I gotta bad feeling about this

[Tobias Keene]

Aaahhhh he was making a fool of himself in front of the handsome demon that he wanted to impress, so said demon wouldn't eat his soul!

That could have gone much, much better but Toby wasn't the smooth-talking type. He was also not the hard-studying type because there had been a book of common human phrases that his tutors told him to learn off by heart, and of course he didn't listen. He got lazy and thought he would learn as he went out here. Turned out—that was a horrible way to do it.

He glanced sideways at Finn out of the corner of his eyes. Toby had never heard of a short demon before... It might be the witch part of Finn taking hold. His diminutive size made him seem cuter somehow, though. Well okay he wasn't a dwarf or anything but smaller things automatically seemed cuter.

"I'm quite terrible at this," Toby agreed almost immediately, nodding. "What... am I terrible at again?"

[Finley Coldwell]

"Yeah," he said, because he had already made that observation. But then Toby had to ask what he was terrible at and Finn had to fight the urge to put a palm to his face. Whaaaat? This guy wasn't just weird. He was a total space cadet! Was that a fae thing or a Toby the Fae thing?

"Hitting on people," he explained. Because he had been kinda clumsy with it when he winked and said something secretive, like... keep it secret, you're a nice guy, WINK WINK. That was totally hitting on somebody. Clumsy but cute. The part after, though, he got weird. Squirrelly.

"It's because I called you out on it, isn't it?" Some people didn't like it when other people didn't play the game and were too blunt about it. Maybe he should have just played along. He smirked.

"Maybe I'm not good at it, either." Of course, he wasn't doing the hitting on. "Most people are better at it with a pint in them."

He stepped over some thick brush and then noticed that Toby was heading straight for--"Watch out! Poison ivy!" He grabbed onto Toby's arm and pulled him away from the telltale leaves. Luckily, Atlas had pranced right past them and not through them and had stopped some ten feet ahead of them, sniffing something.

[Tobias Keene]

Hitting on people. Being called out on it. Toby was sure those words meant things, he just... wasn't entirely clear on what that meaning was in relation to what he did. It was the wink, wasn't it? He tried to be secretive but it made Finn think he was being hit on...

But Finn confessed to not being good at it as well, which was funny because he didn't wink. Oh wait! Was he supposed to wink back? Was that how it worked, like a pact? Toby winked and then Finn winked, and they both agreed not to let anyone know that Toby had helped an enemy of his people. The Fallen had persuaded some of the Demons to work with them—the result was... bad. Very bad. Catastrophic, actually, which was why Toby was here to ask the Dream Prince for help.

Only he was now caught up in their quest and at the mention of a pint, his eyes lit up. "I love milk!" Milk came in pints! Right? Or liters? Quarts? What were any of these things?! "This is probably... a good time to tell you that I'm—" He was about to say 'not of this world' when Finn suddenly yanked on him and he went careening side-ways into Finn.

Toby latched on around his neck, breathing hard. "Wha? What is it?! Is it a Fallen?" He looked around fearfully before noticing that Atlas was sniffing at a spot up ahead. Toby let go of Finn immediately and sprinted off as fast as he could, alarmed.

"No Atlas! No get away!" He scooped Atlas up hastily and scuttled back and away from the massive patch of corruption staining the area. "Atlas?!? Oh-oh Finn! Finn come quick!"

[Finley Coldwell]

"What?"

Did he just--why did he just proclaim his love for milk? Finn had no idea, man. There were a lot of strange people here in Hazleton but he was pretty sure that Toby was the weirdest by far. At least he wasn't a dangerous kind of weird. Unless maybe to himself, if he went around talking like that to the wrong person... Hell, Finn knew people personally that might have been a danger to somebody like Toby.

And shit. It sounded like Toby had something interesting to say but now it was gone, since Finn had pulled him away from walking right into a patch of poison ivy. Finn looked at Toby, who clung to him a little like a damsel in a Disney movie. And he was about to ask him what he was going to say when, again, the attention span of a squirrel took over and Toby was off, running over to Atlas in alarm.

"What? What? What is it?!"

Atlas squirmed in Toby's arms and he was a big dog and an unhappy dog. Finn raised his eyebrows.

"You're lucky he didn't just bite off your face. He hates strangers." Normally anybody came close to him that he didn't know, he gave off a warning bark and then all bets were off. Finn couldn't even count how many "friends" of his ended up with a nasty dog bite for not listening to the warning bark.

But at the moment, Atlas was letting out a soft whimper. Apparently he wasn't so fond of the dark patch in the woods, either.

