#Daphne is definitely beginning to find the right direction she needs to head in though

[belethlegwen]

The Faerie Spell - Chp 8

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Words: 10,339

Summary: Daphne slowly comes to the realization she isn't dead, but she's in an unfamiliar place with people she doesn't know: A literal nightmare. Who are these people? Where have they taken her? How hurt is she, and how is she going to get home? As she gets help with her injuries, Daphne begins to get a peek at what kind of help and treatment she *needs*, and hasn't been getting.

Content Warning: Blood, mentions of pain and physical injury.

[Major MAJOR thanks to @adjacentperception for the RP that was used to write this chapter, and for the use of their characters and setting <3 You are wonderful.]

Death had more smells than I was expecting. 

Probably should've been my first hint, huh? 

But nope, before anything else hit me-- before any other experience or feeling or thought of the idea of existing had managed to make it's way through my thick skull, smells were what was doing it. 

I mostly just noticed that the overwhelmingly nauseating smell of garbage was suddenly… gone. Everything else in terms of smell was just a game of 'is this better, or it is just less?', which, either way, was a relief of some kind or another. 

That thick skull started to pound as I managed to identify the familiar smell of the pews back in the church at home, and then I realized I probably wasn't actually dead. Only probably, though-- if I had any amount of a body at all, it sure as hell wasn't interested in moving. Maybe I didn't have a body? That'd be a pretty novel experience, honestly. I hated that even body-less though, my head was pounding away like there was a hand inside of it, gripping my brain directly with sharp-nailed fingers. 

It took a moment to figure out what had happened. I had been flying before I crashed into solid concrete. I had been hit by a car-- weird car, lots of colors-- before I had been flying. I had been running before I had been hit by a weird car. I had been-- 

Oh fuck 

I had been grabbed and tossed around by a kid before I had been running.

It wasn’t a car that hit me, it was a foot. 

I was shrunk again, and I was in a lot of fucking danger. 

Or... I mean, I had been in a lot of danger. I was still only probably not-dead right now, so, maybe those were problems that didn't actually matter. Sounds. Sounds were a part of being alive, right? I only just now was tuning into the extreme humming and ringing in my ears. Did I have ears? I still couldn't tell if I had limbs, at this point, so trying to touch my pounding head to see if there were ears on it was out.

Noises were slowly… slowly coming back to me. It was mostly just a droning sound beyond the high-pitched ringing, the pounding of my own pulse— I guess, anyway— putting little hiccups in it. The droning was interesting, changing pitch, changing rhythm, changing volume a little…

I was just finally accepting that I was very probably alive, wondering when the very very slow return of feeling to my limbs would finish happening, when... well... 

To be fair, it was cold. Whatever had touched my face was wet and textured and cold and weird, and considering I had only just come to the full conclusion that when last I left my mortal coil, it was extremely and dangerously tiny, I think I can be forgiven for my reaction to something that my brain immediately told me was the tongue of a rat or a raccoon or a bird or a bug or something trying to eat me. 

Oh hey look, limbs. We have those, might as well flail them, I guess? 

I was screaming-- as much as I could in the moment anyway-- as my voice tried to come back to life, my eyes snapping open blearily and just seeing this... horrifying shape of an inhuman colour coming toward my face again. My legs started kicking to try and scramble away, but I was on something soft that just shifted under my efforts, and all I managed to do was to twist and flop my body onto it's stomach as noises-- massive, indecipherable noises for the first few seconds-- surrounded me. 

Great. Basically deaf, practically blind, and as I tried to reach forward to grab whatever I was on for purchase to launch myself forward and run away, one of my shoulders seized in so much pain that I fell back onto that side with new, more expressive yelling. 

Something shifted, the light above me being blocked out as I fell onto my back, hoping that the pressure of my weight on that shoulder-- on whatever I was lying on-- would ease some of the pain, and all my body could do as I looked hopelessly up was pant through my attempts to process the only things I seemed to know, now: Hurt. 

Hurt, and a giant, unfamiliar face.

Initially, before my focus really came back through the blur of pain and panic, I thought it might be Mak, only because the skin was similar in color; a brown I probably would’ve thought was beautiful if it wasn’t, y’know, the size of a billboard. The hair wasn’t dark enough and… I mean I couldn’t really make a guess on the eyebrows. I never really got to look at Mak’s face much while I was zonked. Knowing now that it was because he was… weirded out is the nicest way to put it, about my whole thing, if I hadn’t already guessed it wasn’t him by the hair, I would’ve guessed the second two gargantuan hands had started to put up a wall around me as I was scrambling around.

Didn’t know how I felt about any of that. Kind of a bummer to have Mak come up at all in my mind, honestly, in the middle of all of this, now that I think about it. Thanks, brain.

The massive, blurry hands coming into focus as they dropped around me were enough to make me yell again, though I wasn't sure if the yelling was the first reaction, or if it was in response to the first reaction of me trying to squirm away again. A lot was happening, ok? Like... you try it and see if you would've done any better. Nowhere to run to, I just lay still again.

Another gargantuan form slid into view over me from somewhere behind. Not like... directly over, thank god, but my eyes jumped up all the same to stare at it and try to determine what the fuck it was doing. God I wish they hadn't. Beyond the big round shades and the messy hair, the guy looked like he had fallen face-first through a barbed-wire and broken glass factory. 

Why did they seem so much bigger right now? Stars, my heart was practically choking me and every rapid beat made my vision go slightly fuzzier as my head pounded more.

The first one, the one with their arms making a wall around me, started talking and between the heavy breaths and my brain screaming two thousand different instructions at me at once, I could barely make out what she was telling me. Somethingsomething, scare, it's fine, not monsters, my eyes shut tightly to try and focus on the words though it just made my panic scream more inside of me to not be watching whatever the hell was happening. 'You're safe, just want to help.' 

I took in a gasping deep breath as yet another voice entered the ringing, exceedingly loud soundscape, and while I was trying to figure out why a ‘sewing kit’ was being talked about I started to realize that everything seemed to be coming from my left. Was my right ear deaf or just... worse than the left one? No idea. 

"Wait, wait--" God, would they even be able to hear me? My voice was wrecked, and I could barely push words out past the pain in my... shit, can everything hurt? I'm pretty sure every single thing was hurt, somehow, especially my ribs. They were the next part of me to wake up to this fun, fresh hell. "Wait, I-- Ah!" 

A shout of pain left me as I tried to sit up to get a better look at what-- and who-- was around me, but my ribs weren't having it. I collapsed back, uselessly, my eyes watering as I stared up at the closest face again. Maybe I should just focus on her until I could work out some actual words, maybe just pretending there's only one person looking at me while I'm like this would make me feel better. 

Blinking caused my whole vision to become an abstract painting. I felt hot tears start streaking down my face. Hahahaha, of course I wouldn't feel better. Great. Fantastic. I should've aimed to fall into the trashcan or something. Death would've been so much simpler than this, right? 

"Sorry, I'm so sorry you have to wake up to this, oh no..."

Her voice was so quiet compared to everything else. Like, it was still big, everything about everything that was happening was big, but… she was trying? The guy with the glasses and the intense scarring dipped back while it was too blurry to see if he was making a face, and I was just… alone, with whoever this was, the memories of that horrid screeching the kid had made, or all of the other noises I had gone through kind of just fading.

"Tell me what you need, it's okay, we're here to help." A deep breath entered me, like I was gasping for it, as her words hit me. There were a lot of questions, but those weren’t as important as everything else my brain was screaming about, apparently.

Do we really have to be crying at a time like this?! I thought to myself, trying to force the damn tears out of my eyes faster with hard, squinting blinks-- my eyelids probably the only part of my body not too hurt to move, honestly. 

I was panting, trying to assess if every part of me was online yet or if I was going to need to expect more pain as other parts woke up. She was waiting... god why did that seem like so much? Why did that feel like the greatest gift in the world that I had managed to stammer out a 'wait' between shouts of pain and that this person listened? If I wasn't so mad about the crying I was already doing, I'd probably do more just for that.

Between the blinks, I saw her moving, getting lower and my stomach did flips at the idea of her coming closer. I don't know why the idea upset me, it was already too late-- this person was extremely aware that I was this pathetic lump of idiot laying on a...

Turning my head only enough to look at what I was on-- whatever primal animal-part of my brain was trying to take over not wanting to take my eyes off of this person in case she... I have no idea. Wanted to eat me? Probably not, I probably looked like shit. I certainly felt like it. Either way-- I turned my head to take in that I was on a green sweater or something, and the other half of my brain that was not trying to consider how fast we'd be able to bite someone if they tried to touch us right now just felt incredibly guilty; there was a damp piece of napkin or paper towel or something that had some blood on it, and as I looked down at my sleeves to assess, it was pretty obvious it had been my blood. This person was trying to help, she was trying to help me and I shouldn't need help, this should never have happened.

"Wh-where am... Where a-am I?" I stammered out, gritting my teeth as I tried to look around what I could see past her incredibly massive form, both of my hands rubbing on the soft clothing I'd been laid on. My voice was pathetically quiet, I knew that, I couldn't summon the energy or the focus to try and shout loud enough for her to hear, and I was trying to restrain as much of the pained shouting as possible. Why did I even start with that question? There was so many more pressing things, but my brain couldn't bring any of them up at the moment to try and prioritize.

