To Be Loved By Death (Art The Clown X Reader)

1

You always loved autumn. It was a transition season, like spring, where everything got colder and crisper in preparation for the winter, the sky getting darker earlier and the trees going crispy with oranges and reds- plus everything tasted really good, that was a bonus. And with Halloween steadily marching it's way closer, you could wear the clothes you like and do your makeup however the hell you wanted and people would just think you just started celebrating early, score one for the weirdos.

It was pissing it down outside, like actually coming down so hard you were surprised it wasn't setting off car alarms. You loved autumn up to a point, this was the fucking point. You stayed a bit later at your part time waitressing job to go close up on your own since your coworker had to dip so now you were running in the pouring rain, in the dark of the autumn evening in hopes that you didn't miss your bus, bet your makeup is totally ruined as well. Classic.

You were panting like a dog when you finally got to sit down under the bus stop shelter, it was old and well worn, the plastic covered in scratches and scuffs and some weird congealed bits where someone went at it with a lighter, the old lamp above you flickering orange and illuminating all the rain flooding down and the spider webs above you. Your thin hoodie was absolutely soaked through, sticking directly to your skin heavily and your feet were killing; polished flats were definitely not good running shoes.

You exhaled a sigh of both relief and exhaustion as you took out your phone to check the time: 19:47, two more minutes until the bus. That wasn't too bad, you must've just made it.

You leaned against the worn plastic of the bus stop as you continued to scroll on your phone for a minute, going through any texts you mightve gotten whilst you were on shift or what else you might need to get done for tomorrow. Jesus Christ this is never ending, is it? You eyes were down but you figured you'd hear the bus coming when it did, you know, because it's a bus, and buses as loud as fuck.

Instead what you heard was a couple playful little honks of a bicycle horn right next to your face.

You flinched, of course you did, jumping out of your skin a little and back, looking around for the cause of the sound until you landed on some wierd dude in a Halloween costume. He was really going for it too, oversized black clown shoes, one of those half and half, monochromatic pierrot costumes seemingly covered in way too much fake blood for this economy with a painted face and a hood and a filled bin bag over his shoulder like a homeless Santa Claus. The whole shebang.

He seemed to be doing a bit on top of that since he was laughing at you, but no sound was coming out, like he was dramatically miming it out, pointing, throwing his head back, for what? Honestly, A for effort.

You gave a small laugh back, if only to be polite. "You got me, Jesus Christ, almost gave me a heart attack."

He only grinned wider, showing you his teeth like jaggard rotting tombstones, it looked like the only possible way they were still embedded in his head was that if he took a hammer at put them there himself. Nasty. His smile took up all of his face the same way a child would if you told them to 'give a big big smile!' only his eyes were too small to be as expressive as they were.

He moved from where he was standing a strolled over to go take a seat next to you at the bus stop, taking the bag off his shoulder and dropping it on his side with a metallic clunk before excitedly putting his hands on his lap. You went to go look back at your phone because you obviously didn't want to bother a stranger like that but it was getting increasingly hard to do that with him literally breathing down your neck, you could've sworn he sniffed you a couple times too.

He absolutely stank. You couldn't even think of what it was exactly, it was just ratchet. It was almost like rotting meat on a hot summers day, or a bin or the inside of the drain at your dad's friend's house that's seared into your brain because you thought it was the gateway to hell, maybe a mix of all of them and weirdly a little bit like sweet popcorn? His breath was cold, like icy on your wet skin, even his body didn't really have any heat to it. It freaked you out.