Long Story #5: Tricks and Treats (V. Trick-Or-Treat, Smell My Seat & VI. Scooby-Poopy-Doo-Doo)

V. Trick-Or-Treat, Smell My Seat: (Content Tags: Supernatural, messing, diapers, seat-sniffing, karma, regression) Corbin exuded both the vigor of youth, and the grouchy attitude of age, all wrapped up in one enigmatic package; he was fresh out of college, but he'd immediately been handed both a nice job, and a very generous inheritance from his late great-uncle. Combining such fortuitous events had meant that he'd been able to afford a nice house, in a nice neighborhood, well before many of his peers had moved out of apartments or their parent's house. He took a lot of pride in that, and in the adulthood he'd secured for himself in general; he worked from home mostly, so he had become something of a recluse, and while he might still perceive himself as a young bachelor, he had grown as crabby as an old man in regards to his property. He didn't want people loitering, or soliciting, and above all else, he didn't want snot-nosed brats parking themselves on his lawn. He didn't want them skating down his driveway, just because it was smooth; he didn't want them playing in the mud at the edge of his yard after a good rain; he didn't want games of tag or hide and seek to spill out across his perimeter. Corbin had little to no patience for children, and he wasn't shy about that fact. One kid that he especially hated, who seemed to want to press his buttons, was the weird kid from across the street: Salem. Salem was a small, somewhat doughy, ginger boy, with mischief that sparkled in his emerald eyes. He was young, maybe five or six at the most, but he had a wry cleverness to him that suggested he was precocious beyond his years. He often broke the rules that Corbin set about his lawn, and every time that the young man wandered out, the brat was out in his big-wheel, asking if Corbin wanted to play. If the kid didn't have such big goofball energy, then Corbin would have accused him of being like the kid from The Shining. In addition to that playful vibe, the other aspect that disqualified him from the realm of creepy, was his pottytraining status. Which is to say that it was nonexistent. What a shameful thing, to be school-aged and still traipsing around in diapers! It was pitiful, and an ugly blemish on the nice neighborhood where Corbin had settled. Having some messy-haired tyke wandering around with Pampers on display, ones they were obviously too old for, was something better seen in a trailer park, not the suburbs. Corbin obviously blamed the boy's mother, whom he'd had multiple irritated chats with by now. She was a single woman with a very flighty personality; she kept things loose, lax, and chipper. It was clear to Corbin that her gentle parenting, or rather her overly permissive parenting, was why her son was such a pest, and why he was so behind on something so simple. From all the crystals she wore, he was pretty certain she was some kind of crunchy new-ager, and she probably didn't believe in pushing her son to behave. Probably believed in crap like unschooling and child-led education; probably considered her son's bratty behavior to just be him 'expressing' himself. What a pain. He'd been at the house just shy of three months now, and as the leaves began to change colors, the houses around him began to put on a new look too: Halloween decorations. It was what he had been dreading for a while now, because he knew that it would mean a night of no peace. It would mean a bunch of noisy, excitable children who were hopped up on sugar, and who were darting from door to door in hopes of securing their next score. Lame costumes, gap-toothed grins, sticky fingers knocking at his door or buzzing at his doorbell, and little feet cutting through his nicely manicured lawn. How annoying it would be! Well, he refused to participate. Corbin didn't put up any decorations, he would turn off his porch light, and he even hung a sign on his door that announced to not bother him. He would order in dinner, pour some wine, and put on a good movie. Candy? Oh, he'd get a big bowl of candy, but he wouldn't be sharing it. If any nose-pickers bothered him, he'd open the door with the bowl, just to tantalize them with full-sized candy bars, and then he'd take a big bite of one and shut the door in their face. Let them cry to their parents about the mean man, he didn't care. If there was no option to totally opt out of being annoyed, then he'd at least send a grumpy message. Who cared what the neighbors thought? They weren't the ones paying his mortgage! He deserved to be allowed some peace. The night would soon come, and he'd hear that incessant giggling and shouting from his dim windows; luckily for him, it appeared that his precautions were keeping most of the unwanted attention away. Few kids arrived at his door, and those few left crying or in a huff, once he looked them dead in the eye and took a big chomp from the candy bars they weren't getting. It was all smooth sailing! Until Salem came knocking. The disruptive tyke had a giant smile, the white gleam of which was incomplete, due to the missing baby teeth; he had a plastic pumpkin pail pinched between his mitts, and it was already halfway full of various candies. He was dressed up as a pirate: striped shirt, blue bandanna, and blue tights that stretched out from the obvious outline of a diaper. "Hiya, mister Corbin. Trick-or-treat!" He chirped. Corbin's