One of my hands, stiff and sore, started to try and reach into my pocket, digging for my stone so I could try to talk louder, fingers greeted by whatever remained of my shielding stone, I presumed. Great, finally have pocket-sand on hand and I'm too small and battered to actually use it effectively. Digging further, I just grunted and grimaced with the pain of the movements, trying to fish out anything useful that I might still have.

"You're in a bar. I mean, it's closed right now, there aren't like... people here or anything. Customers. No patrons. Just me and the owners, and we want to help." 

She was so… reassuring? Comforting? Hard to say I fully felt either of those things in the moment, but it was definitely something that was helping immensely in the meantime.

Trying to curl my fingers enough to scrape out the stones was proving too hard, and I'll be honest-- the fact the woman seemed to be able to hear me well enough without it seemed like a blessing. Thank god it was quiet here, in--

"A bar?" I choked out, trying to sit up as another wave of panic came over me. I managed to get myself propped up on my least-janked elbow this time, at least, so I wasn't completely flat, but my heart felt like it was going to be the straw that breaks the camel's ribs as it took a moment to calm down, even as I focused on the information that she had given me that it was at least a closed bar. 

I didn’t even really flinch too much as this giant woman’s hand slid in from behind somewhere and pressed fingers lightly to my back. It was too much of a relief to pass up, though I couldn’t bring myself to really lean my weight against it fully out of fear it was some kind of trap.

My eyes managed to catch a glimpse of the other two gigantic strangers from around her fingertips as she mentioned them, but that primal rat-brain panic-mode was still telling me to keep watching her, and what she was doing, as the most immediate threat.

"My name is Zora, so you don't have to think of me as a stranger. Could you please tell us where you're hurt, or do you need another minute?"

I just stared for a while, trying to click into what she was saying. "Zora?" I asked, trying to manage enough energy to shout and just flinching from the effort. Did she look like a ‘Zora’? Her hair was short, wild and styled, and she had piercings in her nose and an eyebrow. One of her earrings kept catching the light when she moved. I shook my head quickly, getting back on track. "I... shoulder is bad... just feels hot and I can't like... move it very much? Ribs also bad, this whole general--" I used what limited movement I had of my bad arm to gesture at the whole front of my torso, taking a moment to pant from the effort. "I'm Daphne," I tried to speak slowly so I hopefully wouldn't have to repeat, or try to shout again.

"Daphne. I'm glad to meet you Daphne,” she hummed, nodding along and repeating what I said quietly. It took me a second to clue in— literally until she looked at them— that she was doing it for the other people in the bar and not for me. "Okay, hot shoulder doesn't want to move, ribs aren't feeling great, general much pain all over."

I heard the other two start moving and doing things behind me… I think one of them left the room, but I was too busy focusing on Zora.

"You were in the stairwell,” she said quietly, “or that's where I found you. I have no idea how you got there, but I can't imagine it could have been easy." I watched her wince as she thought about it. ‘Oh you have no idea,’ I thought. "I don't want to crowd you, but I also don't want you to hurt yourself more, so my hand is behind you if you need to lean back on it.”

'Stars, am I smaller than usual?' I kept thinking as the presence of her hand just kept setting my cardio into a state like I was Usain Bolt or something. It didn't look much bigger? Was it just because it's a different hand? One I don't know? Was it because the last hand that had touched me damn near killed me? I had a thought to just fall back on it after she had moved it there. It was tempting, god I could use it, but that stupid rat-panic brain was still envisioning us touching it and the thing snapping closed around us like a bear trap, crushing us.

I didn't even have a shield spell anymore. What would that even feel like now? How fast would I break? I--

'She's just trying to help, she's just trying to help, she's just trying to help...'

Yeah, sure, toss a mantra or something in here. Maybe that'll help. My brain was just throwing things at the wall at this point to see if anything would stick. 

 "I was kicked," I stammered out. I don't know why I needed to say it, why I was compelled to tell this woman what happened, but... there it was. "They didn't see me, they-- it just... happened."

Her massive face winced again, sympathy all over her face. "I'm so sorry you went through that. That's terrible and should never have happened." She said softly. God, I felt like such an idiot for having this happen and having to bother this woman with it, and everything else. She was being so kind; she had no idea how this all happened.

The pain of it all was making me just want to hide somewhere. Disappear until I was big enough to walk out of here and either take myself to a hospital or throw myself in a river, whichever came first. I don’t know if it was because she saw I was spiraling or anything, but she spoke again and took my mind out of it. At least… for a little bit.

“My friends are good people, they're already working on helping us out here, okay? Do you need us to call someone for you?”

I grunted through pain as my hand went instinctively to check my pockets, patting them, my eyes finally tearing away from the woman to look around me. I didn't have my phone. It wasn't here. It had been in my hand and then I got kicked, so it could be anywhere, smashed into dust with no one even able to tell what it might've been.

And who? Who would I call? My family? They still had no idea this was a fuckin' thing with me, I refused to tell them! I was supposed to have this cured or broken or whatever months ago now and they were never supposed to find out about it. Sheridan? Absolutely not, she'd tell Gem, who was also very much a 'no, never' right now because I could only imagine the reaming I would get from her. No, no way, I couldn't let either of them know. Mak wanted nothing to do with me like this. That left Cal, and I-- oh my god I don't know anyone's number.

All of their numbers were just... in my phone, I had never memorized any number but my own and my job!

It had happened without me even realizing, my body leaning back until it had made contact with one of her fingers, and it was just kind of... automatic from there. Her fingers moved closer, pressing me up. My body sagged from the relief of not having to try and hold myself up on limbs and ribs that, for all I fuckin' knew, would've hurt less if they had been broken. 

"I don't... I can't call an-anyone..." I choked out, tears already coming out like I'd turned on a faucet. "I l-lost my ph-phone, and-- I don't know a-anybody's n-number..."

"It's okay, it's going to be totally okay." She cooed, fingers twitching around me, like they wanted to wrap tighter or hold me up more but wouldn’t. 

She was so gentle. 

She was so gentle, and that just made this all so much... harder to handle, honestly.

She was gentle and she cared, and my brain was telling me right now that she was the only person I knew who would be like this with me, after I had been such a colossal fucking moron.

You know that feeling when you start to cry, and you really, really don't want to be crying over whatever it is you're crying about? Or when you're crying about it? Or where you're crying about it? Or who you're crying in front of? And you know how that all compiles and just makes you cry harder and want to crawl into a hole and die? 

There was a moment, right when I started to bawl my eyes out, where I felt like that was going to happen. Where my stupid panicked brain, splintered into a thousand different stupid voices all trying to tell me different things and all but the stupid rat-brain getting drowned out in the confusion and the headache and everything else, wanted to do nothing but scream and thrash and go run until I found a crawlspace where no one could reach me and I could just cry until this was all over. 

But when I realized that her fingers weren't snapping shut around me... 

...when I realized that they weren't disgusted by me and wanting to get away from me...

...when I realized that they were just there, supporting me, the way I needed without trying to just do what they thought I needed, then it really hit me that I was safe. 

So, I just let myself cry. She let me cry, soothing me quietly-- as quietly as she could-- and just telling me everything was going to be ok. I had every reason to believe it wasn't going to be ok; I was an idiot, after all, and I'd manage to fuck up everything for everyone already this much and the day probably wasn't even over yet, but... something about the way she said it made me actually kind of believe it. 

Zora didn't know me. Zora had no idea what a moron I was, but I don't know... I didn't want to argue with her and tell her she was wrong or anything. She was being so nice, and she had no reason to be. I could've just been left, but she decided to let me fuck up her day too.

That felt like it should be worth at least me not arguing with her... at least for a moment. 

"We'll circle back around to the calls, for now we're gonna get you cleaned up and put back together alright? It's gonna be fine," she continued to soothe me while I just… sobbed. Her eyes glanced up to someone somewhere behind me, and I heard another woman whisper something but was too wrecked to try and turn around and watch.

"Is everything okay?" The stranger was asking.

"She lost her phone. No idea where it is." Zora whispered in reply.

"You said you found her by the bins?"

"Yeah, but she was kicked down from the street by someone who didn't see her, so there's no telling."

"I'll take a look,” the unknown woman said before suddenly she was leaning into my periphery to put something on the… I guess the bar, that I was on top of. A glass vial most of the size of my body. "I'm going to tell Arthur we don't need the ice. We thought we were out, but this is the stuff you can just rub on the spot to numb it out."

"Oooo" Zora grinned, "We love that stuff here. Thank you Madge."

Madge. I had a Great Aunt named Madge, rest her soul. Everyone always called her the family weirdo and ever since I was young, I always kind of wanted to be the next Great Aunt Madge on the family tree. This woman was obviously much younger, and still very much alive, but something about the way her smile had tugged up one side of her mouth more than the other made me feel like if she wasn't 60-odd feet tall, I'd really really like her.

God it was so nice to be around quiet people, holy shit. Even aside from the screaming banshee hell-spawn child that waved me like a flag earlier, nobody ever bothered to whisper around me before. While I was wiping the snot and tears off of my face, Madge  locked eyes with me a moment as she nodded, the wall of hand still doing a good job of making me feel safe, protected. 

Also warm, which I very much appreciated. 

