seth sunday dating hcs -
Or, you’re ignoring the odd feeling in the pit of your stomach to date the magician who dresses like a goth ringleader. samesies tbh
(18+, mdni)
as always, an epigram:
“Well, what tongue does the wind talk? What nationality is a storm? What country do rains come from? What color is lightning? Where does thunder go when it dies?” - Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury
First thing’s first: Seth is a flirt. A huge flirt. Partially bc he enjoys the reciprocal attention (he enjoys attention of any sort), but also because when he likes someone, he fixates on them
(It’s a bit of a chicken/egg situation - does They Who attract people who are prone to fixation to do their bidding, or do the people under their thumb develop these tendencies as a side effect? Who’s to say.)
-
He tends to be a bit over the top in his courting, even by Morvant standards. Think deep red long-stemmed rose bouquets sent to your place of work. The classic heart-shaped box of chocolates, but almost absurdly large. Early on, they might not be too tailored to you, specifically — more generally understood symbols of romance. He’s still a believer in the classic and the glamorous, drawing on memories of the old Hollywood romances that captivated him in his human days youth.
All those early dates, though, will feel like he’s just looking for excuses to sit and talk to you for ages. Because he is!! Whether that’s over dinner at a luxurious restaurant you might not normally consider an option, or hot drinks at a charming little cafe. Expect long, meandering conversations about everything going on in your life, with him seeming fascinated by details that seem fairly mundane to you.
And the even weirder thing is, he’ll remember them all, well past you’d expect anyone to care.
You can’t help but notice though that whenever you try to talk to him about his own life - his family, where he was from - he would only ever talk about his various stints in traveling shows. He has stories galore, wild and weird, but nothing that feels… like the basic things you get to know about someone. The little things.
For someone who makes his living performing, it surprises you how soft-spoken he is. His voice, despite his appearance, is always light, gentle. You’re surprised how quiet he is at times, and find yourself instinctively closing the space between the pair of you to catch his every word. He mirrors this when you speak in turn, sitting only just far enough away to still be considered appropriate, his black eyes moving constantly between your lips and your eyes, as though he’s trying to keep up with both at all times. It’s enough to make you a little flustered every so often, especially when his fingers or his knees brush against yours.
When he does get to know you, expect the later dates to be flashy in a different way.
Expect behind the scenes tours of museum exhibits in surrounding cities related to something that makes you tick, some before the exhibit even goes public. Intimate art house performances, centered around themes he knows make your brain itch in the best way, all in little theaters in the local scene that you wouldn’t have been to until now.
Parties and dinners with creative, interesting people he seems to know from a vast and varied life, in which you’re both fascinated by the conversation, and apparently somewhat of a showpiece yourself, as he shamelessly introduces you to everyone with the air of someone who stumbled upon a magnificent secret.
From what little tidbits you’re able to pick up from his colleagues and friends, you get the feeling that Seth has been in creative scenes all over the world, and for what feels like an awfully long time for his age. Or at least, what you’re pretty sure is his age. His world feels huge to you, and still undefined — even the people he’s known for ages don’t know that much about him, it seems, or as much as you’d think.
You can’t tell if he’s rich and hides it well or just somehow absurdly well-connected, but he seems to know someone wherever the pair of you go, always running into a collaborator from a past project, or always seems to have a friend who can get tickets or an inside scoop to whatever fun thing you’re interested in.
The man always dresses to the nines, wherever you’re going. Mostly black, in sumptuous fabrics, but with the occasional accent of something eye-catching: patterns like Peacock feathers, or a splash of Big Top red. He always looks fantastic, and unmistakably eye-catching, ever the consummate showman. He’s not afraid of makeup, either, with his eyes usually lined in kohl and his nails painted in jewel tones. As much as he stands out, he’s unquestionably handsome in a way that reminds you of a storm.
You can’t deny the tiniest bit of exhilaration when you realize that even though everyone around the pair of you is looking at him, he’s only looking at you.
When the two of you have been going out long enough that it’s comfortable, he makes it clear that he has no issues with the idea of PDA. He always keeps his arm around your shoulders or waist, or wants to keep your hand in his (which is always surprisingly cold, like, to the point that you wonder if he’s seen a doctor about it).