scowl got deeper, "You shouldn't use a grown-up's first name, it's rude." "Mama says you're not a grown-up, she says you're just a really big kid." The young man furrowed his brow with fury, "She's wrong. I'm an adult, and I know you probably can't read, but I don't want any little babies coming to my door tonight." "Oh, you don't got candy?" The man's frown changed into a sadistic grin, "Oh, I do. Just not for children." He pulled out the bowl and took a full-sized bar out to munch on. "That's not very nice. Only kids are s'pposed to get candy tonight!" "Isn't that what you just called me? Now get off my lawn." He slammed the door shut in the boy's face and wandered back to the couch, feeling pretty good about himself. Hours would pass, his bottle of wine would deplete, and he'd be getting ready to go to bed. And then the doorbell rang again. "Damn stupid kids..." He groaned, going to the door and flipping on the porch light. It was Salem, still dressed as a pirate, with his plastic tub of candy. "What the hell are you doing, kid? You should be in bed by now! I already told you--" His voice went mute, as if stricken by a foreboding aura. Salem was smiling wide. "Trick-or-treat, smell my seat, give me something good to eat! If you don't, I won't swear, I'll just transform your underwear!" It was a mockery of the same silly rhyme that Corbin himself had sung as a bratty child, but here, it felt like it had more power. The man shook his head, trying to regain his composure, blaming the ominous vibe on the wine. "I already told you no, I said..." Salem started to get bigger, or so he thought, until he realized it was the other way around: Corbin was rapidly shrinking, his pants pooling around his ankles, his shirt draping over him like a robe, and his underwear was becoming something entirely new. "Just like mommy says you are." The boy chirped, now a couple of inches taller than his grouchy neighbor. He snapped, and the too-big clothes disappeared, leaving Corbin in just a festive onesie, and underneath that... A diaper? There was no time to explore his surprise on that matter, because he felt his chubby legs growing weak, and he was falling to his knees. The evil force at the doorway jabbed a stubby finger at his chest, and Corbin fell back completely, onto his back. He couldn't move, he was frozen. "You shoulda given me candy the first time, Corby. I've been filling up all night!" What was that supposed to mean? A raunchy, candy-fueled toot would answer his question. "You heard the rhyme; I gave you a second chance!" The boy tutted his tongue, standing over Corbin and turning around, his form blocking the rays of the porch light that came in; the bulky outline of his padded rear was like an eclipse. He couldn't mean... The seat lowered, until it was nearly brushing the grouch's nose, and then another sputtering rumble came hammering into the Pampers like thunder. A large lump began to form, its largess announced by the dry crackling of something massive escaping the boundaries of the bowels. "N-no, pwease! I got candy! You can hab' it! I--" His nose was suddenly engulfed by the swelling backside, nostrils burnt by the vile fumes, and all he could do was take the immature bullying tactic in full. The rustle of plastic came from above him, not just from the diaper this time, and a discarded candy wrapper floated by his head. Salem had his hand in the bowl he had been denied. "Mm, I know! It's good." He chirped, before grunting and letting loose another onslaught of his own personal, full-size 'chocolate bars'. Tonight was all about learning a lesson, about what being a grownup really was, and Corbin was sure to take it to heart for some time to come. If he was even given his age back, that is. VI. Scooby-Poopy-Doo-Doo (Content Tags: Slice-of-life, karmic justice, fear, big brother backfire, pantspooping, bedwetting, diapers) "Scooby-Doo is for babies, Casey. Like, full-on pantload viewing." "Is not! It's plenty scary! It can be spooky, and, and..." "Doesn't count." The argument was contentious; a squabble between two brothers, whose ages created a gulf in what they each respectively considered to be 'appropriate' scary media for the month of October. Kenneth, the older of the two, was prepared for the month with a stack of horror movie tapes, as well as recordings of some of his favorite episodes of The X-Files. Then there was Casey, the younger brother, who lived and breathed all things Scooby-Doo, and who was very excited for the marathon that Cartoon Network would be running for the month. Yet, for the two boys, there was but one television set that they were meant to share, and that meant being able to compromise on who got to use it, and when. Kenny's stuff was obviously way too scary for his baby brother, and Casey's stuff was allegedly too 'babyish' for the older boy to stomach. It made for a real conundrum, one for which neither wanted to yield on; a reasonable compromise would have been to split the scheduling equally, to give them both an opportunity to watch what they wanted, but the brothers were far too stubborn for that. Much to Kenny's chagrin, his little brother had been utilizing his youthful charm against him, by going to their parents with those puppy-dog eyes. It was one of the strongest weapons in a younger sibling's arsenal, for them to rely on their cuteness, and with Kenny entering adolescence, it wasn't something he could utilize for himself anymore. Their