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Two months ago
“Yeah, Jonathan,” Ozzie says, “I would like the truth.”
Jonathan doesn’t hesitate, says, “The truth is, I’m a lizard person and I’m part of the global conspiracy to undermine the human--”
Ozzie slams a hand on the table and says, “Enough with the bullshit. I’ve heard that line every year at the halloween party, and it was old then and it’s old now.”
-
Glint Enterprises Halloween Party, six years ago
Jonathan Walsh walks into the room, his assistant, Nancy, a half-step behind him.
Jonathan Walsh walks into the room and he throws his hands up and says, “Good evening, humans. It’s that time of year to surrender to your local lizard overlord - as you know, I’m here to undermine the human race and subvert all of your known power structures.”
Jonathan Walsh grins wild and wide, his green prosthetics moving easily with his face, as the crowd calls out, “Welcome” and “we happily surrender” and--
--and Ozzie has never seen anything like this in his entire life.
“Ah,” Sam, one of Glint Media’s more prestigious photographers, says, taking in Ozzie’s look of disbelief, “I forgot you’re new. Walsh fired a guy a couple years ago and on their way out, he accused Walsh of being a lizard man.”
Ozzie blinks and Sam chuckles and takes a sip of champagne, the ducking of his head jostling the elaborate array of snakes he wore on his head. Halloween, Ozzie was starting to realize, was serious business at Glint. No one around him had half-assed their costumes - unlike Ozzie, who had grabbed a cowboy hat and red bandana the night before.
“So,” Ozzie starts, when he finds his voice, “Walsh is a lizard man every year?”
“Yep,” Terry, another photographer standing on the other side of Sam, confirms. He gestures at Walsh for emphasis, “And every year the costume gets better and better. I wonder who he hires to do it?”
Walsh, who’s drifted closer to them, overhears the question and turns to Terry, “My mother did it.”
Ozzie, looking at Walsh head-on like this, has a brief flash of deja vu, like he’s seen this man before but he should be looking up and up and up - Ozzie quickly shakes himself of it and says to his new boss, “She’s, um, really good?”
There’s a sharp look in Walsh’s eye, like he saw Ozzie shake himself, but it’s gone in a flash, and he’s grinning as he says, “Isn’t she?” Then that sharpness is back and he’s turning a critical eye to Ozzie’s costume, “This,” he says, waving a hand in a broad gesture, “is not good. You’re gonna need to up your game, my friend.”
Ozzie clears his throat, suddenly self-conscious, says, “Yeah. I didn’t realize how serious Halloween was taken around here. Won’t happen again.”
Walsh grins and says, “I’m sure it won’t, Ozzie.”
-
Glint Enterprises Halloween Party, five years ago
Jonathan Walsh walks into the room, his assistant, Nancy, a half-step behind him.
Jonathan Walsh walks into the room and he throws his hands up and says, “Good evening, humans. It’s that time of year to surrender to your local lizard overlord - as you know, I’m here to undermine the human race and subvert all of your known power structures.”
Jonathan Walsh grins wild and wide, his green prosthetics moving easily with his face, as the crowd calls out, “Welcome” and “we happily surrender” and--
--and Ozzie says it right with them, speaking easily through his custom-fitted vampire teeth. He’s wearing a long, frilly white shirt and tan breeches - everything strategically ripped and decorated with fake blood.
Walsh walks by, his fake scales seem to shine in the warm light, and he passes a critical eye over Ozzie’s costume and says, “Better.”
-
Glint Enterprises Halloween Party, four years ago
Jonathan Walsh walks into the room, his assistant, Nancy, a half-step behind him.
Jonathan Walsh walks into the room and he throws his hands up and says, “Good evening, humans. It’s that time of year to surrender to your local lizard overlord - as you know, I’m here to undermine the human race and subvert all of your known power structures.”
Jonathan Walsh grins wild and wide, his green prosthetics moving easily with his face, as the crowd calls out, “Welcome” and “we happily surrender” and--
--and Ozzie says it right with them, lifting his champagne glass as he adjusts his astronaut’s helmet under his arm. He has the whole ensemble, even down to the undersuit.
