[ Jon is reasonably certain he doesn't qualify as 'hot' to the average passerby— something about the perpetual frown, air of exhaustion, and all the pockmark scars— but bewildered and uninterested are right on the money. Intensely, madly, desperately uninterested.
It took a lot of cajoling to get him at a campfire circle in the first place, and now that he's here, he cannot leave. The stories keep him fixed in place. They are all horrible and they are all true, and therefore he must witness them. He knew it from the moment he sat down and felt, more than heard, the attentive click of the tape recorder at his feet. Every word feeds him and keeps him entranced.
So coming back to himself and realizing that a too-long, prickly limb has settled around his shoulders shocks him out of it with a strangled screech. ]
Wh— d-don't TOUCH me!
[ It's a yelp and a flinch away, wide-eyed and bristling like a spooked cat. The spider has nearly three feet on him. The spider towers. And the spider is touching him. ]
thank you for this gift
It took a lot of cajoling to get him at a campfire circle in the first place, and now that he's here, he cannot leave. The stories keep him fixed in place. They are all horrible and they are all true, and therefore he must witness them. He knew it from the moment he sat down and felt, more than heard, the attentive click of the tape recorder at his feet. Every word feeds him and keeps him entranced.
So coming back to himself and realizing that a too-long, prickly limb has settled around his shoulders shocks him out of it with a strangled screech. ]
Wh— d-don't TOUCH me!
[ It's a yelp and a flinch away, wide-eyed and bristling like a spooked cat. The spider has nearly three feet on him. The spider towers. And the spider is touching him. ]