The Bathrooms

Fetish. Fear. Some do not seem to know the difference.

Gideon’s wand stayed at his side, limp, the tension now seated solely in the Hufflepuff's angular jaw.

“You walked into it,” Gideon said, low. Not shouted. Not whispered. Just spoken. Like truth carved into bone. An observation that seemed too ludicrous to be real, but there it was. he had observed it.

He approached. Each step echoed, deliberate, measured, as if the stone itself was trying to pull away from what approached it. His shadow crossed Clark’s face, and he stood just far enough away to ensure no contact was accidental.

“You walked into it,” he repeated. He sounded annoyed and confused. There was a minute twitch at his temple, not unlike the tightening of a bowstring right before the arrow looses.

“That spell was meant to humiliate you,” he continued, voice like glass cutting slowly through satin. “To stick you there. But you? You volunteered. You eagerly plastered yourself to a wall like a house-elf’s wet towel.”

Giddy tilted his head. “For me.” The sadist stepped closer, so close that the air ran hot between them. Not with heat, but with shame. Gideon didn’t look angry. Not exactly. He looked… betrayed by the sheer patheticness of it all.

“You think I’d kiss that?” A gesture. A flick of fingers toward Clark’s frame, held like a pinned insect beneath a magnifying glass. “Is this your courtship ritual? Slapstick seduction?”

Is Giddy into that?
Roll: 31 (kinda)

He exhaled, long and low. Whatever this weird feeling was that he felt. This sense of power. No, not power because he felt that when they screamed. When they begged. But it was a different sort of begging. This begging was wrong, but still... fun? He did not understand it, but the dice deemed it to be true.

“You want to be touched. Not because you care, but because no one else will.” Gideon leaned in, close enough that he could have easily fell into the boy. A breath apart. A kiss suspended like a knife over a throat. He lingered there for just a beat too long. Gideon's voice, when it came, was no longer just scornful. It was curious. Not warm either, merely clinical. The way one might regard a bruise that changes color in an interesting manner.

“You like this, don’t you?” he murmured, his breath misting his ear. “You think there’s power in letting someone like me peel you open and humiliate what’s left.” He lingered there for a moment longer, letting Clark feel the heat of his breath, letting that ache swell with false promise. “How fascinating,” he said. Not amused. Not affectionate. Just… noted.

His lips ghosted the air beside Clark’s cheek. “You’re filth. But at least you’re self-aware filth.” A flicker in Gideon's expression. One that might’ve been interest or at the very least curiosity, if not for the cruelty sitting his eyes like a throne.

“Still not kissing you,” Gideon added, stepping back. “But I might keep you around.” A promise made not out of affection. Out of utility. Like a blade dulled too soon, or a spell that misfired in an intriguing way. Then Gideon turned, the air cooling with his absence, the moment broken.

He didn’t have to look back. He knew Clark would still be stuck. Not realizing that Clark had skill in wandless casting and Giddy should have gagged him, if he was not already afraid the boy was enjoying all of this too much, before he left.

There was a commotion outside of the bathrooms. Gideon would attempt to leave the thread and return to the ballroom. (Note: this could be prevented by a successful spell cast.)

Clark was indeed willing to be the fly in this flytrap scenario, but when Gideon took realization of what had been done, Clark's heart fluttered. Finally. Oh god, finally someone realized. "I don't need to tell you what I like." He said, not looking away from Gideon, trying to ensure that the kiss was not unwarranted.

He hoped it was coming, the kiss at least. He mentally pleaded, hoping Gideon would be the one to make him feel like he was made to feel like the storm in his own chest did indeed find its thunder, Gideon knew that Clark wanted that kiss, but the outcome was tragedy as Gideon pulled away from the goblin.

"Dude!" He moaned sadly, the examination vivid. "No." He said, his voice wavering a little. "I'll see you in hell." That said, he stared at Gideon and concentrated as he walked away, speaking the incantation to the full body-bind curse, "Petrificus Totalus." If the boy wasn't going to get what he wanted, then neither was that heart-throb.

Magical action: Petrificus Totalus

He snarled again. "If you cannot get your ass back in gear to kiss me, then so be it, I will be chasing you down every minute of your life until we are finally together. We are destined to be together."

@Gideon Athanatos

Clark wasn’t about to let Gideon walk out that door. His obsession for the near stranger made little sense, but the boy was never known for making much sense.