This time, when Walsh walks by, he steps in close - nostrils flaring, as his fingers skim over the fabric of the suit.
Ozzie, despite being hyperaware of the amount of eyeballs on them, forgets how to breathe. It’s a dumb crush on a dumb man - it’s been building for months, since Ozzie had joined the Wallstreet protesters and Walsh himself had shown up with bail money and a fancy coffee and had looked down at Ozzie with pride, congratulating him on his good work.
And Walsh is looking at him now, he’s added contacts this year - slitted pupils and irises that were gold with flecks of red. And it must be a trick of the light because Ozzie swears the pupils are dilating the longer he and Walsh look at each other.
Nancy suddenly clears her throat and Walsh glances away and steps back, says to Ozzie even as he starts towards another group, “I think you’ve found a winner with that costume.”
-
Glint Enterprises Halloween Party, three years ago
Jonathan Walsh walks into the room, his assistant, Nancy, a half-step behind him.
Ozzie looks away.
“What were you thinking?” Walsh asks, voice low. Furious.
Ozzie looks at his hands.
“Answer me,” Walsh hisses, slamming his hands hard enough against the bars that the metal rattles dangerously - making Ozzie jump.
He’s never seen Walsh like this before - he’s seen the man peeved, annoyed; but, carefully, Ozzie looks at Walsh out of the corner of his eye, and he’s shaking. His white-knuckle grip on the bars between them seem to be the only thing keeping him together.
“Don’t you have a party to be hosting?” Ozzie asks.
It’s the wrong thing to say and he regrets the words as soon as they’re off his tongue.
Walsh pushes off the bars with a snarl and he turns to Nancy and says, “Get him the fuck out of here and take him straight home.”
“I don’t need a babysitter, Walsh,” Ozzie shouts, feeling suddenly miffed as rushes to his feet.
Walsh whirls around, “The fuck you don’t, Ozzie. I told you to leave it alone, that I was going to handle this one personally - instead, you went to a senator’s house and punched him in the face.”
“He tried to bribe me--”
“I don’t care,” Walsh’s face is right in Ozzie’s and he’s pointing with one hand and white-knuckling the bars with the other. “I don’t care what he did. I care what you did and what you did was exactly what I told you not to do. That’s what I fucking care about, Ozzie. Do you have any idea the danger you put yourself in? Do you?”
Walsh’s face is flushed and Ozzie sees it all of a sudden, sees what’s behind this fury - it was fear. There’s something here, something with the senator that Ozzie isn’t quite understanding - something more than just the murmurs of the deals made in the shadows that Ozzie had been investigating.
Quietly, Ozzie asks, “What am I missing? What danger?”
This time, it’s Walsh who looks away.
“Jonathan?” Ozzie presses, his voice still low.
Jonathan Walsh looks at him, from the corner of his eye, says, “From now on - when I say it’s too dangerous, I need you to listen. Please, Ozzie.”
They stand there a moment, staring at each other, trying to read each other, before Ozzie relents first.
“Okay,” Ozzie says. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Walsh echoes. Then he turns to Nancy, says, “Get him home, please.”
Nancy nods in acknowledgement of the order and Ozzie can’t do anything but watch as Walsh walks away, the lines of his shoulders so tense he looked as if he were heading into a battle.
“What happens next?” Ozzie asks Nancy as she pulls up in front of his apartment.
“Only the next twenty-four hours will tell,” Nancy says, her tone ominous and foreboding.
Ozzie raises his eyebrows, but she offers nothing else - so Ozzie gets out of the car.
-
Glint Enterprises Halloween Party, two years ago
Jonathan Walsh walks into the room, his assistant, Nancy, a half-step behind him.
Jonathan Walsh walks into the room and he throws his hands up and says, “Good evening, humans. It’s that time of year to surrender to your local lizard overlord - as you know, I’m here to undermine the human race and subvert all of your known power structures.”
Jonathan Walsh grins wild and wide, his green prosthetics moving easily with his face, as the crowd calls out, “Welcome” and “we happily surrender” and--
--and Ozzie takes a sip of his champagne, tipping his cowboy hat low to do what he can to hide from the crowd. It’s not the same hat as his first year - this one is nicer, all clean lines and soft to the touch - but the bandana is the same. He’s also wearing Wranglers and cowboy boots and, in the hand not holding his champagne, he’s holding a professionally done-up wanted poster.
