Browsing the Wares [Closed] [Cosplay Booth]

Like Lucia, Finn had spent the afternoon perusing the convention, though with a rather more laid-back pace. And instead of the varied and often quite impressive attractions, his attention had been focused on the other attendees. Specifically, the ladies. And, even more specifically, the numbers stuck to their fronts.

When he had arrived at the convention, he'd been given a slip with a number written on it, which he wasn't supposed to look at. Apparently, this was on the honour system, which had presented him with a bit of a conundrum. Once, when he was a very young fox boy, his parents had told him that if anyone ever extended him that level of trust and he didn't betray it at least a little, his tail would fall off. Though he didn't believe the story (his upbringing had involved a lot of these little fictions), he agreed with the principle: being honest was so thoroughly un-foxy! On the other hand, if the main event started and he knew who his target was while she remained ignorant of who was hunting her, it would be too easy to be fun.

He had solved this puzzle almost as soon as it occured to him, and it may have been the elegance of that solution that explained the wry, self-satisfied smile on his face or the jaunty swish of his supposedly fake tail as he walked.

As a fellow red-head, Lucia stood out enough that, even from some distance away, Finn immediately identified her as a lady whose number he hadn't yet checked. He strolled up next to her, pretending to be interested in whatever tat was on display on the counter. He looked at various plastic animal-parts (no match for the real thing!), then in an opportune moment, stole a glance at her front.

When he spied the familiar number, he had to stifle a toothsome smile as a little thrill of delight shivered through him. He felt like the big bad wolf! Well he-llo there, dinner.

"I think the rabbit ears would suit." He said, instead. It was a rather bold cold opener, notwithstanding the reassuringly amicable smile he delivered it with. But, well, you can't really have fun without being a bit bold, and with his aptitude for sniffing out emotions, Finn found he could usually recover from even the most misjudged comments.

Finn smiled warmly at Lucia while she went through her somewhat clutzy sequence of reactions to his greeting. It was really rather adorable actually, and the fox boy's mind was already going to how she might taste- the peppy ones often had rather sweet flesh, and bubbly energy usually expressed itself as very enjoyable squirms. Yum!

Fortunately he seemed to have plenty of time for these sorts of contemplations, and while she was focussed on retrieving the earband or taking in his own costume, his eyes could roam greedily over her body. Her robe obscured its shape a bit too much for him to really see what he was going to be getting his tongue around, but that was okay. It was a bit like looking at a present- part of the fun was the anticipation of unwrapping it!

"That's a shame," He said, when Lucia eventually managed to work her way to an explanation. "A fox knows a good rabbit when he sees one." He adopted a mock sage-like expression as he made that proclomation, then let it drop into a playful smile. "Though you also make a very nice... princess?" His eyes flicked up to look at what he was guessing was some sort of crown. The contrast with his own low-effort getup was stark.

"I was," he continued, about to move on to some sort of lie about being interested in a sheep-wool poncho or kangaroo-paw gloves or something, when he noticed that he had apparently been upstaged by his own tail. He trailed off, and gave it a proud little flick to better show it off.

"Why, thank you." He ran his hand along it from base to tip, giving it a little whip-like lash as his fingers passed over the final white fluffy strands. "Actually, you wouldn't be mistaken." The line of his smile curled up mischievously, and he watched her face, waiting for her to understand that. But before she got a chance to actually voice her opinion, he quickly added "Well, not entirely. The fur is real. Don't worry, nothing more inhumane than a hairbrush was used to get it."

Unlike Lucia, Finn harbored doubts about his ability to flirt. In his mind, it was all very simple: if he started at friendly small-talk, and then smoothly adjusted his conversational poise all the way to full-on girl-hunting mode, flirtatiousness would be somewhere in the middle. So his expression as she shoved on a pair of bunny-ears was more or less identical to the one he'd give to some fleeing prey who'd just tripped and fallen flat on her butt. Yes, that was lame, his incrementally raised eyebrows seemed to say, and that's adorable.

