### Sex God Saga 3
### Royally Fucked
FRIDAY:
Checking into work like nothing had happened after stumbling into the Mysterium felt weirdly heavy, like returning from a much longer vacation. But the lattes weren't going to brew themselves. Theo hung back and let his coworkers interact with the crowd, while he volunteered for grunt work.
'Ground Up' received a third of its customers from the nearby Harpersfield college. Keith had promised to check in after classes and it was embarrassing how much Theo looked forward to that. He craved the prettyboy's familiarity more than Tank's or Mako's bodies. Not that he was going to get either.
Theo had enough of a break to piss and little else. He fixed his plain, blond mop with his still wet fingers after washing up.
Motion off to his side.
He swung around, seeing nobody. He'd have seen anyone sneaking up in the mirror. But the wall tiles *did* show someone. There was a figure visible in them that the mirror wouldn't show. Little more than the eyes were in focus.
Okay, just the Watcher. But did that indicate something worth observing was about to happen?
Theo glanced around.
He 'summoned', eyes unfocused, mind open. If there was an Outsider, he was going to see it.
Near the ceiling, a crack in the paint wobbled like hot air. Just a wall crack wisp.
"You like living in cracked things, huh?" Theo mumbled. "How about a tear?"
He pulled a receipt from his yellow apron and ripped it, then held it up to the ceiling. "If you hop in there, I can probably get you a little snack. Not sure what you like but..."
The wisp willingly slipped into the receipt. Theo pulled a pen from his pocket, put the receipt up to the wall and drew a lock, willing it to be an Atlas Glyph meaning 'stay put'.
He wasn't sure if he could safely fold the paper now so he stored it carefully.
His first binding.
### ### ###
Theo's notes:
Getting an Outsider's attention is done through Beacons - symbols that speaks to a particular creature, like saying a poem at a crossroads, or grinding bones at midnight. In Ephemera, distance doesn't work the same way so you can attract the same Outsider anywhere on earth with the correct Beacon.
Getting an Outsider to do your bidding is done through Venture and Vantage aka "carrot and stick".
Venture is a supply of power and offerings, or the promise thereof. Either side can walk away from such a pact.
Vantage is a demonstration of superior strength or an imprisoning binding.
"Do NOT try to use Vantage on a god, they will beat your skinny ass." -Keith
Apparently Melisandre binds wisps for Keith via Vantage (just telling them to stay put and serve and they do because she's powerful). For lowly wisps that suffices.
### ### ###
With an unnamed wisp friend in his pocket, Theo made his way to the back where stock waited to be portioned into individually sold packages.
He drizzled ground coffee into the torn paper but the wisp was unimpressed. Same with a drop of milk. Trying more liquids was inadvisable with a paper Vessel. What did something living in a wall crack near the ceiling like?
It didn't take long for Theo to find a dead spider. Maybe that was a bad sign regarding Ground Up's hygiene but he wasn't going to volunteer for a deep cleaning ahead of schedule.
"Hm, delicious," Theo whispered as the insect corpse dissolved into the receipt. Venture pact strengthened. "Ha, carrot and stick, more like creepy and ick, am I right, little buddy?"
Motion again.
Theo turned around and was face to face with a lean guy whose features were blurry and shifting. His face seemed especially featureless, aside from the intense, staring eyes. He wore a mockery of a Ground Up uniform, like a quickly tailored costume.
He smelled of fresh brew, so intensely it overpowered the already coffee-heavy scent of the stock room.
Theo pulled out his phone and told it to call Keith.
With jittering motions, the blurry guy came closer. He made sloshing sounds as he walked.
Theo backed off, bumping into a shelf. "You're... a coffee demon? Or a caffeine withdrawal demon? Something like that?"
Caffeinejunky guy turned liquid and splashed himself all over Theo. For a second, the liquid was scorching, then it was just wetly warm. It crept all over Theo's body.
His own hands pulled him around and made him grab the shelf. There was pressure on his asshole.
"Theo?" the phone said.
"Keith! I'm g-getting possessed. It's a-"
Caffeinejunky entered him. Something inside Theo pulsed and gave way, as if smoothing over his insides, and his ass accepted the demon dick, although not without struggle.
"-It's a big one. P-pretty big."
"Fuck, I'll send someone. You're at work, right? Can you try to get out the back?"
"Will try."
Keith ended the call. Theo fought for control of his body. Caffeinejunky didn't fully pin him down, but he did pick up speed at the rear. Theo was getting tossed ahead with every thrust. His own dick was quickly hardening.
The backdoor was just ten steps away.
The demonic tipsiness kicked in. It made the sex dangerously fun. Theo had to fight himself as much as Caffeinejunky's grip to keep going.