"More of that corruption shit?" Finn looked down at it but this time didn't crouch over it or poke it like an idiot. "You can heal it, too, right?"

[Tobias Keene]

Unbeknownst to his tutors back home, cats could grow to quite large sizes out here. Atlas was a very large cat and he was very heavy, so holding on to him was a feat in and of itself. Toby stumbled back into a tree and leaned against it while hugging on to Atlas to stop him from going back to the corruption again.

Maybe Finn got away unscathed when he touched that small patch earlier, but he was a demon. Atlas would have stood no chance—the corruption would have seeped into him faster than anyone could blink, if he went too close to it! For such a nice big fluffy creature like this, it was a fate that Atlas didn't deserve.

"I don't know about this one... I don't think I have enough power to get rid of all of this! Look, at the center there. It's so concentrated." He sensed death there too, so he was willing to bet a body laid underneath the ground there. Once it disintegrated, it let out all of the corruption and so this wide patch of blackened earth and dead trees happened.

"The Fallen's probably buried there. That would explain the death I sensed coming up here." Toby finally let Atlas down because his arms were hurting. He patted Atlas on the head absently and felt the nice cat nudge up into his palm. Aww... maybe Atlas knew that he wasn't a bad man. Just a scared fixer. Because... now he had to deal with the death thing on top of the corruption thing and he wasn't equipped to do that today.

[Finley Coldwell]

Yeah, Toby was right. It was densely concentrated in a certain area, so when Toby said somebody was buried there, he had no doubt he was right. Shit. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, sliding one out and putting it between his lips. He glanced over at Toby, then held out the pack to him to offer him one.

"What do you do with the dead ones?" he asked around the cigarette. If there was a dead thing in there and it was spreading its evil corruption, he assumed some kind of blessing or exorcism would have to take place.

[Tobias Keene]

Seeing Finn put a thing in his mouth and offer it to him, Toby took one as well and put it into his mouth. He didn't know what it was. Maybe like a breadstick. Why Finn had some on him in a small pack was a mystery to Toby but he was discovering that humans were very odd creatures, with very odd habits.

So he took a bite of the white breadstick and chewed on it absently while studying the corrupted patch. Hm. It tasted... interesting. The texture was terrible but the taste wasn't all that bad. It wasn't a breadstick though...

"I'll have to come back with my kit," Toby sighed, swallowing the mouthful of... whatever thing Finn had offered him. He took another bite as he cautiously tip toed towards the corruption and felt it out. "Hmm... no, I can't do this today. I used up a lot of energy on the other patch back there, and on you. I'll have to come back another time."

[Finley Coldwell]

As he pulled out his lighter, his eyebrows went way up. Toby was... eating the cigarette. What the hell was up with this kid? He was all kinds of fucking weird! Shaking his head slightly, he lifted the lighter to the end of the cigarette and flicked it, firing it up. Taking in a deep pull, he held it for a long moment before slowly releasing it, looking away from Toby because he wasn't a total asshole.

Ah... it always relaxed him, the art of smoking. He flicked the ashes into the dirt, stepping on them just in case one sparked a little fire.

"You have a whole kit?" he asked. Atlas no longer seemed interested in the corruption. He'd locked eyes with a rabbit and went loping after it. "ATLAS!" he called. The dog gave chase for a few more feet before the rabbit must have hidden away. He came back with a wagging tail, panting.

"Well, whatever, let's get out of here if we can't do anything about it. Atlas' gonna end up stepping in it and melting or something."

[Tobias Keene]

"Yes! All fixers have kits. We're only the best fae healers... ever," Toby said with excessive pride, as he swallowed the last of the thing that Finn was lighting up and inhaling... Oh... That was how it was done? He wished he'd known that before he ate all of it. The genuine human experience, that was what Toby was after, and he had apparently missed out this time.

"I'll just put a quick ward on this area, so nobody else comes here and steps in it. Once I clear the area, we can dig up the corpse and purify that, and then it'll be all good, my man!" Haha, he heard someone say that—my man—and thought it sounded cool. Hopefully Finn would also think he was cool because right now, all he was getting was a weird look. Looks. Plural. Many weird looks.

A quick flick of the wrist later, the area was blocked off and Toby turned back to Finn with a bright grin. "Say. Finn. Do you know what... skinny dipping means? I was invited to go but I have no idea what that is! What's skinny that we're dipping?"

[Finley Coldwell]

"Nice."

He didn't know what any of that meant but they were on equal footing now, from the sounds of it. Toby must have grown up sheltered. Super sheltered. In one of those communities that some supers were raised in, so they didn't know anything about the outside world. That had to be it, because Toby was very, very strange. Cute, though. He was very, very cute, too.

