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All Hallows Haunt and All Must Have Fun

The fog had begun near the dusk hours, coating all the plants and flowers in the garden. It settled, heavy, and blanketed everything with a new cover that was only matched in mood by the graveyard that had unearthed itself from the grass and the moss. Names were etched on each gravestone, but the most unnerving part was that every few steps, if you stopped and listened very, very carefully, you might hear a knock of a human hand against hard wood. It was almost as if the dead were being called upwards.

The maze stood normal, but inside around the corners, there were things lurking and waiting.

Outside might have become frightening and gloomy, but the contrast to indoors was stark. Inside, carved pumpkins lit with candles turned the ballroom and restaurants into amber-lit abodes, costumed partygoers twirled to the music played by the band in the lobby (while the DJ had set up in the conservatory). Candy and small hors d'oeuvres circulated on the trays of immaculately clad waiters and though outside it was stormy, foggy, and spooky, inside was a delight of themed drinks, delicious food, and the manic and half-crazed mood of people in the midst of their fun.

The party for Halloween had begun.

And there was no telling when it might ever end.

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She's not really helping her case much. It doesn't matter. He's enjoying the conversation. If he wasn't, he'd've already gotten up to leave.

"Oh, you would," he counters. "I'll bet your thinking about it now." Though he does arch an eyebrow at her long-winded nickname. He leans in a little. "Let me ask you something - have you ever before?" Yes, he's asking about sex, but she may need him to clarify. He might be amused if she does.

As for lying, well, he hasn't actually lied to her. As best he can recall anyway.

No. She will not admit to thinking about it right now. He was the one who brought it up! Of course she was thinking about it. Her skin feels warm and flushed and she just shakes her head at him. She won't say those words out loud because... well, she's stubborn.

Then he leans in and asks her that. "Have I...?" She asks, shaking her head. And for a moment she does have to think about it. But then she realizes what he's asking and her eyes grow wide and doe like. "Yes." She says defensively.

But then she deflates a little. "With two people... not at the same time." She probably seems pretty pitiful to someone like Harvey. A joke.

He nods at her answer. She's nineteen. He's not expecting her to have had sex with two dozen people already. That would be insulting. And while he's a giant dick a good bit of the time, he can sometimes manage to not be.

"Did you like it?" he asks and this one almost sounds like a perfectly innocent question. This is just conversation. Doesn't everyone talk about sex this nonchalantly?

The question does sound innocent enough and that gets Dawn to settle back into the cushions of the couch again, some of the defensiveness seeping out of her. She lifts her shoulders in a shrug. Having sex with Nick had been a mistake. It was Kenny she had had feelings for. Dawn just royally and purposefully messed that up. And then Xander who she had once loved and no longer loved in that way. That one had been messed up, not by her, but by the universe.

How was the sex?

"Nick was a mistake. I try not to think about it." She says. "But Xander was good. I liked it. Now it makes me ew cause I love him like a friend, but... it was good when we were together."

He can almost hear the thinking going on, but not in the way he could 'feel' it before with all of the empathy in his head. This is just standard Harvey Specter observational skills.

"Dawn," he says softly, "mistakes are a part of life. My question was - did you like it. Did you enjoy doing it. Forget about the people. Just the act itself." Yes, he's aware that the 'who' is just as important as the 'what', but that isn't his current question. He's making her think and separate things.

Her shoulders slump a bit and her lips twist thoughtfully. It was hard to separate the who from the act itself. She had never thought of it that way. The who had always been so important to her sister. And that had rubbed off on Dawn. In fact, Dawn had gleaned a lot from her sister. That was why she had messed up so royally with Kenny and Nick.

And maybe the fact that she had to think so hard about it was telling in and of itself. "It was alright. There weren't explosions. The Earth didn't move. But... that doesn't mean it wasn't good."

Maybe he grins at her a little. "You do know that TV and movies lie about the first time being great, right? It almost never is. Especially if both people have never done it before," he explains. "But, the people you were with, did that affect how you felt about the sex itself?" Don't ask him why he's having this conversation with her. Maybe it's to keep from eating fifteen pounds of candy. Maybe it's because he doesn't have any pot on him that he could show her how to smoke. Maybe that 'power up' room affected him more than he thought it had even after the powers wore off.

"Yes, I'm not stupid." She says defensively at first. "I know it's not perfect." No she did not know. No one ever talked to her about all of that. She just watched her sister make mistake after mistake with gus. And in turn, Dawn had made a lot of mistakes in that area too.

She calms down and shrugs a bit, picking at a wrapper of cherry flavored taffy. A part of her is telling herself not to confide in Harvey. Another part of her wants to because Harvey is being so cool about it all right now. "Maybe. Yeah. I guess it did. The first time was a mistake and it was... not good. And then with Xander... I wanted it to be good so I made it good... if that makes sense."