Clark, being a part-goblin, didn’t need a wand to cast his magic. He just needed nerve and volume. While Clark often looked like a cocktail of helpless and unhinged plastered to a wall he stuck himself to while telling Giddy off, only one of those was true. And it wasn’t helpless.

“Petrificus Totalus!”

The words of power rang out loud, theatrical, unmistakable. Clark was casting the Full-Body Bind Curse. A spell designed to paralyze an opponent from head to toe. Elegant in theory. Devastating when it actually landed.

Gideon’s blood turned to ice at the incantation, adrenaline spiking before logic could intervene. The Hufflepuff lunged for the doorway, driven by instinct and pure disdain. Whatever chaos was still unfolding in the ballroom was preferable to whatever the part-Goblin freak behind him had in mind.

Clark attempts to cast Petrificus Totalus at Gideon wandlessly
Attack 13 (+8 Accuracy) 21 (did not even bother with the wandless part)
Evasion 15 (+15 Evasion) 30
10% auto-dodge (Seer)

The curse hit the air. It was not even close.

“Petrificus Totalus!”

Clark's incantation echoed in the tiled space. A warning, an ending if the spell struck true. The part-goblin was casting the Full-Body Bind Curse wandlessly rather than working himself free. The Full-Body Bind Curse is a spell designed to paralyze an opponent from head to toe. Gideon was into a lot of things, but being bound himself was not among them. The vulnerability was a carnal sin to an Athanatos.

So with those words, Gideon’s blood went cold. Adrenaline surged before thought could catch up. He lunged for the doorway. Hufflepuff instincts and raw contempt propelling him forward. Whatever bedlam still echoed from the ballroom, that chaos was a preferable hell to whatever the part-Goblin freak had planned for him.

The spell missed.

But Clark had made a mistake. He'd tried. You don't just try with Giddy, you finish the task once you make the mark.

Gideon stopped in the doorway, just long enough to turn. His soft, polished features twisted into something ugly. A snarl, red-faced and unrestrained. There was no pretense of poise, there was a lack of witnesses but in his panic over Taylor, the mask had already slipped at the Sanctum. His expression was just pure, calculated spite.

“Mimblewimble,” Gideon hissed, the tongue-tying curse laced with venom. “Let’s see you get out of this now, Goblin.”

The spell flew. Gideon did not wait to determine if the attack took hold of the boy's tongue. He stormed forward, it was only a handful of steps. Gideon would then perform a mundane action, no spell, no flourish. Just Gideon attempting to drive his knee directly into Clark’s crotch with cruel, efficient force. A blow that needed no magical enhancement to make its point.

And with that... Gideon would turn and disappear through the door, heading straight back into the chaos of the ballroom. No apology. No remorse. Just the lingering echo of a curse and hopefully one very silent Goblin.

Spell: Tongue-Tying Curse targeting Clark
Mundane Action: Knee to the jewels targeting Clark

His desire to really kiss Gideon only grew, his wicked smile growing as the mimblewimble spell was cast, but he wouldn't resist. No, he really wouldn't. This was kind of nice, someone who would fight back. He liked that. Those pathetic people he challenged were weak. This one? Worth the challenge.

He watched as Gideon drew closer. The smile of his tangled mouth only grew. He wanted to say, 'I knew you loved me baby.' but he couldn't. Then.

He felt the knee slam into his very own jewels and he groaned with pain but the smile didn't disappear. He had finally awoke Gideon. His attention near. But what did change post kneeing was the fact that Clark was beginning to regret eating curry before coming to the wedding. The kneeing seemed to send a shock or upset his stomach in some way that it just grumbled, and constricted like a boa squeezing his insides and all of a sudden there was a release, one that Clark may regret later but his smile only stayed up. A foul-smelling goblin, he was now.

His trousers coated in shit again. The scent was.. well, ripe, invasive, and honestly quite foul for its filth. But it wasn't the first time Clark had shit himself, nor was it the last. Clark's grin remained, the grin staying strong as if it were frozen with rigor mortis. Not that the smile or lack of distress mattered much, Gideon was gone at this point, like he vanished into thin air.

He would have to chase after Gideon momentarily, once he gets himself down, he had to figure out how to though. Clark's stomach grumbled and gurgled once more, even louder this time. It was wet. The silence that followed had felt too tight, and again, a fate unfortunate to those who cared about their self-worth in the eyes of miniscule powerless people they call wizards.