He watches as Walsh circles the room, greeting his many employees and their families, recalling names and facts with practiced ease.
Then he stops in front of Ozzie and Ozzie passes the wanted poster over to Walsh without a word.
“Wanted for assault, espionage, and organizing violent gatherings,” Walsh reads out, his smile getting wider as he goes.
Things had been cool between them the past year - Walsh had disappeared for a week after bailing Ozzie out. Then he’d shown up at work one day with a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it limp and nothing was ever said about the senator until, a month to the day, an article dropped that detailed each and every one of the senator’s many sins. Ozzie had tried to ask, but Walsh never gave him any real, straightforward answer.
As Walsh admires the poster, Ozzie admires the prosthetics - Jonathan’s mother had somehow managed to out-do herself once again. The scales didn’t seem to end at the hairline, but somehow managed to look like they continued on underneath - as if Jonathan’s hair was a wig sitting atop the scales. There were minute color variations along his cheeks and down by his mouth, and there were even extra folds of skin on his neck, with his scales disappearing down into his shirt and, briefly, Ozzie wonders just how committed to the costume Jonathan is, wonders just how far down those scales go.
Jonathan - because he seems to have developed some sort of Ozzie-related sixth sense that tells him what Ozzie is thinking or feeling or, as was shown last year, warns him when Ozzie is about to do something truly stupid - looks up at Ozzie with a leer in his golden eyes.
Ozzie freezes and casts about for a distraction.
“Um,” he starts, then lands on, “You should bring your mom to one of these things. I’m sure she’d love to see how much everyone loves her work.”
Jonathan snorts and looks back down at the poster, says, “She doesn’t like crowds.” He hands the poster back to Ozzie, but doesn’t immediately release it. “I always make sure she knows, though.”
“That’s good,” Ozzie says, nodding.
Jonathan releases the poster.
-
Glint Enterprises Halloween Party, one year ago
Jonathan Walsh walks into the room, his assistant, Nancy, a half-step behind him.
Jonathan Walsh walks into the room and he throws his hands up and says, “Good evening, humans. It’s that time of year to surrender to your local lizard overlord.”
Jonathan Walsh grins wild and wide, his green, scaly prosthetics moving easily with his face, as the crowd calls out, “Welcome” and “we happily surrender” and--
--and Ozzie says it right with them.
The champagne flows freely and the night seems to stretch and stretch, as if time were standing still just for them.
It felt ominous.
Like the calm before the storm.
The crowd begins to dwindle and Ozzie and Jonathan make eye contact and Ozzie watches as Jonathan slips out. Ozzie downs the rest of his drink, chasing that light buzz, feels a thrill of something as he slinks towards the exit himself.
Jonathan is in his office, lit only by the lights of the city before him, and he turns when he hears Ozzie enter.
Ozzie’s an astronaut again this year - he thinks about that, standing before Jonathan in his lizard man costume, with his golden eyes seeming to reflect back red in this low light. He sighs as he settles against the window, and there’s a hissing sound to it that makes Ozzie straighten.
Ozzie steps in close to Jonathan, and raises a finger to his cheek.
The scales are cool to the touch.
“Sorry,” Ozzie says, his voice hoarse as he lowers his hand, “I don’t think I messed them up.”
“They’re pretty sturdy,” Jonathan says, keeping his own voice low, “you can’t mess them up.”
“Are they comfortable?”
Jonathan snorts, as if there was something hilarious about the question, before he answers, “No, Ozzie. They’re not.”
And if the conversation continues after that, Ozzie’s not part of it.
He thinks they kiss, he thinks he puts his hands in Jonathan’s hair as Jonathan pulls him in flush.
Or maybe that was a dream, because, when Ozzie finally leaves for home - he does so from the main hall, and Jonathan’s nowhere in sight.
-
Now
Jonathan holds his hair in one hand and his human face in the other and grins as he says, “We come in peace.”
Ozzie blinks.
Gold eyes flecked with red stare back at him, bright green scales with minute color variations stretch over Jonathan’s face.
