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It was a rare peaceful time for Shadowsan to be alone in their home base because Carmen and the two "children"--her sidekicks were currently on a mission in Louisiana. He had the most relaxing bath and he had just gone out of the tub. To his relief, there were no wandering eyes from the gluttonous freckled one. The boy failed miserably at stealth and his attempts to hide his...fascination with him were flimsy at best or non-existent at worst. Shadowsan did not want to assume anything, but he knew that Zack was obviously begging for his approval. He wondered however if that was all and nothing more.
Putting those thoughts aside for now, he went to check on the laptop to see if there were any messages for him. Carmen had left it with him as always so that he could stop any miscellaneous capers from V.I.L.E. whilst they took care of the major ones that were happening elsewhere in the world. Just as well, because there was a number on the taskbar indicating that there were several messages on the inbox. Immediately, Shadowsan sat down and clicked on the icon with only a towel still wrapped around his waist (suddenly thinking Zack would've had a field day seeing him walk around in that state).
He had expected the messages were either from Player or Carmen, to alert him on a side mission or any updates from their current one. Instead, he got a message from Zack, glaring at the name and his text which, at first, seemed to be innocent enough. To his knowledge, it was Halloween, so it seemed to be fitting to be sent a greeting that went: "TRICK OR TREAT" proceeded by several emojis of jack-o-lanterns and candy. But as he scrolled down, he saw several images were sent to him as well and his eyes widened.
Zack was dressed in a red one-piece devil costume that covered his entire body except for his face and on his head were two bull horns sticking out. It wouldn't have been so shocking if he weren't posing with a finger on his tongue and his butt sticking out. And in the second image, he had his finger on his butt cheek. Underneath it, he wrote the caption:
*sizzle*
Expecting that that was all, he scrolled down but he found more pictures of him in his costume with his poses becoming less and less...subtle, to put it into words. One had him licking sensually on a lollipop; one had him with a blown bubblegum in his mouth while sitting on his knees then using that same gum to play with it between his teeth, stretching it into a sticky string on the following image. It made Shadowsan cringe.
More pictures followed that Shadowsan tried his best to scroll through as quickly as possible, but he couldn't bring himself to look away. One image in particular stuck on his mind; Zack was sitting on the floor, his legs awkwardly spread out with his left leg folded under him and his right foot planted on the floor as his right leg was bent upward. The following caption went: "Wanna know what comes between me and this costume? Nothing."
Once Shadowsan managed to scroll through all the images Zack sent him, some of which he dared not to describe, Zack ended the ordeal with a final text that said:
"Wish you were here with us to attend this wicked costume party down on the bayou. Hope you enjoyed this treat." And the text was sealed with a wink.
Shadowsan now felt especially lucky that he was all alone because he found himself lifting up his towel as if to conceal something as inconspicuously as he could. Some sweat had formed in his temples, and gathered on his eyebrows. Shadowsan did not want to look in the mirror out of shame to see any color beginning to appear on his face. He merely concluded that he had not cleaned himself enough and so it was time for a second bath. He slammed the laptop shut and dashed into the bathroom, coming back momentarily to pick up the towel he accidentally dropped in his haste. His last thoughts before he submerged into the warm water were:
How in the world did he even manage to take those pictures?
Earlier that day, somewhere in New Orleans...
Zack took back his phone from Carmen's hands.
"Thanks Carm! I owe you one," he said to her.
Carmen stood still as Zack walked pass her and exited the door. She had an unreadable expression and a dilated look in her eyes, mumbling to herself.
"No amount of therapy will ever make this moment okay."