored nails flickered as she made a waving motion with her hand near her mouth. Pantomiming like she was breathing in smoke while seeking clarification. She looked concerned, eyebrows tipped up.

Sarah had told her she wanted to burn the building down and dance in the flames. Dune had decided she was full of shit and high on drugs, but now the witch was looking madder than ever. Even worse, Dune had fallen for her wiles.

[Max Kuryakin]

“Coughing smoke up, like they already had smoke in their lungs,” Max clarified, taking another big bite of his pizza and chewing his mouthful. He swallowed before he added some more detail. “People panicked, but it wasn't a fire. I overheard the manager say something about cigarettes in the women's bathroom, but that was about it.”

[Angela Dune]

The funny paradox was that there were both a lot of reasons one could think people started coughing up smoke and only one. It depended on the perspective, the context. What if it was something in the drinks, a trick of the eye, or a smoke machine gone haywire? Things were chaotic in the club, it could be anything.

But Dune and Max both knew Sarah was a witch with a mean streak, and after everything that happened to her, Dune was comfortable with the conclusion that it was her doing. “What a crazy fuckin' bitch!” she said shrilly, hand flicking in the air in incredulity. “That sounds like some nasty hexing, to me.” Dune laughed, morbidly amused. “Guess Goki made her really mad. Did anything else happen?”

[Max Kuryakin]

Max had only had a gut feeling about Sarah being the culprit for the smoke trick. She'd been acting deceptively, hiding something, but that wasn’t evidence. Goki had backed Max's own assessment that something wasn’t right, but again, nothing for sure. Dune coming to a similar conclusion made Max feel more secure in his guess, tipping his head in agreement with a pizza slice in his mouth at Dune's shrill proclamation.

“Nah, that's the highlights reel,” Max said after her question, frowning a little. “We met her outside, after everyone evacuated. Playing innocent. Exaggerated, you know?”

He shook his head, stuffing more pizza in his mouth.

[Angela Dune]

The fact that the incident hadn't gone beyond an evacuation, along with Max's uncertainty, told Dune why the Exchange hadn't been made aware. A hex strong enough to evacuate a building was nasty business, but the trouble was that it couldn't always be pinned on magic. Here, now, in hindsight, they could easily come to that conclusion, but Sarah had already been nabbed. So, it was moot. Shitty story, but moot.

“Yeah, def,” she sighed, taking another big bite and leaving sauce at the corner of her mouth. “Totally fell for the act. I mean, not completely, but enough.” She dropped her shoulder against the back of the couch and lifted her knees to squish her toes into the space between the cushion and Max's thigh. “But she wasn't acting that weird. Just like- High, n' horny, n' all that.”

[Max Kuryakin]

Max shrugged, trying to catch the tip of a floppy slice of pizza with his tongue as Dune talked about falling for the act. He didn't think that was really how it'd gone, and Dune even edited her statement to reflect that. There were more nuances even in his interaction with Sarah, but he'd collated the odd moments more than the normal ones, considering what'd happened. It begged for the whole evening to get analysed.

He caught the slice as Dune's toes dug under his thigh, biting off a bit bite and chewing as she described Sarah as 'high and horny,' a far cry from what he and Goki had been dealing with. Swallowing, he leaned back on the couch, resting his plate on his lap and shifting his free hand to curl around one of her ankles, squeezing gently.

“And you weren't rejecting her, you were interested,” he pointed out, underlining how Sarah's behaviour changed based on how she was met. “She got all psycho bitch on us when Goki wouldn't take the bait. You just got it at the end of the night when she got what she wanted.”

Lured in and used, essentially. In the context of just a one-night stand, that wasn't objectionable. In the context of ending up in the middle of a fucking ritual? Fucked up and scary.

[Angela Dune]

Dune huffed a laugh, strained and again, morbidly amused. It made sense though. Sarah was going to do whatever she liked, Dune just got a stay of execution because she'd given the witch what she wanted first. Did she feel used and abused? A little, but she wasn't dead, so there was no point dwelling. When Max slipped his fingers around her ankle, she wiggled her toes against his leg.