parents would keep siding with Casey, with the argument that Scooby-Doo was something they could both watch, while all of Kenny's content was way too scary for the pipsqueak; heck, they hardly were letting him watch it, let alone the little sheet-soaker. It meant that he'd had to play dirty. Luckily for him, he had no qualms in doing so. Casey wasn't being dishonest whenever he called his cartoon spooky; the little boy obviously loved it, as could be seen from his bedroom and wardrobe, for which years of memorabilia and merch had accumulated, but there were episodes and features that freaked him out. So the question became a matter of how he could use that to his own advantage, and if he could scare Casey badly enough, then would he be put off long enough to relinquish his television time for the month. He needed to take stock of which episodes, or which monsters, were the ones that caused his baby brother the most mental anguish; he knew Space Kook was one of them, and Zombie Island had caused a damp spot the first time he saw it, but he figured the boy would be inoculated against those by now. He needed something new, something with teeth. Luckily, the universe would provide with something for the freshly new millennium! Something that combined the 'space horror' that the pop culture of the nineties had fomented, along with the increased fidelity of a theatrical release. Scooby-Doo and the Space Invaders. Casey was terrified of all things 'alien', mostly because of the few X-Files episodes that he'd been made to sit through, and from what Kenny could tell, the newest Scooby movie would be leaning hard on that vibe. It'd just released on video, and while it had cost a chunk of his allowance, he hoped that it'd be well worth the pricetag. The only thing to do was to set the stage, so that it had the desired effect of scaring Casey out of his wits. He'd spent the last few days trying to let the alien aura ferment and grow; he watched his episodes loudly, he played spooky space tunes on his synthesizer with Space Kook's cackle sampled, and he'd been inviting Casey to join him on the couch to catch the right episodes of 'Unsolved Mysteries' that focused on supposed abductions. Heck, he'd even been weaving his own tales and reading up on the phenomenon to the point that he creeped himself out! It was a bit ironic, but after steeping himself so fully into the mythos of little green men and flying saucers, he was finding himself a little more spooked than he would have expected. X-Files and Close Encounters had helped prime that mentality, but doing actual research had definitely made him more sensitive to the fears that could be found from it. Finally, a week and a half into the month, with Casey properly prepped for terror, Kenny would come to him with an alleged olive branch. "I got the newest Scooby movie, if you want to watch it. I hear its as good as the last two." Casey was skeptical of his brother's sudden change of heart and uncharacteristic kindness, but he wasn't about to skip on a new movie. The little boy had miraculously missed all the promotional materials for it, so he'd be going into it completely blind. That evening, with pop and popcorn between them on the couch, the brothers would pop in the tape to the VCR, and Kenny would pray for the right reaction. It took until the ugly broccoli men came onto the screen, for the terror to begin for Casey, and embarrassingly enough, it didn't take all that much longer for all of Kenny's hard work in researching aliens, to blow up in his face. The culmination of all that had set the stage, the fruits of all of Kenny's labor, would hit a climax when the two goofballs of the crew got abducted onto the UFO for experimentation. Casey hid his eyes behind his hands and whimpered, a soft squelch coming from the back of his pajama pants as his bowels evacuated into the seat of his Scooby-Doo printed underoos. He'd wet his pants in fear before, but this was the first time he'd been left carrying cargo in the trunk. If Kenny hadn't embedded himself so deeply into ufology over the last couple of weeks, to the point of inadvertently traumatizing himself, then this would have been his moment of triumph; this should have been the moment he could point at Casey, tug back the waistband on that sagging seat, and proclaim he should be barred from the television altogether! But no, he'd played himself, and now he too would be dealing with the consequences. Baby bro wasn't the only one sitting on a steaming pantload. By the next day, after a thorough review by their parents, all of the scariest material would be locked in the closet. Kenny would be forced to endure the Scooby marathon with Casey, because the little one needed ‘support’ from his big brother, of course. Casey's bedtime protection was now a television requirement in the daytime: cloth diapers with a custom Scooby-Doo cover. And as for Kenny? He wasn't just on diaper duty, he was in diapers too. The older boy grimaced as he heard a soft grunt that was followed by a hard fart, and a muffled squish. Casey, the shameless brat he was, was taking advantage of what he decided to affectionately call his 'marathon pants', with the smug knowledge that it was Kenny's job to tend to his messy rear. Kenny might have been padded too, but he wouldn't sink so far as to go in his pants on purpose. But if the Space Kook episode came on? Well, then he might very well have another icky pantload to sit on.