Madge slipped away and I could kind of make out what she was saying to Arthur-- I guess the guy with the uh... the face from earlier-- if I focused hard enough, but mostly I just turned my sniffling, sore face back to Zora as she fiddled with the bottle with her free hand. I was finally getting to the 'everything-is-less-jarringly-huge' stage of my Small Self Bullshit, but it was still hard for me not to fixate on her working with the thing. 

"Madge is good at finding stuff,” the voice just above me got my attention again as I wiped at my eyes more. “I spent an hour looking for an earring once and she found it within five minutes of me asking for help." 

Zora smiled, using her free hand to uncork the bottle and glance inside, "You okay with using this, or would you prefer the ice? I personally love the cold goo, but I know not everyone is happy and willing to just apply random potions to their skin."

Fucking hell. A potion? A real-ass magic potion? Normally I'd say no, normally I'd prefer to be like... a trip-sitter and see how everyone else handled a 'potion' first before I dove in, but I was less than six-inches tall and bawling my eyes out in a bar with a bunch of strangers and I was very, very hurt. 

Also, ice sounded horrible. Rat-brain told me if I had ice put on me, they'd harvest my organs. 

Me and rat-brain are not friends. 

"I... yeah, I, um..." I stammered, sniffling myself stupid as the crying finally started to slow down a little. My head felt better, at least. The release really did help a lot, though something told me I might actually be far from done. "I don't think things can get much worse than this, so... so long as it doesn't make me smaller, I'll be fine." 

Couldn't even bring myself to laugh. Guess my head wasn't feeling better enough for a joke. Oh well.

"I can promise you, they wouldn't keep a shrinking potion in the first aid box. This'll just numb the area you rub it in. Keeps it cold, helps with inflammation without having to hold an ice pack." Zora chattered quietly, using one hand to tip the little vial onto the end of her finger, a small bit of light silvery blue goo oozing out onto the digit.

"It looks like toothpaste," I blurted out, though almost as a mutter as it wound up on her finger. It was a bit more watery than toothpaste? But just barely. The chatting was actually helping calm me down more than I probably would've wanted to admit. Explaining what the goo was gonna do to me also helped. She put the vial aside carefully and then went right back to helping me. It just… it seemed so natural to her. It reminded me of how I used to think of Gem, for a flash, before she distracted me out of that particular bubble of thoughts.

"Here, let me know if you need help with any of it. I've used this stuff on people here more times than I can count at this point." She offered, holding the little blob out for me. "It takes a few minutes to settle in, so you've got time to get it off of your hands before they go cold, and we've still got the wet napkin handy."

My eyes moved again to the damp napkin with my blood on it, shuddering a little.

"Sorry about that by the way, that probably wasn't a nice way to wake up. We were just trying to clean you off and figure out what we could do."

"I... didn't know I was bleeding," I said, looking down at my sleeves and seeing the tear-watered stains on them faintly. It looked like she had gotten most of it before I woke up, and touching my face I found my nose was tender and my lip had definitely been split. Great, must've landed on my face. Bet I looked stellar right now. I sighed and nodded, trying to flash a smile as I focused on her saying that they were just trying to clean me up. "Thanks," I managed, trying not to show my disappointment as I thought back to how great I had felt after getting a haircut. 

It was just a stupid haircut. Why did I have to take this stupid gamble for a stupid haircut? 

I stared down the blue goo and nodded to myself. Couldn't be worse than this, right?

Again, I felt like I could trust her. It was... it was nice to have something to cling to, honestly, and I think that might've been the whole deal. It wasn't that I believed her because there was a lot of reason to, I just needed to have something to keep me afloat instead of going completely rat-brain, and trusting someone else was a good place to start on that. 

Leaning away from the fingers behind me was rough enough, but as I tried to figure out where I'd need to put the goo, I realized it was the least of my problems in the immediate moment. Slowly I started to try and work my way out of my jacket, and honestly? Probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Between the pathetic grunting and the urge to cry, I managed to get my bad arm out but couldn't use that arm to help me shrug off the rest.

"I don't... I don't want to bug you..." I managed to grunt out, looking up at her and her very, very concerned face. The words died in my throat, and I just kind of vaguely turned my body as much as I could to let the coat hang off of me. 

Not going to lie, this was one of my nightmares. Like, literally-- since this stupid bullshit had happened with this stupid faerie, the idea that I'd be picked up and handled like a doll and stripped was something that would have me wake up sweating in the middle of the night. Especially since that shit with Gem. My stomach was preemptively rolling at the idea as her hand started to move, and I fought the urge to close my eyes simply because I'd rather be aware of what was happening to me. 

I can't describe the relief; the absolute rush of almost elation as her fingers pinched the coat-- just the coat-- and just kind of... held it for me while I wiggled out. Once the tiny jacket was in her hands, it seemed like without even thinking about it Zora used the fingers of her free hand to fold it, setting it delicately to the side when finished.

I'm so glad she didn't know what kind of a person I was. Glad she didn't know what kind of massive, stupid idiot I was. It was nice to be treated like someone who deserved this level of just... gentleness? No, beyond that. It was like she trusted me to just... know what I needed. 

"Thank you," I said, louder than I had been now that I was feeling just a little more put-together, and I didn't want her to get sick of like, straining to hear me or whatever. 

"You don't need to shout." She stated simply, tilting her head to the side and using her pinky to point towards her ears, the cold little blob still at the end of her finger. I watched such a massive, fluid motion and shivered, feeling pathetic that this was still just... shit I wasn't used to. Would it have been better if I was used to this by now? I had been intentionally trying not to feel like this shit was normal, I didn't want it to be normal but now it just made me feel worse and worse. I blushed, hoping my shouting didn't come off as rude. 

 "I've got really good hearing, there's no need to worry about that,” she continued. “I haven't had trouble this entire time." She slid her hand back toward me with the blob extended, and I caught myself staring at her. I blushed so much I felt a bit dizzy. I was so caught up in the idea that someone was just... handling me (ugh) but not like... staring at me like I was a toy or a weird bug or something like Gem and Cal did, that I didn't really pick up on how I was just kind of... zoned-in on her face so intensely. I went back to dealing with the goo and my bruises as best as I could, feeling a little guilty about taking up so much of her time with how slow I was going.

I had just been wearing a tanktop underneath the jacket, which was good for needing to smear magic goo all over me I guess, but also showed me exactly how red my shoulder and arm was, and how bruised it was starting to get. Jesus, I felt like the last apple at the grocery store. 

"I'm sorry if I ruined your day."

The words just kind of fell out of me as I dipped my fingers into a god damn magic potion and moved to lean my less-hurt side against her hand again while it was here, spreading it with some pained and uncomfortable grunts over the shoulder and under the back of the tank top. "I... I really didn't think this was gonna happen, today, and I just... I'm sorry."

"You haven't ruined my day at all." She said quickly, nearly cutting off my apology as her eyes went wide and her eyebrows began to knit together, "It's not like I'm pressed, I was only here to pick up a check for working last week. Even if I had big plans though, I still wouldn't consider helping someone to be something that ruins my day. I'm more than happy to assist, and I can safely say the same for my friends." The hand behind me straightened a bit, and I wasn’t sure if it was intentional or not but it gave me the support I needed to help me reach certain angles with less strain, but she was still careful not to jostle or move me too much. 

"Please don't be sorry. You need help. Everyone needs it sometimes. I'm more than happy to offer mine, however you might need it."

"Yeah, but--" I stuttered out, taking more of the goo and finishing smearing it as far as I could reach on my shoulder, knowing it was just... all over my shirt and my bra. "I... I'm glad you want to help, but you shouldn't need to. This shouldn't have happened and I shouldn't have done any of this." 

Waterworks were building up again, god, this day though. I lifted my shirt and started to smear the potion on my abs, hoping to warm it up before I put it on the very, very sore ribs, as much as I could reach. I grunted and-- unintentionally-- leaned back a bit more against her hand. I was happy it was here. I was happy that she was here, doing all of this for me, but... I don't know, my brain also turned to Gem a bit? Like, I was so happy to be treated so much more gently by Gem and then it just kind of became... weird. 

Was this woman going to resent me for getting all of this help if I wasn't going to give her what she wanted after? At least she didn't seem like... fixated on me, outside of the concern, which was a nice change if I really really had to be honest about it. I guess that's why I felt I should be honest about my own stupidity. "This is all my fault."

"I doubt that very much."

Well, shit.

I don’t know if I had ever had someone disagree with me so nicely before. I honestly don’t know if, in the entirety of my whole life, if anyone had just been this kind to me before when I needed it like this. I was sniffling like a pathetic little baby and this person, despite how weird this whole situation had to be, was just… helping like it was the only thing they knew how to do.

"No one does anything with the intention of getting kicked through the air,” her voice continued as I went about the continued smearing, blinking back tears with red and sore eyelids. “I imagine you would avoid that scenario if you could. In any case, should vs. shouldn't really doesn't mean a lot. It did happen, you need help, you deserve it as much as anyone else. That doesn't equate to a burden."

I took the edge of the napkin as she nudged it toward me while she spoke, letting me wipe my hands off as I opened my mouth to try and reply to her. "You're really good at this," I said, probably a bit bluntly. It was true-- she was really good at making me feel less like I was bothering her, at the very least, though I was still pretty set on the fact that this never would've happened if I had just followed the plans everyone had made for me and didn't take such a stupid risk for a bit of fun. Fun and freedom. And a really good coffee-- god, I wish I hadn't spilled that coffee.

