### Sex God Saga 20
### Sweet Dreams
Still THURSDAY:
Juniper Upatham, the thin Thai shaman, picked Theo up with a van. He wore huge glasses, a bowtie and a checkered sweater vest. The stereo was playing some aggressive industrial tunes.
"Hey Theo. Ready for your first mission alongside the junior team? You're not a full member if I recall?"
Theo shrugged. "Who is?"
"True. It's rather informal for now. But it lets us keep an eye on you without having to keep you prisoner. Hop in, meet the others."
Theo climbed into the van. He hadn't spoken to either of the people before but recognized them.
Mira Nelson was the daughter of Alessandra, also a heavy set ginger with a motherly demeanor. She wore a flower crown, mostly dandelions and white daisies. To Theo's mediumship, there was an Outsider within.
The other passenger was Horace Love, son of Wispweaver Sawyer Love. White, bulky with thick glasses. He wore a blue overall, brimming with tiny Outsiders.
They all greeted each other.
"Any wispy preferences, Theo?" Horace asked.
Theo shrugged. "I'm mostly familiar with light and mirror stuff, but not very."
Horace handed over a wooden ring, cracked along its length. "There's a wisp in the crack, Scraggle. It likes heat, so keep it on your body." He pulled out a few flower petals and leaved through them like notes. "Aaand Flutter, rose petal wisp who likes sunlight and attention, but that's most wisps. Think you can hold two?"
"I managed before. Thanks. Uh, we're not expecting trouble, right?"
Juniper leaned back. "No no. I'm just delivering you for a check in. Testing the team delta dynamic. You know about Mission Sodium?"
Keith had told Theo about 'Sodium', the codename for this excursion.
"You're the Omen of the Bleed," Theo started, "checking up on rogue shamans and seeing if they've gone bad. And one of them was..."
"Anabelle Shelton," Mira helped. "In a coma for a month. Now dead."
"And she got sucked dry," Theo said. "With no obvious illness the doctors found, so you're suspecting a Vitality drain."
"Which doesn't normally lead to a long coma," Juniper said. "Demons who suck V aren't usually so patient. We were wondering if she got murdered. Team delta should check her apartment for Vestiges of a demiplane, like with the last victim."
"Gotcha," Theo said, feeling Scraggle's ring fit itself to his finger. He kept Flutter in a front pocket.
### ### ###
Jun was already on location, having driven himself. He wore an oversized, white shirt, toxic green gym shorts, a pink cap and yellow sneakers. A very 'Mako' outfit in how the colors maximally clashed.
Horace handed over a wisp that slipped into Jun's dumbbell tattoo in his biceps and got renamed Belle to stay on theme.
Keith arrived next, wearing all white save for a gray varsity jacket, bringing Green Dawn alpha Fulin and second rate king Mo whose hair was just barely matching the Primal's in length.
Mo wore normal street wear, inconspicuous save for a purple feather boa.
Fulin's short tank top and baggy shorts gave away his ridiculous 'two soda can' dick size. An Outsider inhabited his sneakers.
Fulin pulled Theo into a tight hug and the scent made Theo's tightly caged package twitch. They broke apart and Fulin stole a kiss.
"Oh, it's official," Mira 'whispered' behind them.
"Tank's jumped ship," Jun 'whispered' back.
Fulin flexed one arm at them. "Yup, this straight alpha got a boyfriend."
Theo felt shy. "Nice shoes, alpha boyfriend."
Fulin looked down on himself. "Xiang, cold sprite. Actually a loan from Mako. My feet are icicles."
"Good thing you're so hot, huh?"
Juniper cleared his throat. "Keith, Jun, who's taking point? Okay, Keith is leading Mission Sodium. Anabelle Shelton's apartment is on the fourth floor. Here's the key. Don't wreck the place, she has relatives coming from the east coast to bury her and they might take a look next week. There's no police involvement since her death is ruled natural causes. Good luck. Proof yourselves."
Keith, Mira, Jun, Theo, Fulin and Mo entered the building.
Nobody had been in the apartment all month. The air was stale. Old fashioned furniture, two walls fully taken up by bookshelves, pots out on the counter as if Anabelle had been planning a meal before falling ill.
Mira tapped her flower crown. "Your turn, Dandy. Point me to Vestiges."
A spectral newt ascend from the crown and skitter along the walls.
Theo fed Flutter a tiny bit of V, more as a tease, and let the petal drift through the air as if on unfelt breezes.
Jun poked him in the back. "Wouldn't it work better if you strip?"
Theo glanced around. "That's in my file, huh? M-maybe. Not really necessary."
"Don't you want to contribute as best you can?" Jun said with a smile, looking... dangerous?
Keith patted the bodybuilder on the biceps. "Not that you're wrong, big guy, but I feel like you're projecting."
"Yeah," Fulin said. "My boyfriend is living your dream. Forced nudity get you off?"
Mo groaned. "You're milking the boyfriend thing too much. If you're going to join the queers, learn subtlety."
Fulin kicked the air and an icy gust swooshed at the Stygian. "I'll kick your twink ass. Maybe fuck it, too."