Swallowing her mouthful of pizza, she licked her lips and then wiped the sauce off the corner of her mouth. “Yeah... So, that was the worst accident for me, though. Worst of the 'big ones'. Sarah.” Dune said the witch's name with humorous venom, drawing her lip back in a sneer. “Not really a work-related accident, but work got involved.”

[Max Kuryakin]

With his mouth full, Max shook his head as Dune said the witch's name, a crooked smirk as he chewed and silently agreed with the venom in the word. In the grand scheme of things, his run in had been alarming and more than a little weird, but knowing Dune's encounter had him reframing that as just the tip of the iceberg rather than the extent of it. A good sign to think twice if something felt off.

“What's the best of the 'big ones' then?” Max asked, grinning after swallowing his mouthful. If there was a worst, there had to be a best, right?

[Angela Dune]

In her state, Dune had nearly forgotten she’d gotten into this by implying she had a list of greatest hits of magic mishaps. She chuckled wryly. Max’s question followed a clear line of logic: if that was the worst, what was the best?

“There’s more good ones than bad ones,” she said after a moment of contemplation. As she went over her experiences, she took a little comfort in that. Magic wasn’t all bad. She took another bite but shoved it into her cheek as she spoke. “I made a wish with a djinn a little while back.”

Chewing, she grinned, wondering what Max might think of that. Had he met a djinn before?

[Max Kuryakin]

Max had long since learnt to not be surprised about new reveals about what was out there. Still, trying to match his pop culture, fairy tale mental image to what people were describing still took him a bit, so mentioning djinn had him imagining some blue blob of a wish-fulilling man. He knew enough to know the less pleasant stories about them too, though, althought Angie framed it relatively positively, so he'd have to assume no.

Trying not to laugh with his mouth full, Max swallowed quickly–distantly relieved it was cool enough to not burn on its way down. He shot her a sideways look, pausing in his eating to cheekily ask, “Are they blue like in Aladdin? Presuming you weren't making a wish with one of those 'fuck over humans no matter what' genies.”

[Angela Dune]

Catching his amusement like a yawn, Dune shared his cheeky grin, already primed to laugh when he asked his question. Letting out a little chuckle after she swallowed, she paused to think about it. Sizi had glowed blue for a moment, and she nodded enthusiastically.

“Nah, yeah, she passes for human most of the time, but like... Glowed blue when I made the wish,” Dune said before stuffing the crust in her mouth. “She told me-” the woman snickered around her mouthful as her memory resolved around the moment. “I had to word it super carefully. Cause I told her I wished she'd sit on my face, right? Told me to put a time limit on it, or else she'd have to sit till I died.”

Dune didn't look concerned, and just shared this with matter-of-fact humor, knowing Max was likely to find that part amusing.

[Max Kuryakin]

Max's eyebrows jumped up in amusement as Dune said the djinn had glowed blue. It wasn't quite a blue genie, but it was amusing that there was a shade of truth in a children's movie. Then Dune continued, and Max tipped his head back and let out a bark of a laugh, not in the least surprised that Dune's wish was sex related. He lifted his hand from her ankle and reached out to lightly smack her leg with his hand, head tipping forward again as his laughter relaxed into snickers.

“Of fucking course you wished for that,” Max managed to say, taking a big bite from his pizza, continuing to speak out of the corner of his mouth. “Good way to go though, but I'm happy she warned your horny ass.”

He slipped his hand back to her ankle, patting her bare foot with a shake of his head, chewing his mouthful of pizza.

[Angela Dune]

Dune gave a heartier laugh than before, sharing in his amusement. The sound ended in a squawk when he slapped her thigh, and she stretched her legs out in response, shoving her feet deeper under his leg. She loved that Max knew her well enough to laugh at that.

“Nah, she told me I didn’t have to use a wish for that,” she said with grin like a cat with a pot of cream. Rolling her left shoulder, she went on. “I actually wished my arm wouldn’t hurt any longer. It worked, Max. It’s not fixed but now it’s not killing me every day.”

And it wasn’t a perfect job. It still twinged now and again, and the weakness remained, but at least she wasn’t waking up sore.

[Max Kuryakin]

Smiling with his mouth closed as he chewed his pizza, Max shook his head fondly at Dune as she continued. Seemed par for the course, when a wish was at hand. Although he wasn't sure what he'd wish for himself, he thought he too might go for something a little smaller than the ambitious wishes the tales told of. Though, when Dune continued on, his eyebrows raised in interest as she shared the next bit.