"Thanks, I have no idea what I'm doing." Zora laughed while she recorked the bottle of magic potion. The laugh was quiet, like she was really trying her hardest to hold it back. I actually laughed myself at the admission. I suppose that might explain it; she hadn't grabbed me, or seemed comfortable with just doing what needed to be done with me. I guess that was the kind of shit that came with familiarity of dealing with this sort of stuff. 

I appreciated it. If that was the case, god I hope she never got an idea of what she was doing. I liked this, for all the horrible shit that was surrounding it.

I was going to elaborate as I rolled my shirt back down, when the sounds of someone reentering the room caught my attention. The guy with the scarred face was making an exit, or... he was going to, before I guess his wife stopped him. 

"Where do you think you are going?" Madge asked.

"Jasper's putting some medicine together for us." Arthur responded simply, the deep quality of his voice would’ve probably made it impossible for him to ever actually whisper, but I could tell he was trying to be quiet. "I was going to run over to grab it." 

"No, no no no you are not." Madge chattered, and I could see her shaking her head and nudging his arm to turn him back towards the bar. "You'll get over there and talk to Jasper for 45 minutes before you remember there was a reason you were going. You do this every time."

Arthur was already grumbling some sort of muttered response to her, but he didn't ultimately argue with her.

"Give this to her,” Madge instructed, handing him something. “Be incredibly careful with it. Six steps from the corner. I'll be back in a mo'." And just like that, within the span of a second, Madge was already spinning around and whooshing out the door and up unseen stairs with rapid, echoing footsteps while Arthur lumbered back over to where he had been directed, palm out and ready.

"Special delivery. No tip necessary." His voice was flat, not necessarily loud but with a timber that sent a shiver up my spine from this close. He rested the back of his hand on the counter, sliding it forward until Zora intercepted.

"You are most appreciated. I'm sorry you don't get to play with Jasper today." Zora laughed, delicately taking something out of his palm and placed what was, unmistakably, my phone next to me. My hands picked it up, multiple cracks across the screen, and trying to press any buttons seemed to elicit no response. I didn't know if the screen was broken, if the battery was dead, or if the whole thing was toast and I felt like I was curling in on myself a bit as the realization of how well and truly I had fucked up started to set in.

"Eh. He'll be around after he closes up tonight," Arthur shrugged, as the two of them continued to banter above me. "Need anything?"

"We might need a drink here shortly. Standby." Zora smiled, redirecting her attention back to me for the moment and squinting her eyes at the busted shape of my phone. Obviously, it was too small for her to tell what was up. "Is that it? Is it alright?"

I shifted uncomfortably as Arthur drummed his fingers on the wooden surface I was on, the sound and feeling making me jump. I didn’t know how to feel about the fact that he seemed… notably blind? Is that the nicest way to say that? I was glad Zora was here to keep his attention, and only kind of glad he probably couldn’t see what kind of a state I was in. I was considering mentioning the finger drumming being a bit much— I mean, neither of them likely knew it was huge to me, or anything— when he suddenly ducked out of view, I guess getting something from under the bar.

"It's uh..." I stammered, looking up at her. "I don't know if it's broken or the battery is dead. What... what time is it?"

Zora whipped out her own phone, unlocking it as her eyes danced around the screen as it shone some light up at her features.  "We're at about 3 o'clock,” she said, and I felt my mouth open a little as it went slack.

Three fucking PM. 

"Oh god I was... I was out for hours," I breathed, cold chills coming over me. My hand slipped in to fetch my two remaining stones and came back out covered in glittery sand. The loud-stone was still bright and I could feel something with it, but the minor invisibility stone-- opaque white quartz-- had gone from bright white to a dull, dreary gray and felt almost... not cold but dead? Does that make sense? Was I just imagining that because I knew it was out of magic or mana or charge or whatever? 

"Zora," came the flat, muffled voice of Arthur from below the counter, making my jaw snap shut again and my body tense with a pained grunt. It was then that the magic goo started to really hit, and I was happy it did. The cold, numbing feeling was very needed. "Which set does your friend need?" 

"Which set..." Zora muttered quietly to herself, her eyes dashing up and away from her phone while she thought. "Oh! Oh, box three is probably about right."

"Got it. Thank you," he replied, followed by the sound of cardboard scooting around below like he was casually just moving boulders around.

Set? Box three? 

Probably surgical tools to harvest my organs. 

I shook my head with an annoyed grunt I hoped neither of them could hear. Fuck off, rat-brain. We're fine.

Zora’s eyes had moved back to her phone when it seemed like an idea had struck her. "Do you remember any logins for like... social media, messenger app, anything? Do you think that could work?"

I shoved the dead invisibility stone back into my pocket but kept the loud-stone out and not activated if only to use as a worrystone for the time being as Zora asked for my logins. Oh god yes, I knew my passwords-- it was so risky to try and like, stick those on notes around. 

"Yeah, yeah, I can log in to basically everything. I'm good with password memorization, I do individual salts for each login on a pretty long base-- I work in CompSec." 

...Why did we tell her that? Why was that suddenly a brag? God damn it, brain. Don't make me let rat-brain back in here, rat-brain wouldn't brag about our stupid boring deskjob.

Embarrassing info-dump aside, I could see the giant woman brighten significantly at the news that I could log into my stuff. She started tapping away on her phone screen, and before my pounding head could piece together what exactly was going on, she turned the thing around for me, propping it up. 

"Log in to whatever, tell me if you need help. I don't you to strain anything further with sweeping arm movements, and I can promise you my memory is garbage enough to never remember whatever you tell me to type in."

She smiled at me, and I felt such a wave of like… hope. Arthur had reemerged from underneath me and was rooting around in a box, but I was busy pushing myself to stand.

You know what's dumb? How comforting a phone the size of myself was. God. I managed to push myself to my feet with a few grunts and took a second to catch my breath before approaching it and starting to tap away on the screen. 

This. This I was used to. 

I pulled up the messenger app, using a few extra seconds between a few letter-smacks to rest and to also just... hesitate. It's 3pm. If Cal swung by the apartment before they went to work, or if Sheridan decided to take an early exit for the afternoon, they might already know that I was gone. I mean... car was gone. They'd know I had dodged out. Someone would've tried to message me maybe, might've tried to call me... 

Shit. If it was Cal, or if someone had flagged Cal, they had access to my Find My Phone services. They might've tried to ping it, maybe they had gotten a read on the area I was in before the phone died? God... if I logged in now and they were actively looking for me I'd be fucking in for it. So, I felt it best to take it slow with the typing. 

"Seeing as you work CompSec, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that this isn't an always thing for you," Zora muttered gently to me from above, her eyes drifting back down to meet with mine. I blushed a little, nodding. 

"Yeah," I admitted, shifting my weight on my legs. They were... well, they were less hurt than the rest of my body. Sore and bruised around the knees obviously, but... y'know. "This is a... uh... relatively new development, for me. Three months, off and on. Guess it's pretty obvious that this isn't... normal, hey?" 

Might as well fess up to some of this. I mean... they had potions, probably weren't totally out of the loop on magic stuff and curses. What were those things I was supposed to say did this? Curse Bitches? Curse Hags? 

"You'll have to tell me if this looks okay,” Arthur’s voice interrupted me as he held something up for Zora to try and look at. I couldn’t make it out from here and just went back to typing in my login. 

"You've got it my man,” she had replied.

"Water. If you need it." The bartender's voice almost made me duck, I just hadn't been paying attention while I was lost in App UI. “I can get you something stronger but.. yknow. Something something, hydration is key.” Shivers came up my spine as his hand slid closer and closer until it bumped the hoodie, then he lifted up a glass of water. Just... a regular glass. A regular glass for me, anyway.

"Thanks," I said, almost in awe as I took it, looking the thing over. It was... basically perfect. God, it was cold, and fuck, did you know bodies need water? Apparently my ass had forgotten. I chuckled at the offer of something stronger. "I might take you up on it once I'm a bit more sure I don't have like, a frontal-lobe bleed or something happening," I replied, looking up at him just in case he could see me. I didn't want to be rude. "I hope you're ok with small bills." 

A chuckle bubbled up in Arthur at the 'small bills' comment, deep and low and caught in his throat, though still perceptible in its reverberations. I smiled as wide I could manage with my lip busted, the barkeep seemed like an alright guy, despite the pretty cool demeanor. Maybe it was because I was standing and felt-- don't laugh-- bigger, but I was feeling a lot better about this situation despite, y'know, The Horrors.

"Don't worry about that." He chuckled with a gargantuan wave of his hand, moving now to get Zora a similar glass of water. "We're not here to exploit someone in a situation for needing a stiff drink." 

"Even if they weren't going to cover you, I would have you taken care of." Zora nodded, her hand still stiff on its side behind me.

"Listen, you don't have to foot any bills, this is more than enough," I said, finally finishing my email address and moving on to the twenty-four character password, Christ why do I do this to myself? "Besides, you don't know, maybe I'm an expensive drunk." 

I hoped my laugh didn't sound as nervous as it actually was as I tried to cover my worries regarding what might be waiting for me beyond the login screen with humor. I took a moment a few characters in-- I had to alternate to the numbers and special characters keyboard, and varying amounts of capital letters-- to step back and just lean against Zora's hand again. It was still there, just waiting, and I figured she was being nice enough about it, it seemed awkward if I kind of just ignored it. 