“Well, I mean,” Jonathan shrugs, “we don’t, but the invasion is practically over. We already control everything.”
Ozzie blinks. Then it hits him--
“Is that what the thing with the senator was about? When you said I was in danger?”
All at once the good humor drains from Jonathan’s face and he nods and says, “Yeah. You’re lucky the cops got there in time because he was ten seconds away from eating you.”
“Eating?” Ozzie gapes, voice high.
“Don’t worry,” Jonathan says, faux-casual as he sets aside the wig and the face, before turning back to Ozzie with a wide smile, “I ate him first.”
Ozzie puts his hands in his hair, “Oh my god, you’re a cannibal.”
“He threatened you,” Jonathan says, “I was within my rights.”
“I have so many questions.”
Jonathan leans back in his chair and makes a sweeping gesture, an invitation for Ozzie to sit and to ask away.
Ozzie does sit, but can’t quite find his voice. Instead he lets himself take Jonathan in; his scales are more vibrant in the sunlight, the iridescent sheen of the scales on the high point of his cheekbones draw Ozzie in - to the point he finds himself leaning forward without intentionally doing so.
“I can’t believe you were just out there, telling everyone what you were,” Ozzie says, quietly. “This whole time.”
“Hiding in plain sight,” Jonathan says. “It’s a strategy I’m a fan of.”
“What did you mean you were within your rights to,” Ozzie makes a face, “cannibalize the senator?”
Jonathan wrings his hands for a moment before he leans back and pulls a folded up piece of paper from his pocket and passes it over.
“I’ve been carrying this with me for thirty years,” he explains, watching as Ozzie unfolds the paper and then stares down at his own drawing. “I don’t know how to say it, so I’m just going to say it. You’re mine, Ozzie.”
Ozzie’s head whips up to look at Jonathan - who’s leaning forward himself now.
“You’re mine,” Jonathan repeats, voice intense and his eyes hard. “You’re my ward, my employee, my friend. After the yo-yo incident, I formalized it - in writing and everything - that no other Reptilian, nor Gray nor White - was allowed to harm you under threat of swift and severe retaliation.”
“There’s paperwork for that kind of thing?” Ozzie asks, internally reeling from the revelation.
“There’s paperwork for that kind of thing,” Jonathan confirms. “There’s always paperwork.”
“Why me?” Ozzie asks.
“All those years I watched over you,” Jonathan says, “you taught me empathy. You taught me what it was like to be human.”
Ozzie looks down at the drawing in his hands.
“At last year’s party,” Ozzie looks up, “what happened? Because I’m starting to recognize which blank spots in my memory are due to alien fuckery, and I think that’s one of them.”
“We kissed,” Jonathan admits, “you realized you weren’t smearing my ‘make-up’. You freaked out and started yelling.”
“So you wiped my brain?”
“If it makes you feel any better,” Jonathan says, leaning in a little further, a little further, a further, “I hated myself for it.”
Ozzie opens his mouth, but can’t think of what to say - not when they’re so close like this, so he says nothing and instead closes the distance between them. Jonathan makes a noise, something in the back of his throat that Ozzie doesn’t have time to analyze before Jonathan is reaching out and bodily hauling Ozzie over into Jonathan’s lap.
Ozzie has always known that Jonathan was strong - the man was meticulous with his workout routine, but that move? That took more strength than what one could get from lifting weights.
“Fuck,” Ozzie mutters before he leans back down, kissing Jonathan long and slow and filthy. Jonathan growls into the kiss as he clamps one had on the back of Ozzie’s neck, and the other grips Ozzie’s hip - anchoring them both as the room begins to heat up.
But then, just as Jonathan’s hand starts to slide up Ozzie’s back - the door to the cabin is kicked in and Agent Foster is there, gun raised.
At first, she sputters and blushes, but bravely powers through her spiel. Then she blinks, eyes going back and forth between Ozzie and Jonathan, the former still in the latter’s lap.
“What the hell kind of disguise is that, it’s not even Halloween,” Foster snarks.
Ozzie says, “Glint Enterprises takes Halloween very seriously.”
Beneath him, Jonathan snorts out a laugh.
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End.