“Gosh, really?” says Caden, who is enjoying being snuggled like an overgrown teddy bar quite a bit. “I most certainly believe you, oh wise and noble sage. Do you have any kernels of dire wisdom to dispense?”

“We’re snuggling! And this is important and great because you’re adorable and I like you,” he declares, with an added squeeze of snuggly punctuation.

Caden is temporarily rendered unable to breathe. Caden doesn’t particularly mind. 

Pleasant snuggling continues on for several minutes, before the surrounding pumpkin lets out a pleasant chime.

”You will be approaching your destination within ten minutes. Please make sure that you are presentable, and ready to promptly proceed.”

”... um, do they often have trouble with students having sex in the spider-pumpkins?”

“Huh? - oh, ‘presentable’ - proooooobably? Like, vamps kinda have to be super promiscuous, and we’re, like, a third of the witch population, so there’s cultural bleedoff.” 

(He reluctantly stops imitating an unusually cuddly bear, and instead commences the process of pulling on underwear.)

(Caden scoots obligingly to the side, and starts putting on his own selection of woven textiles. When someone - 6’6? taller than that? - and built like a bodybuilder - to the point that you’re pretty sure they’ve eaten from the Tree of Physicality and regularly pop cherries of vigor - starts doing something requiring full use of their range of motion, you get out of the way.)

”Huh. I was raised by a perfectly mundane assortment of people, personally, so I suppose I sort of missed out on - little cultural things, like that?”

“It’s kinda a big cultural difference, I think? Like, some days normies just don’t have sex, even when they’re adults, it’s really weird - you didn’t even hear any ‘witches are sluts, hahaha, I’m super hilarious’ jokes?”

“My childhood was pretty isolated - the little village that I lived in was worried about people exploiting me and didn’t want to hand me over for an apprenticeship, I mostly stuck around maybe three different houses - and of course I’ve spent the past two years in an even worse position to socialize? It is, I think, generally safe to assume that I haven’t heard any given joke.”

“What happened to the anarchist who laid an egg? He hatched up a revolution.”

- he takes a moment to get it, and then he bursts out into helpless giggling.

“You’re so cute!” Zeke beams, in the process of buttoning up his pants. “I wanna cuddle you some more and tell you bad jokes, c’mere.”

Caden obliges, still giggling.

Then Caden can sidle on into his lap, and he can wrap his arms around him and rest his chin on his head and in general snuggle up, and he can spend the rest of the pumpkin ride telling terrible jokes. 

(He totally has an erection. He doesn’t seem to feel any urgent need to act on it.)

Caden doesn’t mind the erection, actively enjoys the cuddling - there’s a popular stereotype that vampires are physically cold, but being heartless doesn’t much impede their circulation, and Zeke is accordingly warm - and continues giggling helplessly at terrible jokes.

The pumpkin door eventually pops open, with a prim, traditionally witchy woman standing on the other side.

”Hello!” she says, with a bit of a honey accent, smiling insincerely. “I am here to record your names, circles, and provinces of origin, and to assign you to your room."

"Oh, um - Caden Yuzu, first circle, the Land of Tea?"

The prim woman blinks.

"- I see. And you?" she says, addressing Zeke.

"Ezekiel Blackberry, second circle, from the Land of Milk," he says, un-self-consciously continuing to cuddle.

(Caden seems a little self-conscious about being on the lap of an attractive giant in front of other people, but not so much so that he removes himself.)

The witchy woman nods, and writes something inscrutable on some manner of clipboard.

"Thank you," she says. "Since you are both third circle or higher, you have both been automatically assigned to Allspice Hall - and, as you are the seventh pair assigned to that hall so far, you're in room seven. Very tidy, that way. Here are your room keys, and here are your pamphlets; all halls will have introductory meetings in five hours, and you are expected to attend. Please exit the pumpkin promptly, and do not forget any possessions you want to keep. Have a great day!"

She walks away, rapidly, smile fading into a scowl, the sound of high heels clicking on pavement fading into the distance.

"Huh. Wonder what stabbed her with a penknife," Zeke says, playing around with his key in one hand and determinedly clinging with the other.

(It's a cute little key lime attached to a chain. Actual, non-punny keys would be entirely too normal to suit Citrouille, apparently.)

"I imagine that she's having an unpleasant day - this is probably a really busy time of year for her?"

... he attempts to remove himself from Zeke's lap.

Zeke doesn't seem to notice! He continues absently snuggling with his shiny new best friend and fiddling with his shiny new toy.

"I dunno. Some people are just sorta passively bitchy, you know? Knew this one guy back when I was ten, never went a day without hearing him complain about something - one time we went out to this creek together and I swear, he said ‘ew!’ a couple hundred times, I started asking him ‘what’s ‘ew with you!’ and he eventually shut up - I had a fling with the girl he was engaged to, later, though, so, uh, yay for petty disproportionate revenge, I guess? Man, I was kinda an asshole when I was sixteen, all my weird anecdotes from back then make me sound like a dick -”

"- um, Zeke?" 

"- yeah? Sorry, I talk over people when I start rambling, it's a bad habit and I'm still totally interested in what you have to say -"

"I don't suppose I could get out of your lap and walk over to our dorm?"

"- oh, shit, sure!” he says, removing the arm that had previously prevented this action. “I’m so sorry, you probably have, like, confinement trauma, and here I am being clingy and weird - and are you sure you don’t wanna go somewhere official and tell them to up their guard detail, first?”

"Um. He’d, um, he’d have to be kind of arrogant to try to kidnap me, now that I’m in one of the best defended places in the Empire, and I know him well enough to think that he won’t? - but I should still almost certainly still tell someone important, you’re right,” says Caden, removing himself from Zeke’s lap.

“I suppose I’ll... go do that, and then head over to the dorm?”

Wow he sure did fuck up this instance of social interaction uuuuuuggghhh okay its probably salvageable later -

“Sounds good. See you then?”

Oh gosh that was so awkward aaaaaa -

“Um, see you then!”

Off he walks.