The liquid on him wasn't just coffee. It dissolved his uniform. Every seam started fraying.
The door to the main shop opened and a female coworker came in.
Caffeinejunky pressed Theo into the wall, not fucking any less hard. Theo pressed his own hand over his mouth as an unseen blanket fell over him.
### ### ###
Theo's notes:
Baseliners can be kept from seeing places and things affected by the Mysterium by covering them with an illusion - a Veil. This concept is called the Veneer of Normalcy and is a basic ability of practically any Outsider.
### ### ###
The female coffee shop worker grabbed a restock of cookies, while Theo was getting fucked so hard he'd have sunk to his knees if Caffeinejunky hadn't forced him to stay upright.
She left and the Veil dissolved. But so did Theo's pants. With the seams unraveling, the blond was soon in his briefs, surrounded by tatters. His erection slipped from the edge of the underwear, bobbing in the rhythm of his assault, its cockhead rubbing on the apron.
He had to fight his way to the backdoor, step by step.
Why was he shaking so much? Was Caffeinejunky fucking coffee into him?
His underwear dropped away as Theo stumbled down the five steps at the back of Ground Up, into the dirty alley where plastic bags rose between containers.
The soft parts of his sneakers were dissolving, as were the socks within them. The shirt was turning to ribbons, leaving him with only the stained apron.
Theo crawled onto a bag full of empty paper cups, out of sight of the main road, underneath a graffiti of a naked, big-breasted woman with a rose between her open legs.
He flopped on his belly and spread his legs. It was great sex, on a mechanical level and he couldn't stop it anyway.
Jittery as if on his fifth expresso and tipsy as if on his second bottle of vodka, Theo let the possession happen. Unable to find purchase with his jittering hands, he let his dick rub on the rough fabric.
Would it keep going forever? Did demons never cum? He was too out of it to tell how much time passed.
"There you are," said a man.
Theo twisted around, eyes unfocused.
A bald, black man in a leather coat -- Godrick. With him was a white woman in casual utility clothes, her dark hair cut short. She held a crossbow aimed at Theo's hole.
The blond closed his legs, quivering as Caffeinejunky shifted inside him. "I... uh..."
"Rapid response team has located Theo," said a third voice from down the alley where Theo couldn't see. Also female.
"Let's do this," Godrick said and slammed his fists together. "Rosamund, if you'd please."
Godrick pulled Theo up by the shoulders. The apron dropped away, leaving the blond man naked. He wasn't erect anymore, but stood bowlegged.
Godrick pulled his hand back, spikes growing from his knuckles as if he wore a brass knuckle made of daggers.
He drove the spikes into Theo's abs. There was no pain.
"As the greatest demon hunter in Concordia, I command you to leave this flesh vessel."
Godrick swiped his clawed hand aside and ripped the sloshing, blurry guy out of Theo's body. He pummeled the demon with bare fists. The spikes had detached and turned into barbed wire, wrapping around Caffeinejunky.
The woman was tapping her crossbow -- one of three silver nails in the frame. "Sparrow One, you're up. Rick, duck."
Godrick threw himself aside.
A crossbow bolt hit the demon like a cannonball. It briefly disintegrated, seemingly only held tougher by the living wire encircling it.
Godrick went back to throwing punches. He smiled madly.
"Theo?" the armed woman said. "Make us a Vessel."
Rapidly coming to his senses, Theo felt reality crash down on him. He groped for his pen in the remains of his apron. There were enough empty, lidded coffee cups around that one was in arms reach.
While the woman fired a second shot, Theo scribbled Atlas Glyphs, which amounted to chicken scratches. But it was the meaning that mattered.
"Perfect," the woman said and smirked. "Hey demon, have you had enough yet? How about a nice, long sip?"
Caffeinejunky seemed eager to get away from the fight. He liquefied -- the living wire let him -- and seeped into the cup.
"Seal it," Godrick said.
"I don't have the V," Theo said.
"In that case," said the crossbow lady. "I call upon the might of Ascelin to imprison you in this vessel, demon. Sandra, got a seal?"
"Yes," came the third stranger's voice again. The woman stepped into view. Heavy set, around 40, with curly ginger hair. She slapped a sticky strip of paper on the vessel, a fancy diagram drawn along it. "That should do. Veneer held, no witnesses, no damage."
"That was a big one," Godrick said, seeming thrilled. The living wire drew up into a ball and took on the shape of a crow -- Rosamund.
"Yes," the ginger woman confirmed. "Maybe too big for Ivory Haven. With all that's going on we might need to go to the Pit soon."
She glanced at Theo as if he was just noticing him. "Oh. You're Theo. I'm Alessandra Nelson, or Sandra. You heard me talk to Keith yesterday. This is Dawn and you know Godrick. We're the rapid response team."