I couldn't tell if it might be like, cologne or something she put on her wrist, or if she had some kind of lotion... maybe it was just a really nice soap? Her hands smelled nice. 

Hey, look, I found the new weirdest thing I could notice about a person. This stupid curse was a fresh hell every single moment, huh? I made the easy decision to never say it out loud as she offered genuine sympathy for my stupid condition. I took another drink of water.

I was going to comment on it. I was going to just straight up say it was nice to have a glass my size. 

Then I realized what it obviously meant. 

Beyond just... magic potions in the first aid kit, this place was obviously the kind of bar that might cater to uh... well. 

They might know a guy who's neck I wanna wrap my hands around and squeeze. 

Probably not the best time to bring that up, though.

I continued to type, taking breaks to let the throbbing in my hand and shoulder subside a little before going back for more. Above me, Zora looped back around to my earlier comments.

"Three months of sporadic shifting sounds like an intense pain," she said. "It's only really obvious in that you have a phone and don't seem to have wings or pointed ears or... anything else that would set you apart from just being a human person. Well, that and that you probably hadn't planned your day around ending up in a footpath." 

"I'd be way less mad about it if I had wings as a trade-off," I muttered with a dark chuckle, moving back to hammer in the rest of the password. "Shifting is probably a better word for it. Me and my friends call it zonking, it happens kinda fast. I didn't know there was like, a term for it." 

"Mm, the words we use are important." Zora nodded, being pretty polite about but it still watching me punch in letters kind of intently. I guess I couldn’t blame her, Cal and Gem also loved watching me do things. "Zonk feels like a shot fired at you. Something that yanks you down and keeps you there. Shifting would imply that it's a state of being you go back and forth between. It probably feels more like the former, but language used will eventually shift your perspective."

Arthur's voice caught my attention fully as I slapped the log-in button, only remembering afterwards that it probably was disrespectful to do that to someone else's phone. 

"We've got a few people who kick around here with similar problems." Arthur added in, sliding a frosty tumbler of water over to Zora, the vibrations and movement causing me to tense and shiver. "I mean, different reasons as to why they have those problems, but same general flavor none the less. Either way, you're welcome to join the Set 3 club if you want." 

"A few?" I asked, blurting it out as the rumble of the glass of water sent another shiver up my spine. He had good aim at least, for a blind guy. "I... I had no idea anyone else had ever gone through something like this." 

Shit, maybe they really didn't have this glass for faeries or whatever. Maybe there were people dealing with bullshit like me! Maybe there's a whole damn support group of Completely Innocent People Victimized by Faerie Bullshit just hanging out in this bar on the reg! 

"Are you really trying to businessman yourself into having a new regular?" Zora was kind of scolding him.

"Never in my life," He responded flatly, unamused by the implication, "-but I can understand the value of knowing there's a place out there with a chair ready for me if I need it." 

I had no idea how to take the information, honestly, but I didn’t have a lot of time to try and make a road map to what I wanted to say before Arthur seemed to clue into what I had said.

 "Wait, you didn't know anyone else went through things like this?" He asked, head tilting a slight as he considered that idea. "Shrinking and variations thereof is like.... there are a good number of curses that will have that in as an element if not the main show. I'm not saying you see it every day but we've got.... what... maybe three? ..Is it three?" 

"Four if you count that temporary thing that happened to Yancey,” Zora chimed in.

"I don't. He got over that quickly, but... yeah he was happy for set three." Arthur chuckled, "It's not a formal club though, I think only two of them even know each other."

"We could put you in touch if you needed someone to talk to." Zora added in, "Knowing people who are similarly afflicted can be a real godsend.”

I stared up between Arthur and Zora as the little spinning loading wheel kept doing it's thing alongside me, my neck benefiting greatly from all the cold magic goo I smeared on it earlier. "It... I mean... if there's a club of people who have to deal with this horseshit, yeah I'll happily sign up. He can businessman me into being a regular all he wants, though I might need to look into carpooling." 

“Welcome to Nakahara’s Cellar, then,” he replied flatly but with a faint hint of a smile. I smiled back, even if he couldn’t see it, and then the thought really slammed into me.

"Aw, shit," I swore, groaning loudly. "My car. Oh damn, she's not getting home today." Poor BillTron was sitting in the work car garage-- at least it was free parking, I guess?-- and the keys were about 12 times too small for the ignition. Damn it. "I'll need to find a way back downtown once I'm not small anymore and--" 

The sudden, aggressive vibrating of the giant phone next to me sent me jumping back against Zora's hand with a gasp and a few uncomfortable grunts of the force of the, admittedly soft, impact. 

My absence from the apartment had uh... been noted.

"I am... I am so sorry about that. I'm usually so much better at leaving the thing on mute,” Zora said, her own voice sounding like it was coming down from the fright of the phone going off as well as her arm reached over me carefully, the other hand curling around me protectively as she muted the phone entirely.

"Explains a lot." Arthur muttered, prompting a snap and unseen point response from Zora.

"Are you always this wildly popular or... is it to do with the obvious?" Zora asked me.

I stared at the screen from the comfort of her hand, not even really aware that I was just... letting it hold me like that. If I had had a moment to get my senses about it, I might've realized that I was being super awkward to her or something, but instead I just... stared. 

The notifications just kept rolling one after the other as this phone dealt with the new log in and trying to catch up. The group chat had 47 new messages, I had dozens in each of the individual chats from Cal, Sheri and Gem-- Cal and Gem really racing for the top there, apparently-- and even had a handful of messages from Mak, which was... I think it might've been the first time Mak's ever private messaged me outside of a group chat. 

"It's... uh... I--" 

I felt myself just sinking back into her hand more, my legs just wanting to give out underneath me. They were pissed. They were already pissed and they were going to be so much more pissed when they found out what happened.

 I didn't even want to go back to the phone to read any of the messages, the short couple-of-word previews were... more than enough. 

"I... didn't tell anyone I was going out today," I managed to admit after rattling my tongue uselessly around my mouth for a little while. My mouth had had no interest in forming any words and my mind didn't seem to want to try and let our thoughts out. 

For a second, anyway. 

Then... 

"I didn't think-- It's been months and I really didn't feel like I needed to because normally this doesn't happen again so fast after the curse ends and I thought I had at least some days before this happened again, but I just-- It only ended this morning, I should've had time! I should've been able to just go get my haircut," I started blurting out, staring at the stupid bubble icons of my friends' faces and the stupid meme we had used for the groupchat like they were all about to start yelling at me personally.

"I should've had time to be able to just go out and be normal and not need some babysitter who doesn't even want to deal with me or something and this-- and I know! I know it happened anyway! I know I fucked up but like... I thought I could have just like, one day, you know? But they-- they don't get it they don't know what this is like, they all just feel annoyed-- I know it!-- they're all annoyed that they have just deal with this and they don't even think about how bad it actually is."

 I reached up to wipe tears away out of instinct, only to find they weren't there. Maybe I was finally done, maybe I was finally out. 

"The fucking bastard that did this to me better be choking," I snapped bitterly, stepping forward to switch myself to 'appear offline' as fast as I could before they all saw me online. They were apparently out looking? Or at least Cal was. Cal's message preview mentioned something about 'heading there as soon as...' so I could only assume. 

My body sagged, eyes finally dropping to the bartop as I wrapped my arms around myself. I had had so many questions and so many other things to ask. For a brief, beautiful flash, the idea that these people might know something or actually know somebody who might know anything about what I'm going through and could maybe help... hell, even knowing this place might be someplace I could come even if this happened again?? 

But now I was staring at the static faces and one dumbass pixelated meme of the people who were going to spend the next eon yelling at me about what an idiot I was. 

And I felt like I deserved it.

-------

[invisibleinorange]

Chapters: 14/? Fandom: Bridgerton Rating: T Warnings: Presumed Character Death Relationships: Colin Bridgerton/Penelope Featherington,  Eloise Bridgerton/Penelope Featherington(besties),  Bridgerton Family Dynamics, Simon Hastings/Daphne Bridgerton Characters: Colin Bridgerton,  Penelope Featherington, Eloise Bridgerton, Anthony Featherington,  Benedict Bridgerton,  Portia Featherington, Violet Bridgerton, Genevieve Delacroix Additional Tags:  Bridgerton, Polin Summary:  Unexpected bad news arrives for the Bridgerton Family (and friends) regarding Colin's travels. This will be a series that is set after "The Duke and I" or season one of the show. It is a companion piece to "Goodbyes".

It had come to pass that Portia Featherington hadn’t been wrong about everything. Penelope couldn’t help but begrudgingly give her mother some credit as she paced the small room she was waiting in for her wedding: the books had ruined her.

Everything that she knew about life and love came from the pages of the damn things.  Even if she had always had her doubts whether she would actually get married, the small bit of her that held up hope had this foolish fantasy of what it was supposed to be.

When she’d pictured this day, Colin had always been her  romantic lead.  It had been that way even before she was old enough to fully understand her feelings.   It felt a little bittersweet that he couldn’t at least be part of it.

If he couldn’t be her husband, she would have at least felt better having him there as her friend.  Knowing that he fully endorsed her choice would have been important. All she could do now was assume that he would have be happy to see her well-matched with his brother.

