Of Cheap Scam Tactics and Lavender

                                    

                                          
((Note from 2023: this is my favorite oneshot))
((FUCKING PLATONIC))
((Yes this is Fragrance man. Yes I gave him a name and past. No it isn't canon.))


((Warnings: extra arms, spider features, feelings of inadequacy, anxiety attack, nightmare, reference to falling, brief reference to pulled off limbs))

For some people change was always massive. A rare and stressful affair. 
Not for Schlatt. 
In fact, this was the longest he'd stayed in one place since his 12th birthday. He'd been around for nearly three months now. 
He wasn't sure what it was about the area that led him to finally stilling his ever moving bullet-train life style. Perhaps it was the way that most people didn't find his powers weird. Or maybe it was that he wasn't the only one in the area who held odd abilities. 
He was, however, likely the strangest and most inexplicable. From birth, he'd been able to control his scent. Throughout his life he'd learned to embrace his unusual condition, perfecting it until he could take advantage of it.
And then he did exactly what he'd always done and made it work for him. 
He hid the abilities people were generally less accepting of and played to his strengths. Tying his extra arms to his sides as tightly as he could without causing permanent damage, wearing oversized clothing and layers, remembering not to walk on the walls, and avoiding touching anyone directly so they didn't notice the texture on his hands-
He'd followed his basic protocol perfectly.
Until he didn't.
But shockingly... he wasn't chased out with pitchforks. Sure it took a bit of getting used to for everyone else, but after his initial panicked retreat to the woods everything worked out fine. Hell, he'd even managed to convince the chicken boy to let him move in.
He still hadn't had the confidence to reveal his extra arms, but that was an issue for a later time.
As for now, just having them out and available at night would be enough. Taking a break from the constraints. He lay half propped up against pillows in the otherwise less than comfortable bed, holding his latest project. 
He held it up in the air in front of him, smiling proudly when it fell to nearly two feet in length. He'd been knitting it for a few days in his spare time before bed. Looping together the yarn came incredibly naturally to him, possibly given it's reminiscence to web making. 
He dropped his arms back down near his lap as he continued. He held the yarn loosely in the second set of arms, untangling it as he went. 
Despite the persona he put on, this was one of his favorite things. Quiet hours.
He finished off the row and switched the needles, too lazy to figure out how to go through the motions with both hands. Halfway through he paused. He could have sworn he heard something other than the clicks of metal on metal. Straining, he could just make it out from down the hall.
Crying.
He set everything he was holding to the side and swung his legs over, two of his hands resting on the edge of the bed. Truly, it wasn't any of his business. He leaned back onto his palms. Not his fucking business.
He tapped his foot anxiously, glaring at the floor, trying not to think back to the years that he'd spent crying himself to sleep as a kid and as a teen.