Although, he had to admit, there really was something appealing about the idea of a princess bunny. His tongue briefly snaked over his teeth at the idea.

Meanwhile, the tail continued to flick casually to and fro, as though it was trying to pretend it didn't know it was being talked about. Finn made no attempt to hide how much he enjoyed it being complimented. It really was his pride and joy, after all- the quintissential vulpine accessory, the emblem of everything foxy, bright and bushy, smooth and silky. And always there behind him, waving like a flag proclaiming how devious and dangerous he was.

Not that Lucia knew any of that, of course, though she did seem to be treating it as if it was electrified. He had no such misgivings about touching her, so before introducing himself, he reached out and gingerly pinched the tip of one of her rabbit ears between two fingers as if it were the real thing, lightly pulling the band a little way up her hair so that it sat more comfortably on her head.

"I'm Finn, your highness." He replied, flashing her a sly smile. "Though I rather like Mr. Fox, too."

Actually, Finn seemed to rather like hearing his name various juxtapositions with "fox". Though he prided himself on slyness and subtlety, he didn't make any attempt to hide his love for all things foxy.

"Oh, everyone loves foxes." He threw the statement out casually, as if it were totally self-evident. "That's why they always win in fairytales, even when they're the bad guys. Sly scheming scoundrels, voracious villainous vulpines, nobody can resist. And nobody's safe around a fox. Especially not... a... bunny." The monster boy flashed her a wink so brief it was almost nonexistent, and gave one of her bunny ears another little tap. He had delivered that mini-monologue with such utter self-possession that an uncritical listener might not have noticed how strange and, well, cheesey it was.

He smirked a little at the follow-up question, half expecting her to suddenly decide that it was too forward and go into another blushing-and-fidgeting fit. "The tail's the important part, really." He said briskly, with a little dismissive wave of his hand. Apparently she wasn't going to get more of an explaination than that.

"And how about you, what's your favourite kind of monster?" He asked, emphasising the final word. "You dressed as a princess so- maybe a dragon? Or something even more... monstrous?" His teeth glinted as he grinned.

Throughout Lucia's valient attempt to match his flirting, Finn favoured her with The Look. His eyes fixed on hers in a long, placid stare. It wasn't a stare that bored into her, more one that serenely declared that it didn't need to, that Finn already knew everything he needed to, that whatever thoughts and feelings were running through Lucia's mind were as open to him as if she were speaking them out loud. The Look had been honed over many years to a matter of muscle memory. In a situation like this, it could heat up the flirtatious tension until the air sizzled. And he was already looking forward to deploying it again later, once she knew his true intentions for her.

He had slightly bent his knees, the better to make eye contact, so the height difference between them was all the more emphasised. Even though it was only a foot, he really did feel like the big bad wolf when she got up on tip-toes to touch his fake fox ear. Beneath it, a real fox ear felt the flick's vibrations fwoomph softly through the fabric, and he resisted the urge to give it a twitch. Whether or not she knew it, Lucia's playful response had just escalated the arms race of teasing, and Finn knew exactly how to respond: overwhelming force.

"Less monstrous?" He made a show of contemplating that for a moment, like it was an idea that had never occurred to him. Then he flashed her a fiendish grin. "That's a matter of perspective. Try closing your eyes, and imagining it from a bunny's point of view." Actually she didn't need to close her eyes, because he defty stepped to her side, reached out and, if she let him, gently cupped his hand over them. He was totally unabashed about touching her face, and kept his hand there while he spoke, though he wouldn't stop her if she resisted or squirmed away.

"Think of it: you've had a comfortable enough life, despite its ups and downs. Only the faintest little pricklings at the edge of your consciousness have ever hinted that there might be anything beyond your cosy little world living in benign coexistence with family and friends. But today, you met a fox. He's bigger than you, he's stronger than you, he's faster than you, he has sharp claws, he has glinting teeth, and all of it's so he can get you. So you turned and ran, but now he's after you. You don't dare to look but you know he's gaining on you. There's no sympathy, no mercy, once he catches you, you're his, and all he wants in his wicked foxy heart is to gobble... you... up." Finn leaned a little closer- he was practically speaking right into her ear, though it was one of her bunny ears rather than a real one.