She was still anxious about it, as fond as she had become of Benedict in recent weeks.  She’d felt as if they’d made progress in transitioning from whatever they had been to what they were going to be.  It was all tentative, a bit weird but it was no longer awkward to converse at length or hold hands.

They were both trying.

There was a lot more that would come after the wedding and that was what she was terrified of.  Violet in her infinite wisdom had attempted to have an adult conversation with her about wifely duties when her own mother neglected to call on her for such a thing.  Then Daphne had made an appearance and attempted her own conversation.

She wasn’t quite sure if she was supposed to be excited at the prospect of her wedding night or terrified.

Either way it went, she knew that there was no real pressure to do something that she didn’t feel comfortable with. Benedict might not have approached the subject but she knew he wasn’t the sort to demand anything.

They were going to do something different and it might take her time but she was going to be happy.

She just had to work past her nerves first.

She was mid-stride through her forty or fiftieth spin around the room when the door opened and in strode her mother.  

Penelope had invited her (and her sisters) to the wedding. They were her family even if things had dysfunctional at times. That didn’t necessarily mean that she wanted to open herself to feedback or criticism for her choices or the timeline of them.

She also wasn’t quite sure her nerves could handle a third conversation about her duties as wife.  

“Mother,” she said with a polite nod and bow.

Her mother seemed to stand there for a long moment, looking her over as if appraising the situation.

“This dress will do,” she said after a long moment.

Penelope’s dress was one of the new ones that had been purchased in recent weeks.  It wasn’t white but it was a pale blue and had white lace over it. It wasn’t as extravagant as the dress she might have worn if it hadn’t burnt but she was pretty content with it.  She’d even added little blue flowers to her red curls.

“I appreciate your approval,”  Penelope offered after a moment, deciding that she should just be grateful that they decided to show and actively be a part of this.  “You should probably find your seat. Anthony will be presenting me.”

It was a bit of a slap in the face. If her father had been alive, he would have been the one to do such a thing. He was long gone and Penelope hadn’t considered herself a member of her mother’s household since she’d left it.  Anthony, as misguided and overprotective as he could be at times, was the only person deserving of such an honor.

Portia might have wished to object but she closed her mouth as soon as it opened.  Instead she decided to proceed with her original mission for coming.

“I won’t trouble you for long,” she told before snapping her fingers and a servant came with a box.  She opened it and inside was a beautiful, ornate veil.   “This is a family heirloom of sorts.  I’d thought to give it to one of your sisters but your father insisted it be put aside for you.”

Penelope could gloss over all the negative undertones to just see the fact that it was actually quite remarkable. She’d honestly not planned to wear a veil at all but it looked as if it belonged with the dress.  Her mother would have sold it if she’d had the inkling. The fact that she was there at all with it said that somewhere she did actually care about her.

It was enough.

She turned to allow her mother to help her pin it properly in her red curls, a light smile playing on her features.

“Thank you for this,” she told her quietly.

--

Benedict was grateful for his mother because Violet had this strange way of making things always come together, even when there was a limited amount of time to do it. Weddings were relatively simple affairs in the great scheme of things. In a family like theirs, it was harder logistically to get everyone around.

As he gazed around the church, he was glad to have all of them.  Violet was sitting up front with Gregory and Hyacinth on opposite sides.  Eloise was to the right of Hyacinth which brought a smile to his face because she’d joked that she might sit on the other side of the aisle.  Francesca was behind them with the Duke and a visibly pregnant Daphne. The only other people were those on the other side – Penelope’s mother and siblings.

The whole situation felt surreal to him. There was literally no scenario where he could imagine wedding Penelope Featherington before recent months.  He had always felt like he’d known her but he hadn’t known her at all. He felt as if by getting to know her better, he’d seen her potential.

He could even imagine being happy which was more than he ever thought he could say about most of the other potential matches he could have had in the Ton.  It was going to take them time but he liked where they were.  There was no rush to become something that they weren’t.

He would be patient and a good husband to her.

He didn’t get married every day though so he did feel a little nervous about the whole situation.  He’d definitely had to ease his nerves with a drink beforehand.

As he caught sight of Anthony at the entrance, making a gesture that things were to begin it all begin to set in.

Everyone sat quietly but they all sort of blurred out of space when he saw Penelope move into the entrance with him.  He’d never quite had such a visceral reaction to her before but she really was vision.

She seemed nervous so he offered her a smile and she returned it as she approached on Anthony’s arm.

They were both shaking by the time her hand was in his and the clergyman began to speak.

--

The doors crashed open with a thud making such a disturbance that there was no way to ignore it.

Every single head turned including that of the bride and groom.

Colin Bridgerton was a dusty mess of a man but out of the darkness of the hallway, he appeared to the audible sound of gasps.

Everyone was so focused on his appearance that it was only Benedict and Colin who felt Penelope go limp.  The shock had caused a fainting spell and it was any wonder that Benedict caught her. Colin couldn’t quite get to her at the moment.

“Colin!”  Violet Bridgerton practically screamed, moving from her seat toward her wayward son.  She didn’t stop until her arms were around him.  He hugged his mother for a moment,  shaking off his own disbelief at everything that was happening.

Concern washed over him at what was going on before him. He couldn’t properly even focus on the words that were coming at him from family members as they touched him and made sure that he wasn’t some apparition.

“Mother, I – please, I need to-“  he tried to explain, to get out of her grasp and direction the attention to the person maybe needed a little more attention at the moment.

For her credit, she did let him go long enough for her gaze to realize Penelope was still out cold.  The fact her child was back from the dead was temporarily forgotten as the need to care for the problem at hand send her moving with him up toward the front pew, where Benedict has maneuvered the unconscious girl with a little help from Portia Featherington.

Her blue eyes began to flicker back open after a long, quiet moment. She came back to life in a minute, fully prepared to fight. Her body upright, terror on her face.

“I’m dead,” she said after a long moment when she caught sight of Colin and his concerned eyes.  “I’m clearly dead because you are dead.”

If he hadn’t been so worried about her, he might have laughed.  Instead Colin reached for her wrist, dipping enough for her hand to his chest so she might see that he wasn’t dead.

“I promise you that I’m here,” he told her, eyes finding hers. “I’m alive. I’m here and I’m never leaving again.”

There was clearly a lot that needed to be said.  More than just to her but in that moment it was just nice to see her face, to know she was okay even if she’d gone from fainting to crying.

He didn’t quite know if what he wanted to do was appropriate at the moment.  Whatever business he had with Benedict could wait, for now the urge for violence was low.

“…I wouldn’t miss your wedding,” he said after a long moment, trying to lighten the mood to make her stop crying.  “I just had to be my dramatic flare to things.”

“Wedding?” she asked.  Oh God, she’d completely forgotten she’d been in the middle of her own wedding.  She shot an apologetic look to Benedict, biting her lip.  Colin’s hand was still over her own and she didn’t want to let go of it but she wasn’t sure what was okay anymore. “I just can’t believe you’re actually here. I should have never encouraged you to go. I should have stopped you.”

“It’s okay,” Benedict said, giving her a quiet nod as if reading her thoughts. He turned to the clergyman and politely explained that there wouldn’t be need for his services after all.  The wedding wouldn’t be happening today – if ever.   As he completely made way for Colin to take back his place in life, Penelope couldn’t help but feel a little sad to lose something she didn’t really know that she wanted.

Whatever she felt about that didn’t lessen how she felt about the fact that Colin was home. He was real and he was there with her.   The fact he was touching her and looking at her like that.

“You were only trying to encourage me to do what you thought I needed to be happy,” he told her with a nod.  “I maybe could have done a better job communicating after I left.”

It was Daphne who interjected this time, socking him hard in the arm.  Simon didn’t even try and stop her.

“You could have communicated with your family that you weren’t dead,” Daphne told him.  “We’ve already replaced you with Penelope.  We thought giving her your bedroom would be in bad taste though.”

“I don’t know that sorry is going to cut it.  I was sort of out of commission for a lot of it – it’s a long story,” he tried to explain.  “I am sorry though.  Very sorry and – I don’t want to know how I’m going to make it up to all of you.”

Apparently something that had been said triggered something in Penelope because her response was to start looking around, “ANTHONY?”  she practically screamed.

Anthony came darting at his name though based on the tone, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to be there.

“Colin sent the dress not some … scorned lover of Benedicts trying to kill me,” she said after a moment.

“Wait, what?”  Colin couldn’t help but ask.

“He burnt the dress and everything else in my wardrobe,” Penelope informed Colin.

Colin’s murderous side turned on Anthony.  If they hadn’t been in a church, there would have been blood.

“I was trying to protect her,”  Anthony said in his defense.

Penelope apparently caught onto the fact, Colin’s ability to keep cool with fleeting because she felt her hand tighten in his and it did calm him down just a little bit.

“It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever owned,” she told him honestly, kindly.  “Can you please never have someone send a vague note with no signature again?”

“I promise,” he said after a long moment. “And I’ll buy you whatever your heart desires then keep it far, far away from my idiot brothers.”

Penelope smiled at that.

There was honestly so much to say and it was going to take time.

She definitely couldn’t talk as openly as she might wish with half the family still waiting on their opportunity to chat with the recently returned.