Dawn pauses, then looks over to Harvey. "You've probably had a lot of sex, huh? Good sex."

Her defensive answer gets a look that essentially says 'calm the hell down'. She does, and he'd like to think it was because of the look he gave her, but he won't admit it if it wasn't.

Harvey's usually pretty cool about almost everything. Almost.

"Why was the first time a mistake?" he asks gently and waits for her answer. Regarding Xander, he nods. It makes sense. Unless she means she 'magic'd' it to be good, then it doesn't make much sense, because why would you want fake good?

Does she remember that wicked shit-eating grin of his? It's back in response to her question about his sex life.

That grin of his is exactly what she would expect of Harvey. Of course he's had lots of sex. And of course it's all been good. Probably better than good. He probably has the best sex of all the sex that ever did sex.

She sighs and shakes her head, looking away again. "Because I was falling in love with his roommate. So I messed it up before it could get messed up as all things eventually do. Love is messy." If watching her older sister cycle through guy after guy had taught her anything, it was that truth.

Dawn pauses for a bit here, looking down at the wrapper in her hands. "You know how sometimes you think about all the hypothetical things that could or might happen and then you end up psyching yourself out instead of just letting things be good for however long good might last? I do that over-thinky thing too much. But Kenny was a great guy. Maybe too nice. His roommate, Nick, the one I had sex with, he was kind of a douchebag."

She shrugs and looks back to Harvey for any sign of judgement or poking fun at this or anything like that. "I hurt him before he could hurt me. And then he cast this stupid spell on me because he was hurt. Strangely, we ended up friends even after that."

While getting him to admit to any less-than-good sex would be like pulling teeth from an angry crocodile, but it has happened a couple times. Should the appropriate opportunity ever present itself and Dawn have the chance to sleep with Harvey, the sex will definitely be good.

Her answer makes him frown in confusion. "So, you were dating one guy, but falling for a different guy, so you screwed it up? Why not just date them both? Or sleep with the one just to find out what it's like, then date the other?" This would be a practical solution.

Her next question earns a shake of his head. "No. I don't imagine things that way. I set goals. Then I achieve them. The good always lasts." Harvey is that guy who turns what looks like a failure into a win from a different angle.

"Spell?" he asks, curious now. "Do I even want to know?"

"No. I was dating one guy and fell for him. Then I got cold feet and broke us up by sleeping with his roommate instead of with him." Classic self-sabotaging. From what Dawn saw, loving someone always hurt. She had started to feel that for Kenny. It scared her.

Her nose wrinkled. "What, like a threesome? I'm not sure that's my style. I mean if I had a style. It would probably not be that."

She listens to Harvey explain his no nonsense way of handling things, his way of handling people. It makes sense toward what she knows of him. "Your way is the best way. Except I'm not sure that's my style either. Nothing's that simple, you know?" People aren't that simple. She isn't that simple.

"It was actually a pretty cool spell, in hindsight." She says with a grin at Harvey. "Kenny was a Thricewise Demon and every spell he casts has three parts to it. So he cast his spell on me. And it turned me into three different transformations over an extended period of time. First I was a giant for awhile. Then I was a centaur. And then I was a living doll." Her hands form the height of something just a bit smaller than a barbie doll would be. "About that tall. It was kind of creepy. But... cool spell."

Oh no, Dawn - mayday! You hit on exactly the wrong topic. "Cheating." He blinks at her. "Cheating is how you chose to deal with it?" This may be the one time 'judge-y' is a thing. Like an actual thing and not just Harvey being an ass.

Regarding the threesome: "That could work, but that's not what I said. I said fuck the one to get it out of your system, then date the other one that you really like." The cheating thing is going to take a bit to wear off.

"Set goals, then achieve them," he says. "It doesn't take a specific style. The goals go with your style, not against it."

Now he does give her an incredulous look. "You cannot be serious," he says. What she's said makes absolutely no sense. Not to him.

Oh, she knows it was awful of her. She deserved Kenny's anger and hurt. And she would forever feel guilty for that. She probably even deserves Harvey's judgement. But it wasn't something she could undo either. She shrugs and nods, looking down as she rips open a twizzlers wrapper. "Yeah, I know. I'm the worst of all the worsts."

And honestly, in turn, she had hurt herself too. Because she had been falling in love with Kenny. That was the scary part.

"Maybe I don't know what my style is." She admits, chewing on a twizzler stick. She nods, answering around the cherry goodness. "Totally serious."

At some point, if she manages to wiggle her way into a bit more of his psyche, she may hear a bit about the 'why' on the cheating thing.

He arches an eyebrow at her, listening to all of her responses. "As long as you're aware," he says, probably not as gruff as one might think.

