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v.
Marek doesn't move even when the credits start to roll, doesn't dare disturb the perfect weight of Tyler slumped against his shoulder, devil horns jabbing his collarbone, face paint bleeding crimson across his white tank top. His fingers still loosely clutch the fabric of Marek's shirt from the moment when Leatherface had first appeared on screen.
It's better than any party could’ve hoped to be.
Tyler's tail drapes over the arm of the couch, non-threatening now in slumber, and Marek finally allows himself to reach over and pinch the pointed tip between his thumb and forefinger. It's absurd and cheap, yet still one of the sexiest things he's ever encountered, somehow. Perhaps because he can't shake the memory of it swishing around Tyler's hips, or the feel of it wrapped tight around his neck in the ring.
As if Tyler can feel the tail like a phantom limb, he moves slightly in his sleep and Marek freezes. False alarm. Tyler exhales and burrows deeper into the warmth of Marek's side.
Marek catches their reflection in the mirror on the wall. Angel and demon at rest, intertwined. Heaven's eternal struggle paused for a moment of grace.
iv.
“I don't hide,” Tyler'd said at Blockbuster, plastic fangs catching the fluorescent lights when he grinned.
But Leatherface is sawing Andy's leg off and picking him up and throwing him on a meat hook and Tyler's face is planted firmly against Marek's neck.
“Thought you didn't hide,” Marek says.
“It's strategic positioning,” comes Tyler's muffled reply.
The sequins on his top rasp against Marek's arm every time Tyler flinches, making his skin redden and itch. His breath is shallow against Marek's throat—quick puffs of air that coalesce with the frenetic soundtrack through the speakers.
Marek fishes a piece of candy corn from the bag they'd bought and holds it near Tyler's mouth.
“Here.”
Tyler's eyes stay scrunched shut, but he parts his lips obediently, lets Marek push the waxy triangle past his teeth. His lip catches on the pad of Marek's finger and Marek feels a lurch in his chest.
Tyler, who throws himself around the ring without fear, reduced to cowering beside him because of corn syrup blood and bladeless chainsaws. It makes Marek want to shield him from whatever horrors the world can conjure, whether real or manufactured in Hollywood.
“I won't let him getcha,” Marek laughs, plays it off like a joke.
Tyler huffs and bats his arm, and Marek tastes the salt of nervous sweat beneath the makeup when he kisses Tyler's cheek.
iii.
Skeleton children dart wild in front of their headlights, pillowcases trailing in the October breeze.
“This fuckin' sucks,” Marek says. “Where is this party?”
Tyler unfolds the crumpled sticky note, smoothing it against his thigh with careful fingers. Krotch's drunken spider scrawl is barely legible. “Four-twelve Maple. I think.”
Maple Street stretches before them—tree-lined suburbia where houses sit far back from the road, obscured in the shadows like slumbering brick giants. Perfectly manicured lawns, grinning jack-o-lanterns, the kind of neighborhood that doles out full-size candy bars instead of fun-sized packets of disappointment.
They cruise slowly, squinting at the mailbox numbers in the dark.
“There.” Tyler's horns bump the glass with a soft plastic tap. “Four-twelve.”
Marek pulls to the curb and shifts into park. They both stare.
The house might as well be a tomb. No cars, no music, no stumbling college kids on the lawn. Just porch light spilling across empty concrete and a single lamp glowing lonely through curtains.
“Are you sure?”
Tyler double-checks the note. “This is the address.”
A paper ghost spins from a large oak tree, hypnotic in its purposelessness.
“Should we call Krotch?” Tyler asks, thumb hovering over his phone's faintly glowing buttons.
Marek reaches over to snap the phone shut, the click of the hinge is buried beneath the radio.
“Nah. Wanna rent a movie?”
“God, yes.” Relief floods Tyler's voice. The same relief spreads through Marek's chest.
Marek smiles at Tyler, stares at him—glossy chapsticked lips, soft brown eyes, horns a little crooked—and thinks Tyler looks more like an angel than he ever will, even in his dollar store wings and halo. He leans across the center console and kisses him, soft and quick. The taste of artificial cherry. The promise of a night that belongs to only them.
ii.