They exchanged an extended gaze that didn’t make giving them that space any easier.

An exaggerated, pained sound coming from Daphne was enough to pull them from their moment.   She was too early in her pregnancy to be making any sounds like that but all the excitement couldn’t possibly have been good for her.

“Go be there for your sister,” she said after a long moment.

“We’ll take more later?” Colin asked.

She nodded and that was all he needed to run off to assist the Duke and everyone else in getting Daphne’s needs met.

[angelsfalling16]

The Thin Line Between Pretending and Actually Loving You - Chapter 7

Chapter 1 || Chapter 2 || Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || Chapter 5 || Chapter 6 || Read on ao3

Summary: Simon and Baz have dinner with Baz's family on Christmas Eve.

Word Count: 2372

A/N: Thank you @carryonsimoncarryonbaz for inspiring me to write a nicer, more accepting Malcolm. He didn’t appear for long in this fic, but it was definitely different for me to write a Christmas dinner where he didn’t end up arguing with Baz.

Also, I got the “very close talking” thing from Psych. I've always wanted to use that in a fic.

***

Baz

Simon and I arrive at my parents’ home around noon on Christmas Eve. The big family dinner is planned for tonight, and tomorrow morning is for just my immediate family.

I lead Simon through the first level of my house, introducing him to aunts, uncles, cousins, and their various partners.

Fiona immediately demands our attention from her place on the couch next to her boyfriend, Nico. She starts firing off questions, demanding to know everything about how Simon and I met, and she only stops when I promise to tell her all of the details later. (Hopefully, we will have “broken up” by the time she expects me to make good on that promise.)

After that, we move on to Nico’s sister, Ebb, and her partner, Annie. While Annie is quietly polite, Ebb is a bit more boisterous but kind all the same, pulling Simon into a bone-crushing hug.

After a few cousins who are more interested in whatever is on their phones than meeting my new boyfriend, we end up next to Dev and Niall, who glance between our faces and clasped hands with unreadable expressions before offering Simon genial hellos.

It seems like they may finally be accepting that our relationship is real.

Simon has begun to look a little overwhelmed by the time we make our way to the kitchen, but he still manages to offer up a polite smile when I introduce him to my stepmother, Daphne.

“It is so nice to meet you,” she says to Simon, wiping her hands on a towel before holding one out for him to shake.

He takes her hand for a brief moment before letting his hand fall awkwardly back to his side.

“Nice to meet you, too,” he says quietly.

“Do you need any help in here?” I ask, dropping Simon’s hand and moving farther into kitchen.

“Oh, no. I’ve already finished most of the preparation, so I’m good here. Besides, you should go entertain your guest.”

I try not to blush as my brain supplies me with a few different ways that I could do just that, none of which would be very appropriate at this moment, in a house filled with my relatives.

Careful not to look at Simon, I nod before turning and leaving the kitchen, heading back towards my extended family members, who I would prefer to avoid.

None of my siblings have appeared yet since we walked into the house, so they must be off playing somewhere or hiding. I wish I was still young enough to disappear until dinner was ready. Unfortunately, being a grown up apparently means being forced to make polite conversation with people I don’t usually spend more than a few hours with a couple of times a year.

“Everyone is so nicely dressed,” Simon whispers, stepping closer to me and taking my hand in his again as we head back towards the living room. I have to take a slow breath and remind myself that this is just for show, that he’s holding my hand because he has to, not because he wants to. “I look underdressed in what I’m wearing.”

“You look fine to me,” I say, keeping my tone neutral. “But if you are really worried, I may have something in my old bedroom that you could wear.”

“You’re a bit taller than me. I’m not sure any of you clothes would fit me.”

“We can make it work.”

“Okay,” he shrugs.

Five minutes later, Simon is wearing my clothes, and I can’t take my eyes off of him. It’s a suit that I only ever wore once, but it looks way better on him than it ever could have on me.

 Simon

Baz has begun to act weird again. Ever since I stepped out of the bathroom wearing this suit, he hasn’t been able to take his eyes off of me for longer than a few seconds.

I keep waiting for him to tell me that’s something wrong with the way that I look, but he stays silent as we head back downstairs to join his family again.

I should have known when Baz picked me up wearing a stunning, dark green suit that I was underdressed, but I thought that maybe it was just a Baz thing. That was until I walked into mansion-sized home (of course, he grew up in a mansion; it makes so much sense) and everyone was wearing their nicest clothes. And while it’s not like I was wearing a t-shirt and jeans before, I still looked like I was just some guy he had picked up off the street on his way here. I looked completely out of place.

Baz’s suit is only a little long, and while I don’t usually care for wearing suits, it’s different when it’s Baz’s suit that I’m wearing. It obviously isn’t something that he wears anymore since it was still in the closet of his old bedroom, but something about it makes me feel special to be wearing it, like this is where I belong.

It's a ridiculous feeling. I’m only here to convince Baz’s friends that he’s not single. I don’t belong here, and I definitely don’t belong by Baz’s side. As soon as this whole charade is over, I’ll be cast to the side again, and I won’t matter to anyone in this house.

I knew that from the beginning, but it still hurts to think about, so I push that thought away and try to enjoy this afternoon with Baz’s family.

I spend the next hour sitting next to Baz on his couch while he makes pleasant conversation with some of his family members. The entire time, Baz holds my hand, his thumb rubbing idly over the back of hand, never letting go, not even when one of his sisters – Adelaide, I think – climbs into his lap, squealing about how someone (presumably one of their other siblings) is trying to catch her.

Then, it’s time for dinner in the formal dining room where two tables have been set up. The larger one has been set up for the “adults” while a smaller one is off to the side for the kids.

I wish that I could go join the kid’s tables. I’m sure that it would be a lot better than sitting awkwardly with all of these people that I don’t know and have no idea what to say to. Luckily, there is enough food to keep my mouth preoccupied with other things besides talking.

A few minutes into dinner, though, Baz’s father seems to suddenly notice my presence. I didn’t see him before when Baz was giving me a tour of the first floor, but there are plenty of places that he could have been hiding in this giant house.

“Baz,” he says, his voice loud and booming, but also kind-sounding. “I haven’t gotten the chance to meet your boyfriend yet.”

“Dad, this is Simon.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Simon,” his father says, smiling in my direction.

“You, too, sir,” I respond quietly.

“Call me Malcolm,” he says with a dismissive wave of his hand. “‘Sir’ is a little too formal for my taste.”[AH1] 

When I imagined actually meeting Baz’s father, I always thought that he would be strict and someone who wouldn’t exactly be welcoming of his son’s new boyfriend. I had only seen him from afar while we were in college, and he looked just as dark and mysterious as Baz always has.

Now, as I sit just a few seats away from him, he pulls me into a pleasant conversation about how he met Baz’s stepmother, and I’m pretty sure that it’s his own way of saying that he’s okay with me and Baz being together. I even begin to relax after a while, feeling increasingly welcome in this place I’ll never be in again, by people I’ll never see again.

Even though I just met these people, I hate that I’ll have to part from them. I’ve never had a big family. (I never had a family at all.) And being welcomed so warmly by someone else’s family makes me realize just how much I’m missing.

Baz must sense the change in my mood because his hand finds my knee

“Are you alright?” He murmurs, just for me to hear.

I nod. “I’m fine.”

“Okay.” He smiles warmly at me before moving his hand back to his own lap, and I miss his touch.

It was stupid of me to offer to be his fake boyfriend when I had feelings for him. Now, I’m counting down the minutes until tonight is over so that we can go our separate ways, and I can go back to pretending like I don’t have feelings for him.

 Baz

I expected most of my family members to leave right after dinner was over, but they seem to have chosen to sit around and talk for another hour or two. After a while, I excuse me and Simon from the table, and we go off in search of my siblings.

“Want to go upstairs?” He asks, stepping closer to me once we are away from anyone who would care whether or not we’re acting like a couple. I don’t move away, though. I like having him this close to me.

“And do what?” I ask curiously.

“Just get away for a moment. Maybe make people think that we’re kissing or something.”

“Okay,” I say warily.

His hand slips into mine, and he starts leading me away even though he has no idea where he’s going.

I follow him up the stairs, not saying anything even though I’m dying to ask him what he has in mind. He turns right at the stairs, in the direction of my room, so I assume that that is where he is headed, but after a few more steps he stops and turns to me, a strange look in his eyes.

Then, he steps towards me, backing me up until I hit the wall. My heart begins to race in my chest. I didn’t think he was being serious about the kissing thing, but he keeps moving closer to me.

I freeze for a moment before I shift my weight start to lean forward to meet him. I’m not going to say no to kissing him. Even if it doesn’t mean anything to him.

“You know we’re not actually going to kiss, right?” He asks, looking amused.

“Yeah, of course.” I let go of his hand and lean against the wall, but then he relaxes his stance, leaning towards me until our lips are just a breath apart.

“I thought you said we weren’t going to kiss.” I’m not sure why I’m whispering. No one else is around. I doubt anyone even noticed that we disappeared.

“We’re not.”

“Then, what do you call this?”

He bumps his nose against mine before saying, “I call it very close talking.”[AH2] 

“Hmm. That is interesting. I’ve never done this before.”

“Really?” He lifts a brow, and I blush, glad for the darkness.

“Have you?”

“Nope. Just you. But if anyone walks by, it will look like we’re kissing.”