"Then it's time you find your style. What do you want? Casual sex? Long-term relationships? Rough sex?" And maybe he gives her a leer. He is an evil flirt.

"Oh I'm aware. I'm not usually the hurting people type." Which is true in a sense. Even though her very existence is about chaos and destruction. Dawn, the mortal, is usually very perceptive and aware of how her actions affect other people. Honestly, with Kenny, she had panicked and ended up causing all of that destruction herself. She did have the decency to feel guilty about it though.

Hindsight was always twenty-twenty.

She didn't miss that Harvey had been affected by the tale. But she tried to look past that and hope he didn't judge her too terribly bad. She would ask why he was affected. But she didn't want to dwell on things that made her look really bad to Harvey, as she could tell her one indiscretion did.

"My style?" She asks, her lips twisting into a wry grin. "Pshh... I don't know. It's... I want to have fun. But... I want the fun to go somewhere too. You know? I want it to be like a romantic comedy. Imperfect and terrifying and hilarious and tumultuous and... you never know what's coming next but hopefully it isn't angst cause... I've seem way too much of that. And now I'm rambling."

She looks to Harvey. "What's your style?"

If he thought she was the 'hurting people type', he wouldn't still be sitting here talking to her. He would've walked away long long ago. And hindsight has an annoying way of being right a lot.

People make mistakes. Even Harvey (even if he probably wouldn't admit it without a really good reason). Teenagers tend to make a few more than the average bear. He knows this. So, he's likely to be a bit more forgiving than he might otherwise be.

He looks at her. "So, you're less into the casual sex for fun and more into sex that means something?" He nods. "I get that." It's not how he operates, but he gets it.

"Yeah, more or less. That's the truth." The problem was that while that was true, Dawn was a very emotion-fueled creature to the point of being led by those emotions. Her emotions were wild and chaotic. Giles had once told her it was because it was her nature. The Key, to bring chaos to the world. If Giles said it, it had to be right.

"But..." She looks over to Harvey. If it was honesty time, and he wasn't judging her or making her feel stupid, she was going to tell him the truth. "I liked your kiss. I kind of wanna do it again sometime. And even though you're sometimes an ass, I like you too. Too, as in not just your kisses but you as a person."

How the two of them manage to get along is anyone's guess. Harvey avoids emotions - having them anyway; and Dawn is pretty much nothing but emotions; yet, somehow, he hasn't walked away. Maybe he considers her a challenge of some kind.

Is she sure that's where she wanted to go with that? She's seen his self-satisfied smirk before, but now she'll be treated to the 'I so WIN' version. He really is an egotistical ass. He nods at her. "I know," he says. And not only to the clarification of the 'like' situation, but in general to everything she's just said.

From Dawn's end of things, it was an issue of opposites attract. She had the same sort of crush on Harvey that she'd once had on Spike, someone she shouldn't like but did, maybe a man of questionable morals. The bad boy. Even though Spike had been a lot more on the side of 'bad' back then than Harvey was... as far as she could tell. It was just a certain vibe he put off. Dawn was attracted to that vibe. And she really had no idea what to do with that attraction aside from continue to hang out with him.

Incidentally, she liked hanging out with him. Even when he infuriated her.

Like now. That 'I know' is so smug she could smack him. But it's also so cocky that it's the very reason she likes him. She could only ever wish to come off as cocky and self-assured as he does. And he makes it look effortless. She rolls her eyes in a most dramatic fashion. "Of course you know, all knowing Harvey. Of course you do."

Harvey would argue with anyone who questioned his morals. He would argue less about being dubbed a 'bad boy' though.

If one were to ask, Harvey would not likely admit that he wasn't opposed to hanging out with Dawn.

He frowns. "I've never been accused of omniscience before, so that's new." He grins again, less smarmy this time. "So, is this all you're going to do all night? Stuff your face with candy and talk about not having sex with me?"

Dawn smirks. "Stick with me. I'll just keep throwing new stuff your way."

"Pretty much. I guess I'm kind of boring, huh." But to be fair, Harvey had convinced her not to go outside looking for trouble. So boring might be his fault too. Not just hers.

"I don't doubt that for a minute." Magic disappearing girls and girls who used to be some mystical energy thing - he's sure there will be more.

He gives her a brief frown. "Did I say you were boring?" He doesn't remember saying that. Or thinking that.

"I guess not." He hadn't said it. But why would a guy like Harvey want to sit and eat candy with her. Maybe he just liked hearing her say how pretty he is. But she was done with that, for now.

"So are you gonna hang out?" She asks.

"Is there a reason I shouldn't?" he asks, digging into the basket of candy for something chocolate. "I can leave if you'd rather I not stay." If he wasn't interested, he'd've already gotten up to leave.

All Hallows Haunt and All Must Have Fun

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