He watched Toby perform his spell with a flick of the wrist and he could feel the ward as it came up. It was the same energy that had been used on him earlier but it came a lot easier than it had on his stupid finger. Must have something to do with that... demon blood. It made sense, though, what Toby said. That he had demon blood in his veins. That explained why it was explosive. Corrosive. Why it was basically poison to others.

He took another drag from the cigarette. Another flick of ashes, another heel to stop it from sparking. He laughed aloud.

"Who invited you?" he asked. "Because somebody wants to see you na-ked~"

[Tobias Keene]

"Whaaat? Naked? Why would that nice old man want to see me naked?!"

It was an older man he met at The Bar who seemed very friendly towards him. He came up to Toby and offered him a drink, which Toby of course accepted because he wanted to make friends! He drank it while the older gentleman watched him with some intensity and he liked it quite a lot. It was sweet and fruity!

Strangely, the man seemed disappointed when Toby said that he liked it and asked for another. Then they got to talking and the offer of dipping skinny things came up, and Toby again accepted because hey, why not! If a human did it, he should do it too! For the full experience.

But if it involved being naked, Toby didn't want to do it. Even he knew that that was... ahem... not to be engaged in with just anyone. Soul mates only! His mother insisted on that. He was only to be naked with his soul mate, and no one but his soul mate!

"We met at The Bar... I thought he wanted to be my friend..."

[Finley Coldwell]

"Gross, did you say old man? Gross! What's an old man doing picking up guys like you with lines like that? What a fuckin' perv."

Just the idea, jeez. Fucking disgusting. See, this is exactly what he was thinking earlier. This kid was so going to be taken advantage of! Walking around not knowing when creeps were perving on him. Inviting him to go skinny dipping? Did that shit even work on normal guys?

"Don't go anywhere with somebody you meet at a bar, kid," he said. "That's my best advice to you. You're not gonna meet friends there, just people looking to fuck. And some of them are going to try and do it in fucked up ways, like inviting you to skinny dip. Alone. With drugs involved, probably."

Finishing off his cigarette after that little diatribe, he flicked it to the ground and crushed it under his heel like creepy old bar trolls.

"Come on. Let's get out of here. This place is giving me the shivers." He whistled for Atlas to come along with them and he came bounding over and past them, always wanting to be ahead.

[Tobias Keene]

Wow! What a vehement response! It took Toby aback; he stared at Finn during the outburst, not quite understanding why it was bad for an older human to want to be friends. Toby was probably older than the human, to be honest; ages didn't work the same way for fae as it did for humans. So really, he was the older one chronologically, even if he didn't look old.

But... point taken. He trotted alongside Finn while Atlas bounded ahead of them, seeming in much better spirits now that the ward had been put up. It contained much of the corruption, so Toby wasn't surprised that Atlas was no longer quite so spooked.

"Um..." He tugged on Finn's sleeve lightly to get his attention. "What kinds of places are okay to make friends in?" Should he go to The Club? Or The Park? The Lake? The Woods? Here? Right here? Was Finn a friend? He didn't ask to go skinny dipping and he didn't offer drugs—unless that other thing Toby ate was one, which seemed doubtful as Finn partook as well.

[Finley Coldwell]

"Huh... well, let's see..."

Where were good places to make friends and not fuck buddies? He half laughed at it all; he wasn't the best person to ask this kind of question. The kinds of people he made friends with could be found at the bar and he might have even made some there. But... guys like Toby? They didn't make friends with those kind of people.

"If you go to school, it's where most people make their friends. Study buddies, roommates, whatever." He looked Toby over. He looked like he would fit right into a college campus, all wide eyed and bushy tailed.

"Or you know, the community center... there's hobby clubs if you're into learning how to cook or do karate or something. Oh! Theater. You can do all kinds of things there, even if you don't want to get onstage. Paint backgrounds, make costumes, lighting, music. Normally, I'd say the library but everybody here kinda agrees it's a no-go place. The old one, not the new one, but I just steer clear of both, in case."

[Tobias Keene]

"Ooh..." It sounded like just about everywhere was good for making friends, except the bar. That was a no-go from now on; he noted that quite seriously because of Finn's previous reaction. Very angry reaction at that, on his behalf! Actually that was nice. Not the anger—being angry for him that someone had tried to get him naked.

"What about... the woods?" Toby smiled expectantly—hopefully—over at him, hands in his pockets as he picked his way around a thorny plant. Finn didn't list the woods or the trails but hey, why not? Why couldn't a fae and a half-demon be friends out here? Would anyone back home even know that he was breaking protocol?