He’s not shy about kisses - nothing too obnoxious, but cheek kisses, kisses to the top of your head, the corner of your mouth, et al are definitely not rare. Neither are kisses to the back of your hand, the inside of your wrist, even your neck if he thinks he can get away with it. He’ll ease up a bit if he ever embarrasses you, but it’s like he wants to transmit to you as obviously as possible when he’s absolutely smitten with you.
He is genuinely smitten with you, by the way. Because he’s absolutely making up for affection he never received himself, and this is just how he knows to make it clear. It’s not a performance out of dishonesty, but out of eagerness, and not being sure how else “real” people show it.
The man doesn’t quite seem to understand the idea of a chill date. He always wants to seem to show you a good time, take you somewhere and show you something you’ve never seen before, or treat you to something indulgent and extravagant. When you ask one night if he wants to stay in, he almost seems caught off-guard.
He demurs immediately when you ask about hanging out at his place. “I live out of hotels for work,” he says, with a smile and an unusually sheepish shrug. “I’m in a nice one right now, but still. Not quite the mood you’re looking for, certainly.”
So when you tell him to show up to your place with some movie suggestions and you’ll order dinner in, you’re not quite sure what to expect when you open the door.
…It probably wasn’t the vintage velvet smoking jacket over the most elegant looking silk lounge set you’ve ever seen in your life. But you also couldn’t picture him just being a guy in sweats from a big box chain, either.
But he’s there and positively beaming, with aubergine-colored eyeliner to coordinate. “I never get to wear these anywhere! How fun!”
...Are those satin slippers?
He immediately settles himself on your couch like he’s been there forever and pulls a bottle of wine that’s just the right level of cheap from a bag you didn’t notice him holding, as well as a variety of candy. (You can’t help but notice the man has a sweet tooth - you’ve never seen him say no to dessert.) “I thought we could use my Criterion login; I just couldn’t decide, you know? I wanted you to choose what felt the most ‘date night’ to you.”
Somehow it doesn’t surprise you that all his favorites are either black and white or from the very, very beginning of color film. The big Hollywood spectacles from the early days of film, with musical numbers and elaborate costumes and choreography to beat all.
He keeps his arm around you the whole time, not even hesitating. When he laughs at the old-fashioned banter in the transatlantic accents, it’s high, sweet. Almost childlike in the earnestness of it.
You’re willing to wait until the end of the movie, out of respect (and genuine interest, you really had never seen it before), before you jump his bones.
Yes, the part you’ve been waiting for:
If he’s captivating at a distance, up close, he’s a force of nature. He’s beautiful in a way that twists your stomach in excited knots. His eyes are fathomless — you look into them too long and you feel like your feet aren’t on solid ground anymore.
If you thought he was affectionate before, he’s even more possessive this close together. He already towers over you just standing next to each other, and he leverages this height now when he’s got you under him as a way of caging you, keeping you against the bare expanse of his chest (which is also troublingly cool, you distantly wonder while he’s taking off your shirt like it’s wrapping paper if he’s going to talk to a doctor about that—)
But you’re quickly forgetting anything else as his tongue skims your pulse, hot and hungry and blatant.
His mouth is everywhere on your torso, like he’s sampling you, trying to gauge the places that will make you shiver most. He’s good at watching you, lingering in the places that make you sigh or stifle a moan, his touch like sleight of hand in how he seems to know to set your skin aglow before you’re both even totally undressed.
Once you’ve both established a degree of trust to go further, he can’t help but get a little overexcited. He’s not shy about manhandling you where he wants you, but will just as easily fall under you, his eyes fathomless black and hungry as he watches to see how you’ll touch him.
The man’s a demon in bed, but the agony is only the kind you don’t want to end.
If at times his fingers seem somehow longer than you thought as they slide in and out of you, messy and noisy, or his tongue seems not-quite-human in how it delves deeper than you would’ve thought possible to make you scream — you don’t worry about it too long. You can’t really keep a clear train of thought right now, anyway.
If the name of God tries to pass your lips, even as only as a reflex, an interjection, it always seems to dissolve into a gasp or moan before it can actually reach the air. You don’t worry about that either.
He’s packing, but it’s not too far out of the ordinary… how he uses it inside you, however. That’s the thing that feels nearly supernatural. For seeming so sweet and smitten when the two of you are together, it’s nearly brutal in just how far he manages to push you before you finally come each time.
You swear you’re not going to have a voice in the morning when he’s done with you.