Marek adjusts his halo for the third time at a stop light, tugging the fluffy ring until it sits somewhat centered over his head instead of sliding left. Beside him, Tyler's got the visor flipped down, dabbing red face paint under his eyes with a little foam sponge stolen from his mom's bathroom. His tongue pokes out slightly as he concentrates, like he's seven and trying his damndest to color inside the lines.
He's wearing the same devil costume from two weeks ago. the one that made Marek's brain short-circuit outside the dressing room. His tail coils against the passenger seat like a cobra ready to strike.
There's a sloppy red heart around Tyler's belly button. Marek had drawn it earlier, Tyler sprawled on his bed with his shirt pushed up, squirming and giggling when the lipstick dragged across his skin. He'd kept trying to look down at what Marek was doing, which made the heart go lopsided. Marek had pressed his palm flat against Tyler's chest to keep him still.
"Quit it, baby,” Marek had said, leaning down to kiss Tyler's hip bone. “Let me fix it.”
Tyler had gone rigid then, his breath catching when Marek's mouth moved across his stomach. The lipstick had smeared where lips met skin, but neither cared.
There are other marks too, hidden beneath Tyler's hair at the nape of his neck, peppered along his inner thighs—lip prints in the same ruby red, scattered across all the places that only Marek gets the pleasure of seeing.
Marek can't think about that too long, lest he find himself entirely distracted from the task at hand. Which is driving, of course. To a party. Even though Tyler always drives them places but tonight he's getting gussied up riding shotgun.
“Turn left after the gas station,” Tyler says, still focused on his reflection. He’s moved on to his cheeks now, blending paint up toward his temples.
“What gas station?”
“The one with the—oh, shit, we passed it. Here, hang a uey at the light.”
i.
They rush into Party City the night before Joey Eastman's wrestling show.
Marek's outfit is simple. Fake beard, suspenders, done. He has the rest of what he needs at home. Tyler's could be simple too, but he insists on a real costume, not just a red shirt and a pitchfork. He acts annoyed that only ladies devil costumes are left on the rack, rolling his eyes and smacking his gum, but Marek sees right through the facade.
Tyler disappears behind the accordion door of the dressing room while Marek waits outside and tries not to think about what's happening behind that flimsy barrier.
When the door opens, Tyler steps out and spins in his sock feet.
“Whaddaya think?”
A red sequined crop top that barely covers his chest. Low-rise pants that cling just below his hip bones, so tight they might as well be tattooed on. His back dimples peek out above the waistband where a matching sequined tail sways.
Marek's mouth goes dry. He's a mystery, Tyler—painfully shy one moment, completely exhibitionistic the next.
“It's…” Marek starts, then stops. Words feel inadequate.
Tyler cackles, throws his head back. His hair snags around one of his horns. “Good enough for the devil?”
Marek thinks Tyler could convince anyone to follow him straight to hell looking like that. He nods, throat tight, words completely gone.
Tyler tilts his head, studies Marek's face with sudden interest. There's a mischievous gleam in his eyes that Marek knows all too well. “Oh,” he says, grinning wide. “You really like it.”
Tyler does another little turn, slower this time. “The dressing room's still open,” he says, voice cracking on the last word.
“Tyler.”
"What?” Tyler's trying to be smooth but he's fidgeting with his pitchfork, bouncing nervously on his toes. “I just need help with the zipper. It's stuck.”
Tyler grabs his hand—too eager, too obvious—and starts backing toward the open door. “C'mon, just for a second. I promise I won't… I mean, unless you wanna…” He trails off, face gone red to match his outfit.
“Tyler.”
“Please?” That voice Tyler uses when he wants something, half-wheedling, half-whine. It works on Marek every time.
Marek stares at Tyler's flushed face, at the dressing room door folded open like an invitation. He thinks about security cameras and roaming employees and every reason this is a terrible idea.
Then Tyler tugs him forward, and Marek follows.