FLYNN FLAM.STUDIO

BLEHHHH 

he who makes a beast out of himself

"What's this? Have you no shame but to walk around looking so scruffy?"

The Batter had the strength of a dozen men but it only took but a finger to lift Zacharie's chin and force the merchant to look up. A guilty smile spread across Zacharie's face and he raised a hand to catch the mask before it was lost entirely. "Batter!" He reproached, "Not all of us were so lucky to be drawn with the perfectly smooth face of a baby.”

“All of your knick-knacks and wares, and you have no razor.”

"No…" Zacharie's voice took on a second guilty note. "But the mask hides it enough, amigo."

There was something in the Batter's stare that made Zacharie feel as though he were being inspected with a wide angle lens, and a silence briefly lingered. "...That isn't the only thing the mask hides.”

“I’m afraid not, dear Batter,” Zacharie sighed, and he shifted his mask just enough to reveal the sadly grinning lower half of his face with all of its impurities and disfigurements. This only lasted for a moment before it was once more hidden. “I find that it tends to scare off customers.”

When the embrace finally came it was tighter than anything Zacharie had ever felt. So sudden that it knocked his mask askew and Zacharie had to clutch at the Batter’s shoulders to keep himself upright.

They didn’t say anything to each other. Zacharie felt fingers grasping into his shirt with clawlike intensity, his head full of the scent of burnt plastic and dried blood. The monstrous strength that lurked just beneath the Batter’s colorless exterior, bubbling nearly to the surface. Zacharie wondered if he was holding back.

It was a long and silent grip, until at last:

“Mon cher,” Zacharie whispered; his voice broke briefly and he cleared his throat to continue, “I can’t breathe.”

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HAHA guess what I have more.