Page 141 of Gratification in Gluttony

“Can I still pick the lock?” Tad asked.

“No!” everyone said simultaneously.

Tad pouted and kicked at the ground. “You’re taking all the fun out of this kidnapping, you know?”

“With how much noise we’re all making, I don’t think it’s going to be a kidnapping,” Jude said, leaning into Toni’s side. “Pretty sure Gem knows we’re coming at this point.”

Toni opened his mouth to contradict the claim, but Rusty beat him to it. “Nah, he’s a heavy sleeper.”

Once again, everyone froze, turning as one to stare at Rusty. The Pyclon had paused with the key in the door, his tail flicking anxiously. Toni narrowed his eyes.

“How do you know that?” he demanded.

Unholy shit, was this little punk stalking Gem?

Apparently, he’d spoken aloud because Rusty reared back in offense, flashing his canines. “I’m not stalking anyone! Every time y’all get drunk, we crash at Gem’s. And I’m the only one sober enough to remember what happens.”

“Sounds like something a stalker would say,” Toni growled.

Staring at Toni like he’d lost his ever-loving mind, Rusty said, pointing at them each in turn, “Jude talks in his sleep, like entire conversations about really weird shit. You are the biggest, most annoying bed hog. And Zef sleepwalks! I’ve had to stop them from crawling out of Gem’s window and onto the fire escape three separate times.” Putting his claws on his hips, he scowled deeply. “Does that mean I’m stalking them too?”

“He’s right,” Jude said, placing a hand on Toni’s arm. “I do talk in my sleep.”

“And I frightened Denys several times by entering their bedroom in the middle of the night, unbeknownst to me,” Zef said guiltily.

“And we all know you’re a monumental bed hog,” Oliver added.

Not fully mollified, Toni glared at Rusty. Rusty stared blankly back, expressionless, save for a twitch in his right ear and his flicking tail.

“Can we get to the kidnapping already?” Tad snarled after a full minute of awkward silence. “I was promised a night of crime, and I’m getting bored!”

“Okay,” Toni said, rolling his shoulders. “Let’s do this. Tad, no chloroform!”

Tad, who’d been in the process of retrieving said chloroform from her bag again, stuck her long green tongue out at him but tucked the bottle and rag away. Rusty put his finger to his lips as he slid the key in the lock, then slowly turned the knob.

The lights in the flat were out, of course, and Toni and Liel both pulled their humans closer to help them navigate the dark. Toni could see well enough, but he still followed Rusty who had the best night vision out of them all. Except, maybe, for Quin.

Willow knocked into the coffee table, hissing with pain, and everyone froze. The flat was dead silent except for the numerous heartbeats, all racing alongside each other. It was impossible to differentiate who was whom, and it would have given Toni a headache to try.

Glyma and Quin guided Willow around the coffee table, and they all gathered behind the room partition separating Gem’s bed from the rest of the living space. Toni lifted three fingers, then slowly counted down. The moment before they stepped into Gem’s bedroom to yell surprise, there was a great battle cry from the other side of the partition.

A grotesque, six-armed monster jumped out, glittering eyes glowing with rage and hunger. Its face was pasty-white and looked like it was melting off of its bones. For one horrifyingsecond, Toni genuinely believed Gem had been eaten by something out of a nightmare.

But then the monster screamed, “Get some, motherfuckers!” And the apocalypse was unleashed.

Everyone screamed and dove for cover as the monster—who was actually Gem—started launching projectiles and beating anyone within arm’s length with rubber mallets. One caught Toni in the jaw, and he dropped with a yelp.

“Come to murder me in my sleep?” Gem roared, tossing something small and vibrating into the roiling group of bodies that had taken refuge in the living room behind the couch. “I’ll fuck you up!”

The lights blinked on, temporarily blinding everyone. Rusty stood across the room, hand on the light switch, gaping at Gem. Gem who stood at the ready, all six arms raised, every hand holding a dildo like a weapon. His face was covered in something gooey and white—a face mask. And his silky robe had come untethered, revealing hiscum-dumpstercrop top and a pair of booty shorts that left little to the imagination.

“What are you doing in my house?” Gem cried, voice hitting a piercing falsetto.

“What are you doing with all those sex toys?” Toni shouted, rubbing his jaw where one of those dildos—and he really didn’t wanna know which one—had struck him during the scuffle.

“What is on your face?” Rusty demanded.

“Did he attack us with dildos?” Quin asked, holding an anatomically accurate Lupyn dick at arm’s length between her thumb and forefinger.

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