#masquerade23

@fogs-masquerade-ball

See, this dog can clean up! A little, anyway.

Getting back into the game by making this bastard uncomfortable in a suit jacket. I'll be doing mostly RP for this event, probably not much art, but if you're interested in an interaction shoot somethin' over!

@fogs-masquerade-ball

Well… what a better time to quietly get to know these prospects and their Entities than at masquerade. Deadeyes wouldn’t mind mingling for a while.

Jake watched Kate approach from a ways away, hoping the entire time that she was going to suddenly pivot and head her course another way, but the doe-masked survivor wouldn’t be so merciful to him. He didn’t mind Kate’s presence as much as he did some other survivors, but still. It was the principal of the thing.

Jake glanced between the outstretched talons and the Entity that controlled them, scowling. The sickly sweet way she spoke set his hackles up and ripped at his already-waning patience. He’d hardly been able to stand her calmly following him around for so long, and now that he was backed into a dead-end and couldn’t even escape with notions of boring her to leaving him be, his temper was flaring further.

If looks could kill, Jake would have an extra wish right about now. His lip curled, displeased.

“Fuck off. If I did have any ‘tips’ I wouldn’t give ’em to you,” Jake said, which was a little unnecessarily harsh considering he had no idea who this guy was, but he had no problems coming off as hostile. He didn’t want the man to be here and maybe baring his teeth would run the man away. He doubted it, but maybe.

Jake was sitting at one of the tables, one delightfully empty so far, with one arm resting on the table and the other fidgeting a butterknife between his fingers. The chair was tipped casually on its back legs, though Jake settled it flat onto the ground when he was approached by someone in a ram mask. The knife stopped spinning in his fingers and he watched the other approach.

Pain rocketed up his fingers, his hand, his arm when he made contact. It was like he’d punched a brick wall instead of something alive, and Jake was fairly certain that the cracking sound hadn’t just come from the mask. Jake’s hand lowered and he didn’t make a sound despite how much that had hurt, just glared into the Entity’s golden eyes and snarled in return to the too-wide, too-smug grin. The eyes, their expression—they were familiar. The exact fucking same. For a second, they weren’t standing in the garden. They were in a swamp, and Jake was going to die. And then the Entity slapped him across the face.

His own mask clattered to the ground. Jake accidentally bit the inside of his cheek and saw stars with the force of it. He’d staggered, but not fallen. His uninjured hand raised to cover his stinging cheek. Jake’s shoulders trembled with how hard and shakily he was breathing. Each breath whistled through his teeth, jaw grinding. It was as much, or more, even, out of his fury as it was the pain and the fear. He was fucking pissed. He was pissed, and his face fucking hurt, and he was pretty sure he’d just broken his hand, and he could taste blood in his mouth but the one thing he didn’t want to fucking do was respect this grinning, smug little self-assured bastard.

Jake recoiled slightly as the Entity referred to him as some other’s hobby. Oh, he didn’t like that. It was bad enough that he had to think about some thing like that having authority over him and many more—and to think it had some special, vested interest in him was even worse. It wasn’t a surprise. What happened to him on the regular wasn’t normal, even by the Fog’s standards. But still.

He was showing too much that the other was getting to him, with how much he’d started leering through the mask. It wasn’t a secret that he hated them, but he didn’t need to look worked up about it. He took a breath through his teeth, and then the Entity turned to him, pointed at him, smiled an unnerving smile and spoke, and Jake stiffened.