MUNDANE ACTION: oof lear can you roll to see if the wet liquid poop does anything to loosen the adhesiveness of clark to the wall, instead of doing a spell to free himself

@Gideon Athanatos

The knee to the crotch had not just knocked the wind out of Clark Baird, it had summoned the devil that lived in his lower intestine. A gurgling rippled through his stomach like something alive and liquid had woken up. It was volcanic. Violent. Warm. The sort of warm that burned from curry spices. The mimblewimble spell might have tied the lusty teen's tongue but nothing could tie his sphincter.

It was not a discreet little accident. No, it was an event. A total, complete, biological betrayal.

A wet, gelatinous squelch echoed from the caverns below. This was followed by a smell so vile, so offensively potent, it could have peeled paint off the Ministry of Magic walls. A mix of curried goat (assuming), bile, sulfur, and something inexornerably sweet. It was the kind of stench that clung to one's nostrils and whimpered.

There was no grace to this. No mercy. While absolutely unintended, whatever structural integrity Clark's pant's had, it was tested. It had failed. Obliterated beneath the sheer volume of liquidated shame now coating his thighs, his socks and somehow his shins.

Clark did not fall from the flytrap. He squished.

The foul slurry soaked into his fine fabric, his father would be disappointed again, so not a departure from the norm. The volume pooling inside his shoes.

Yet Clark smiled. Indeed he smiled. Like some sort of crazed mental ward patient who had binged on a bottle of laxatives.

The filthy goblin was frozen in feral rapture. Clark indeed had Gideon's attention. He had his mark. His moment. Not his kiss. But he got all this and it was only at the cost of a catastrophic intestinal failure in front of friends, family, aristocrats and some veela. So be it.

Clark would not be shamed by mere wizards. The magical world was beneath him. Their disgust - badge of honor. Their retching - applause.

But the bubbling was not done, not yet.

Clark's stomach lurched again audibly. The hell was this boy eating? This would be the last time he was allowed ethnic cuisine. Like a clogged drain swallowing a toad, Clark would feel something DROP. The second wave approached and this one had texture.

And with that, even glue became inert. Even the walls of the restroom withdrew from Clark Baird.

Clark did indeed shit himself so badly that the liquid fecal matter ran through his pants and onto the wall. He felt some movement as if it were bursting out off a ruptured pipe, and all of a sudden, a splat. He definitely broke free of the adhesive matter, but without even looking at his backside, he knew he was a mess back there. But it didn't matter. Heh. There was only some perverse sense of relief. There was no form of panic regarding this.

His foolish, creepy, smile remained glued, plastered. That boy was going to get Clark, even if Clark had to go further for this love story to happen. This little setback was minor. Anyone could've shit themselves, and in this case, it was not entirely his own fault, he didn't trigger the deuce, he simply just provided the firepower. Gideon was the trigger.

That made the two compatible right? This had to be true considering he had defiled a wall of a ceremonial place, apparently. He was ready to make this story come true, a story that needed to happen, or else it was the equivalent of the end of times. Clark imagined their souls tied together as if they were poorly sewn, a dysfunctional pair. The grin on his youthful face only grew again, twitching at the edges.

His eyes gleamed with some twisted form of madness. The rancid stench only grew, crawling up the walls like mold, and Clark was ready to go. The scent was only a sign in the boy's mind that they were destined for a future of glimmer and shine, only flavored with destruction and greed. This was a surefire way of proving that they were just meant to be.

Right?

Well. Clark was ready to go after him. He reached the bathroom doors and opened it, his laugh maniacal. "Ready or not..." His right eye twitched. "Here I come!"

MUNDANE ACTION: LEAVING THE BATHROOM TO GO AFTER GIDEON

@Gideon Athanatos

The world Clark left behind in the restroom was both stinky and sticky. It was a chamber of horrors that defied explanation. Several international crimes had been committed in there, violations not only of airspace, but of taste and sanity. Few could understand the madness that was Clark, and some could say the same of his tastes. Apparently he had a taste for blondes, who would have thought.

After Clark's departure from the bathroom, only fester and flies would remain, swarming like little United Nations inspectors. They would buzz with dismay and probable cause. When they arrived, even the cockroaches would lodge a formal complaint.

For the duration of this event, the cosmetics in the corner would likely remain untouched. No one wanted to risk applying rouge infused with despair after trudging across that muddy river. The stalls? Ha. No refuge there. Slugs and bile. Most would rather risk a thorny bush than step back in that tiled hell.

What Clark had created was not a bathroom, it was a biological event, a war crime disguised as plumbing. And yet… somehow, he walked out unbothered smelling very much like he had just come from a place that looked something like this.