Jun stood himself uncomfortably close to Theo and hit a relaxed pose. "There's more boyfriend material on *me*, for the record."
"Um," Theo said. "Can I get some maturity?"
"Thank you!" Mira said. "Like a bunch of fifteen year olds."
Keith clapped his hand, magic making the sound echo. "Split up. Everybody pick a room. Work talk only."
Theo gladly complied. He let Flutter fall into his palm and walked through the first door. A bedroom with no decoration. For guests, maybe. He let Flutter free and wandered along the wall, the ring with Scraggle in the crack pointed high and low.
The room was noticeably uneven. Weird.
Theo left Flutter to flutter and bent down, tracing the hardwood. He took off Scraggle's ring and set it down. "Is it just me, or does the room tilt, little buddy?"
The ring rolled, slowly, then faster, vanishing under the bed.
"Well fuck."
Theo bent down and grabbed for the ring under the bed. He held still as something dropped next to him. A rose petal. Flutter? More petals were drizzling from above. Why was Flutter multiplying?
The floor tilted harder. Theo grabbed for the ring and the mattress thumped as something landed on top.
The shaman scrambled back and sat up on his knees. Fulin had dropped onto the bed, naked, grinning. "Horny?"
Theo hummed, taking in the sight of a gorgeous, puppy-faced, Asian hunk with a silly big dick. Flutter had turned into a rose shower, constantly swirling around the room, drizzling on Fulin, the bed, the floor -- the floor which was *warping*.
"Uh, Fulin, you're seeing this, right?"
Fulin flipped over, on all fours, his ass pointed at Theo, the dick kissing the bedsheets, hanging between immense thighs under round globes. "I gotta know how it feels, boyfriend. Fuck me. Bottom Fulin time."
The walls were warping, too. The rose petal storm was starting to get dense enough to obscure the edges of the room, dense enough to have a *sound* to it.
"I can't," Theo said and looked down on himself. But his cage was gone. He was naked and his dick hung free, bigger than Fulin's, heavy and pulsing to hardness. The Primal on the bed wiggled his ass, looking at the blond from between his legs.
The walls peeled away, opening to a cityscape of people in a parade, holding signs like "Theo #1 Top", "Dick Down the Alpha" and "We Love Your Cock".
The rose petals collected into a flying carpet, to take Theo on a journey of ass fucking for the ages. He lined up his mega-dong with Fulin's eager hole and-
The slap was hard enough to make Theo's ears ring.
Keith pressed a strip of paper to the blond's forehead. "Hold it there. Ugh, give me your hand. Dream sprites. Fucking got us good. They should evaporate soon. Come here."
Theo let himself get dragged out of the empty bedroom. Scraggle was still on his finger, Flutter landed on his shoulder.
In the living room, Fulin's guard muse Weidong was halfway out, the spectral wolf's head enveloping the man's.
Jun and Mira also had forehead seals like Theo. Mo was leaning against a bookshelf.
"Jun," Mo asked. "Why are you in underwear?"
"I fought a zombie horde," Jun said. "In a dream, of course, but I went all out."
"Aaand you had to strip for that?"
An enthusiastic nod from the bodybuilder in black briefs, yellow sneakers and a pink cap.
"We have to figure out the source," Keith said. "Dream sprites only exist for a short time outside of a dreamer. Where did multiple of them come from?"
"An adjacent apartment?" Mira speculated. "We could go door to door and sent Outsiders in for scouting." She let Dandy the newt poke out of her flower crown as a blur. "My pixie is perfect for that."
"Are we sure," Theo started, "there's no *active* demiplane here?"
Keith's face turned to shock, then worry. He pulled out his key ring. "Biscuit, have a look please."
The entertainment sprite drifted like gentle smoke from the metal and the keys shifted as if magnetically attracted to something ahead of the Asian shaman.
Keith advanced and walked in a circle around the living room. The key-compass pointed straight at the center of the room. Jun stepped in and pulled the coffee table aside to give them space.
"Some kind of... dream demiplane?" Keith speculated. "With dreamers inside? I guess that's what kept Anabelle Shelton in a coma. Mysterium-level dreams."
Mo raised his hand. "Snap keeps me immune from brain magic bullshit. If anyone steps inside it should be me."
Keith tugged his keys away. "We all need more permanent protections. Grab seals, adjust them for sleep, dream, nightmares. Illusions generally. I'm texting the higher ups."
Theo retrieved a prepared seal and added more scribbles, his doodle designs flowing free, inspired by tribal tattoos, Nordic runes and occult symbols. He calmed his breath to put the right focus into the Atlas glyphs. Yes to waking, no to sleep.
Fulin drew glyphs that looked like Chinese characters but weren't. Jun's seal was mostly chicken scratches. Mira drew flowers with practiced curves.
Theo pinned the seal to his shirt with a paperclip.
"Oh shit." Mo was pointing. A rift opened in the middle of the room, black and purple with jagged edges.
"Demiplane breaking through," Mira said and retreated.