And of course, when he’s finished with you and you’re not quite able to be certain your thighs will hold you up (so covered in hickies as they are), he’s happy to take you to your room and clean you up.
You fall asleep in his silk pajama top, resting on his chest, as he pretends to doze underneath you.
You’re dead to the world when he seems to vanish underneath you at 3 AM. When lays down with you again a couple hours later, he feigns having just come from the bathroom, kissing each of your heavy eyelids as he holds you close again.
You think you’re dreaming when he smells faintly of smoke and a chemical you can’t quite name.
When you wake up for real, he’s waiting in your kitchen with your favorite little coffee drink and some pastries from an expensive little shop, perusing a story in the paper about a fire at the mortuary on the edge of your little hometown.
He greets you with that same enchanted smile, like you’re the most interesting person he could hope to talk to today, and sets the paper aside immediately, determined to plan a fun day out after last night. A movie, perhaps? Maybe a picnic in the park? Dinner at this little rooftop place he knows in the city?
He’s almost scarily perfect, for all his eccentricities.
—
Just when you think you’re starting to get to know him, though, it feels like there are even more mysteries.
You come back one night to his hotel room after all, where he opens the door with a flourish —
And you’re immediately hit with the smell of something sweet, yet somehow musty. Like an antique store, or (weirdly) your grandmother’s house.
His face changes immediately, the cocky smile sliding right off. Something is clearly not what he planned.
He flips on the lightswitch, and the two of you walk in to the suite’s living room… to find the place full of vases on vases, all stuffed with your favorite flowers.
But they’re all withered. Dead, even desiccated, like they’d been sitting there for ten years.
“…Is this performance art?” you say, trying to lighten the mood, but he holds up a hand.
“Wait here,” he says softly, only just audible.
“Is something wrong?”
You’ve never seen him like this before. If you thought he was already tall, now he seems to positively tower, his spine taught like a pulled piano wire.
He stalks into the room, scowling at the flowers, searching for something. He’s muttering softly, and you can’t hear what it is, but he sounds pissed.
“Seth,” you call, unsettled. “What’s going on?”
Before he looks back to you, suddenly his eyes are different as he scans the room. They’re pitch black, like onyx stones set into his face.
You must have had too much wine at dinner, because for just a second, you’d swear they were all black. Every bit of flesh hidden by something almost like a film.
But when he looks at you again, they’re fine. “Give me a minute, doll face. Just stand right there for me, okay?”
Before you can ask, he skulks into the rooms beyond, into the dark
…Leaving you standing there in the doorway.
You know he asked you not to, but this is just so… weird. You step tentatively into the suite, the cute shoes you’d picked for your date tonight crunching softly on what must be a Persian rug’s worth of petals underfoot.
Why would he buy dead flowers? And in bulk like this? He had to have bought them this way, because they’re just so… old. No florist around Greymoon would’ve sold anything close to the condition these were in on purpose. You knew Miss Amelia who ran Della’s, her mother’s old store, would’ve immediately put her flowers in the composter the minute they were anything less than perfectly fresh. You know the little family mortuary out closer to the swamp started doing their own flowers recently (it was a bit of town gossip for a while, Miss Amelia wasn’t sure whether or not to take it personally), but even they wouldn’t sell them dead — that would defeat the point, right?
Out of the corner of your eye, something moves.
You turn to find yourself facing the open door to the suite’s bathroom, the lights flickering ominously just inside. Like they aren’t screwed in right, or like the bulbs are almost burnt out. It’s just as odd as the flowers — this is a relatively new hotel, closer to the city than your little town. Everything still has that new ‘fresh paint’ gleam, making the rickety lights and the ancient-looking flowers stick out even more.
You’re aware, at the edge of your perception, of something about this just not feeling… right. Too many things out of place, in ways that don’t seem to have explanations that make sense.
You’re still trying to make the pieces fit together when something in the bathroom mirror moves.
You step back, your skin suddenly cold as you realize you’ve been staring right at someone that didn’t belong there. That they might have been staring right back at you.
The light flickers again, and it doesn’t account for the movement you just saw.
Almost like someone was in there, stepping back from the glass.
You look towards the little hallway Seth disappeared down, but you hear nothing. Your mouth is dry, and you can’t decide if calling out for him would save you, or just attract whoever’s in there right to you.