"So you run... and you run, and he gets closer... and closer. There's nowhere to hide, you can't hope to fight. He can smell your fear, it's making him drool. Closer... and closer... and then..." It was quite obvious that Finn was about to do something to playfully shock her, so he didn't. And then, a heartbeat after the moment passed, he did! His free hand swiped gently up her back, fingers splayed, until it reached the base of her neck and pulled back.

Nimbly, he stepped away, his face the picture of mischievous glee, eyes raised heavenwards in faux innocence.

Lucia wasn't the only one that litle performance had had an effect on. Finn's own heart was drumming in his chest- he'd really riled himself up! He could feel that familiar tension in his muscles, that gnawing emptiness in his gut, that sharpening of his senses, as his body started to switch itself over into hunting mode. He wanted this cute, self-conscious, freckly, blushy morsel, now. He wanted to hear her scream, to see her adorable features twist into expressions of confusion, fear and horror. She already seemed to realise how outclassed she was in some sense, now he wanted her to know what a deadly position that was!

But hard as it was, all those things would have to wait. So as she calmed herself down, so did he, bare chest rising and falling slowly as he wore that mischievous smile of his. "Changed your mind about how monstrous us foxy boys can be?"

He stepped towards her again, making a little jerking motion with his shoulders as he moved as if he might just pounce her, but it was more a playful gesture than an attempt to really fool her. Instead he layed his hand gently and deliberately on her shoulder, in an affectionate way.

"Tell you what, to make it up to you, and for being such a perfect bunny, I'm going to buy you those ears." He flicked his eyes up in their direction in case she'd forgotten they were still there. "But in return, you've got to keep them on all day, okay?" Though he made it a question, he didn't actually sound like there was any real prospect of her disagreeing.

Finn was looking away, down towards his pocket (which, usefully, his onesie had), as Lucia brought up this conundrum, so he didn't make any attempt to hide the disinterest on his face. The 'rabbit' theme had been a fun little spur-of-the-moment thing, and a good justification for some predatory teasing. But really, he wasn't just a fox, he was a fox-boy, and his staple wasn't rabbits, it was ladies. He had added that condition about wearing the rabbit ears without really thinking about it, purely because he enjoyed ordering her around.

Actually, the real reason for all this business with buying the ears was in his pocket. He made a little show of fishing around in there as though what he wanted was buried under something else. Then, he started actually emptying it, first pulling out his phone and placing that on the table, then, on top of it, his ticket for the main event. He nonchalantly placed it face-up, positioning it where he hoped Lucia was most likely to look. This was the second part of his plan- his vulpine nature meant that of course he had to cheat in the main event, but to keep the hunt challenging enough to be fun, he would make sure Lucia was "cheating" too, by knowing that he was her predator.

With that in place, he finally retrieved the money that he'd been pretending to hunt for, and paid for the ears. While he was at it, he snuck a bunny tail off the table and paid for that too, doing his best not to let Lucia see it, if she was distracted.

"Oh, I don't think so." He answered Lucia's question at last, and without hesitation reached up to adjust the two ornaments. The ears were on a band, which he pulled a little further up her head, while making sure the crown-thing rested neatly on top of it. By the time he was done, the two actually worked quite well together: the crown did a good job of hiding the ears' band, and the band helped protect her scalp from the crown. "There. Rabbit royalty." He inclined his head forward in a little bow (as befitted the princess of the rabbits) and in a motion so fast Lucia might miss it, ran his tongue over his teeth (as befitted a scrumptious lady-meal).

One thing left to do. He reached up for her crown again as if to make another adjustment, moving his body close to hers. Then under the cover of that misdirection, his other hand came around behind her, and deftly attached the tail. It was also on a band, just like the ears, only sized for a waist instead of a head. He winked down at her, and gave his own tail a happy flick.