Swallowing, he wiped his mouth with his wrist, keeping his other hand on her foot, and let out a curious little 'huh' sound. “Is it like, numbed painless, or did she turn down the intensity?” The context of it made Max think it was just less painful, but an entirely numbed arm, like a phantom limb without it missing, sounded like something a genie would do if they were feeling uncharitable.

[Angela Dune]

Pizza forgotten where it rested on her knee, she lifted her left hand and contemplatively curled her fingers. She watched the surgery scars shine dully in her side-table light. She pursed her lips.

“I guess she turned down the intensity. Feels kinda like... The nerves aren't pinching anymore around my shoulder.” It wasn't the sort've thing the doctors could've caught when she was on the operating table. Nerve problems seemed like a wait-and-see deal. She let her hand flop down, stretching her arm across the back of the couch. She looked up at Max and tipped her head, letting it rest heavily on her shoulder. “She told me the magic'll last as long as she's alive, but I'll take what I can get.”

[Max Kuryakin]

Tipping towards her, Max pressed a kiss to one of her knees, a simple show of affection as he smiled. He didn't trust most magic, but if it was working for Dune, he wasn't going to nay say. “I'm glad it doesn't hurt like it used to,” he said softly, straightening up and lifting his slice of pizza back up for another bite.

[Angela Dune]

Max leaned close, weighing on her legs, and kissed her knee. Dune grinned, moving her hand to affectionately ruffle it in his hair. “It'll do for now. It sorta made me hopeful, you know? Before the Inquisitor told me things were looking a little suspect, I thought maybe I could push that, and find a way to fix it.” Her smile dimmed, and she just shrugged, knowing now the application of magic had had the opposite effect.

[Max Kuryakin]

Smiling as Dune ruffled his hair, chewing his pizza and listening as she elaborated on what was going on with her arm. It was interesting that it'd been Crowhurst who'd clued her in. Could the guy spot the same thing Max could? Swallowing his mouthful and putting his pizza down again, Max leaned back over Dune's legs, propping his cheek on her knee and looking at her, brows furrowed.

“Is Crowhurst worried about your arm?” Max carefully asked, knowing that Dune had said it was ready to blow, but surely Crowhurst wouldn't just leave her hanging if it would go nuclear?

[Angela Dune]

Dune noted the careful way Max asked this question and pursed her lips at him, ever so gently, displeased that she was getting a touch of kid gloves. Still, she hadn't exactly been emotionally stable about the injury--case in point, this very evening--so she didn't blame him.

Instead, she focused on the question. She thought back to the evening Crowhurst had done his magic fiddling about and tipped her off to the whole thing. Her brows furrowed.

“No...” she said, the word winding out of her as she searched her recollections. She was looking off to one side. “When he told me, he seemed... Apologetic? Not that he had anything to do with it, just... Man. He was just giving me bad news. But he didn't seem to be worried.” She leaned forward a bit, bracing her front against her thighs as she suddenly focused on Max's face, a look on her face like she'd just realized something. “Y'know. The whole reason we started talking about it was because I was asking about curses. He's the house expert.”

[Max Kuryakin]

Max didn't react to Dune's pursed lips beyond a crooked smile with his face squished against her knee, brows easing into something a little less worried, knowing what'd prompted her reaction but not feeling too guilty about it. He'd treat his friends with care if he wanted to, and she could kiss his ass if she didn't like it. Dune didn't rebuff him, though. Instead, she took his question seriously.

And knowing that Crowhurst hadn't been worried felt like a stay of execution, to use a turn of phrase. He couldn't think Dune was about to drop dead, then. Not soon, at any rate. That was what he was thinking about as she leaned forward, closing the distance to their faces were close, and Max tilted his head to look at her a little better. He let out a little breath at her next words, mulling over curses in his head. It made sense that they were real, even if he'd stopped thinking of his lycanthropy as a curse a while ago. He'd considered it one, when he could barely control himself.

“Is that what he thinks it is, then? A curse?” This time, Max didn't speak carefully, but plainly. Still, his voice was quiet in the living room, pensive.