…You pull your mace out of its hiding place in your date night ensemble (what? Things were scary for a queer person lately), your finger hovering over the button. You’ve never had to use it before. You didn’t think you were going to need to use it tonight.
But if someone’s here, waiting for you two...
You step inside.
Part of you wants to call for Seth, still. He’s kind of intimidating, when you first see him, all legs and dark hair and sharp cheekbones. And even though you’ve never heard him raise his voice at anyone, always polite if not a bit of a charmer, you’d feel better with him there.
But you’re in here, now. This place is bigger than you realized — the bathroom an L-shape, and you’re standing right at the corner. Someone could get to you before he could get here, too.
There’s no sound of motion — no rustling, no careful footsteps, no settling of the floor. But you’re positive what you saw: a figure, not quite as tall as Seth, but still had a few inches on you.
You lift your mace to eye-level as slowly as you can, afraid of making any wayward noise yourself. Holding your breath, you step around the corner —
And see nothing.
Your arm falls slowly, your stomach churning. But… but you’d just seen someone. As real and solid as Seth was. There was nowhere they could’ve possibly hidden.
You look back to the mirror, as if searching for an answer there… and pause, realizing there’s something else there now.
WE’LL BURY YOU
The letters are huge, in a smeary red… something. Viscous, almost… dried in some places. Clumping, crusted at the ends of the letters.
But where you can see there should be texture, it seems… flat to the glass. Smooth.
You’ve stepped to the mirror before you entirely realize it, your body pulling you towards the discrepancy subconsciously.
You reach your hand out towards the glass, wanting to figure out what it is — and your fingers feel nothing there.
There’s no substance on the mirror.
You rub your fingertips across it, trying to smear it, but it’s like the glass is between you and whatever it is. Like it was somehow written on the other side of—
A hand falls heavy on your shoulder, and you let out a surprised shout, whirling on the source.
“Sweetheart,” Seth says, voice low and eyes flashing. “I know I told you…”
Before he stops dead, his gaze falling on the mirror behind you.
His hand slides across your back to your other shoulder as he moves towards the mirror, drawn to it as you were. And, just as you had, he touches his hand to the letters… before pulling away clean fingertips.
“…Seth,” you whisper, watching him stare at his own hand in befuddlement. “I saw someone in here.”
He looks up immediately, alarmed. “Where? What did they look like?”
“I don’t know,” you whisper. “I didn’t see their face, I just— I swear I saw someone reflected in the mirror. But there was no one when I walked in…”
Frowning, Seth scans the bathroom, as if the vandal is going to peel themselves from the wallpaper or drop from the ceiling. Or appear on the other side of the mirror’s glass.
After a moment, he does something even more puzzling: he grins, sharp and oddly… unsettling. Like there’s more anger behind it than laughter.
“Don’t worry about it, pet.” He waves his free hand, his other sliding down your shoulder to gently grip your upper arm. “It’s just a joke.”
You blink. “A- a joke?”
“A practical joke. A little jape, at my expense, from some colleagues.” He links his arm through yours, steering you gently away from the mirror. “It’s all harmless fun.”
You can feel yourself frowning, still confused. “…Is this what practical jokes are like in your line of work?”
“Of course! The mirror is a neat little trick, wouldn’t you say? Some corn syrup and food dye, painted in just the right way. It must’ve taken them ages,” he says, and his tone veers from light into something else for a moment.
“And the flowers?” you ask tentatively.
“Oh, they must’ve seen the little display I set up for you,” he says, managing a chuckle. “And decided to swap them out. Really, I’m going to have to call them up and ask them about it. Figure out how they got in here,” he adds, the smile dropping for just a second long enough for you to see. “Anyway,” he says, guiding you towards the front door again. “I’m just going to leave a message and an extra tip for the housekeeping staff, and we’ll go get more dessert somewhere while we wait, shall we?”
As you follow him out, you sneak a peek over your shoulder, down the hallway he’d disappeared into.
You catch the barest glint, in the light, of something steely driven into what must be his bedroom door. It looks like… a scalpel?
Nevertheless, he sweeps you downstairs, and before you can fully process everything, the two of you are splitting a complimentary plate of the best mochi ice cream you’ve ever eaten in the hotel’s impressive restaurant. When you try to inquire further about the so-called joke, Seth laughs it off, like it already happened a million years ago. If there’s followup or retribution you never hear about it after.
At least you can say you’re never bored when you’re with him.
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