“Maybe we should make it look more convincing.”

“How?” He actually looks interested.

Without saying anything, I wrap my arms around him and pull his body closer, one hand settling on his lower back, the other drifting lower, stopping just before I reach his waistband.

He looks surprised at first, but then he smiles. He slots one of his legs between mine and lift a hand to cup my jaw, and when he touches me, I jerk slightly, and my lips brush his for the briefest of moments. I freeze and force myself not to react and not to push him away. Luckily, he doesn’t say anything about it. He must not care. But I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

We stand like that for a few minutes, not saying anything, just staring into each other’s eyes, our lips mere centimeters away. All I would have to do is tilt my head down a bit, and we would be kissing.

But I don’t do that. Because this isn’t real, and Simon doesn’t want to kiss me. I have to remind myself about that until he finally steps back, saying that we’re probably good now.

Nobody came by, and I’m actually relieved about that. That moment felt way more intimate than simply kissing would have, and I’m glad that no one bared witness to it.

This is starting to become too much. It’s getting harder and harder to fight the urge to pull him to me and pour out my feelings for him.

I need this all to be over. It’s easier to hide my feelings for him when I’m not being forced to be so close to him.

By the time most of my family has finally left, I have a plan in mind for how Simon and I can be broken up by New Year’s. It begins the moment that we live this house, and the plan is to tell Simon all about it on the drive to his house, but then Daphne invites us to stay the night.

She says that there is no point in us leaving, just to make the drive back up in the morning. There’s plenty of room in the house for us.

I can see Simon hesitate, but then she mentions the breakfast she has planned for tomorrow, and I have no hope of making it out of this house until late tomorrow afternoon.

It will be fine, I tell myself.

This could actually work to my advantage. Without Dev and Niall here, Simon and I can act less like a couple. And I can plant the idea that our relationship isn’t as strong as it appears in my parent’s heads so that it won’t be too big of a surprise when I announce our breakup in a couple of days.

This will all be fine. I just need to let Simon know that he will finally be free of me in a couple of days. I am sure that he will be delighted to hear this.

 [AH1]Thank you @carryonsimoncarryonbaz for inspiring me to write a nicer, more accepting Malcolm. He didn’t appear for long in this fic, but it was definitely different for me to write a Christmas dinner where he didn’t end up arguing with Baz.

 [AH2]I got the “very close talking” thing from Psych.

[yurtletheturtlehenderson]

S.T. REWRITE - S2:E1; Chapter One, MADMAX - [Pt. 2]

A Will Byers x Reader Series

As the town preps for Halloween, a high-scoring rival shakes things up at the arcade. Will begins seeing strange visions as the anniversary of his disappearance creeps up.

||Reader's POV||

"To slay the dragon, use the magic sword."

"Oh, Jesus! I'm in uncharted territory here, guys."

"Down! Down! Down!"

"I'm going! I'm going!"

The cartoon woman on the screen exclaimed as the game picked up speed. All of surrounded Dustin, cheering him on as he played.

"I'm going! I'm going! I'm going!"

The boys yelled over one another as I stood on my toes to try and get a better look at the screen.

"Okay. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up!" Dustin bellowed as he slammed his hands on the buttons, but then the disappointing sounds from the machine indicated he had lost.

Dustin began taking out his anger on the machine, kicking as he screamed profusely at it.

Meanwhile, the screen returned to the original title screen, inviting its next player. Lucas began to goat at Dustin.

"You're not nimble enough. But you'll get there one day. But until then, Princess Daphne is still mine."

"Whatever. I'm still top on Centipede and Dig Dug."

"You sure about that?"

We all turned our heads to see one of the younger employees, Keith. He was standing there with a bag of cheese puffs and an awkward smirk.

Dustin's face dropped as he asked the question we all seemed to know the answer to.

"Sure about what?"

Keith only smiled and took a large rather obnoxious bite out of a cheese puff.

Dustin broke out into a panicked sprint and we all quickly followed suit, curious to see the outcome.

"Move! Move! No, no, no, no, no. Hey, no! No! No!"

We all zeroed in on the Dig Dug screen where sure enough, Dustin held second place to someone named MADMAX who held an insanely good score.

"751,300 points!" Will exclaimed, turning and sharing a disbelieving look with one another.

It was then that Mike chimed in. "That's impossible."

"Wow, you really have your work cut out for you." I said, with a hint of a smile on my face as I patted my brother's back.

He only ripped his shoulder away from me, clearly annoyed and turned to Keith.

"Who is Mad Max?"

"Better than you."

"Is it you?" Will asked.

Keith scoffed. "You know I despise Dig Dug."

"Then who is it?"

"Yeah, spill it Keith."

"You want information, then I need something in return," he smirked and looked at Mike.

It took me a second to realize what was being implied. When it hit me, I fought the urge to through up in my mouth.

"Gross!"

"No, no, no. No way. You're not getting a date with her"

"Mike, come on. Just get him the date."

"I'm not prostituting my sister!"

"But it's for a good cause."

"Oh, so what? Does this mean you're gonna have Dustin pimp me out whenever you need a favor?"

"Well, I mean,"

"Lucas!" My voice starts to reach higher octaves and I feel Will's hand grab my own.

I give his hand a light squeeze, silently thanking him and my attention was brought back to the conversation when Dustin spoke up.

"No, don't get him the date. Know what? He's gonna spread his nasty-ass rash to your whole family." Thrown off by the sudden direction that conversation headed, I sighed, releasing Will's hand and running both hands through my hair.

"Acne isn't a rash and it isn't contagious you pubescent wastoid." Keith threw back.

"Oh, I'm a wastoid? She wouldn't go out on a date with you. You make, like, what? $2.50 an hour?"

"Nice perm."

"Gonna make fun of my hair?"

I sighed, knowing we were gonna be here a while.

Suddenly, a voice caught my attention.

"Hey. Hey, guys, do you see the..." I frowned when I saw he was standing over by the front door, looking around the arcade curiously.

"Yeah?" I asked walking forward.

But he only looked right through me. I could tell he was now on edge.

"Will?"

Suddenly, he let out a frightened gasp and whipped around to face the door. My stomach dropped.

"Will? Hey, come on." My breathing began to pick up, I risked a glance at the boys but they were too distracted in their argument and it was far too loud. 

That's when Will began to walk outside. Not wanting to lose him or let him get hurt I quickly followed him.

"Will, hey, it's me, come on." He stopped when he reached the edge of the sidewalk and he stood still, rooted in place. He looked to the sky in terror. I looked over my shoulder only to see nothing but the stars, and I looked back to him. He was still frozen.

I shakily brought my hands up to his shoulders. "Will!"

He gasped and I could tell he was back. Without even thinking, I engulfed him in a hug, and he shakily returned it. I pulled back to look at him and I touched his cheek. "Are you okay?"

His eyes lingered on me and he nodded his head. I was now very aware of the fact that my hand was still on his cheek and I quickly pulled away, a little flustered. There was a moment of silence and then I looked back up at him, knowing on some level what it was about.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He looked away for a moment, before shaking his head.

"I'm fine. I'd rather not, at least not right now."

I smiled reassuringly. "That's completely okay. I get it." I glanced down at his hand before taking it in my own and together we headed back into the arcade.

+++

"That's what's I've been saying! I'm telling you, she may be a teacher, but that doesn't give her any right to treat kids like that!"

"Yes, exactly! Thank you! Hey so do you Haney plans for Halloween?"

Emma was a great friend I had made in the dirty trenches of math class where a solid bond was formed. The two of us were currently walking down the hallway, discussing the horrors that was last class.

"I do actually, yeah me and the guys are going together.  They're gonna be the Ghostbusters and I..." I trailed off when I saw Will up ahead.

He was standing at his locker, looking around rather disturbed with something in his hands.

Hesitating to take my eyes off of him I reluctantly looked to Emma. "Hey, can we talk later? I'm sorry, it's just, I think I need to check on him,"

"Oh yeah, no problem. I'll see you later!"

I threw her a grateful smile as she walked away and then I hurried over to Will.

"Will! Hey, everything okay?"

His head whipped around to face me and he seemed a bit startled to see me. I gently put a hand on his shoulder in reassurance and that seemed to calm his nerves.

"Oh, um, yeah I'm okay." He quickly folded up a small piece of paper that didn't go unnoticed.

"You sure?" He nodded his head and smiled warmly at me causing my stomach to do little flips.

"So, what's that?"

"It's nothing," he said and I raised my eyebrows, not quite believing him. "really. 

I'm okay."

"Okay, well in that case, should we head to science?" I smiled and held ou.t my hand shyly and he gladly took it.

+++

"Meet the human brain," Mr. Clarke said, placing the model before us.

"I know. I know, it doesn't look like much.  A little gross even, right? But consider this. There are a hundred billion cells inside of this miracle of evolution.  All working as one,"

I was hanging onto every word, fascinated much like my other friends. I looked to Will excitedly but he didn't even seem to be paying attention. Something was definitely bothering him. My face fell when I saw this, unintentionally tuning oh Mr. Clarke as well in the process.

I turned the boy and was about to say something when the abrupt sound of the classroom door closing grabbed my attention. Everyone seemed to look to the front when the principles walked in with a girl our age.

She had fiery red hair and freckles all over her face. She wore jeans and a red sweatshirt. I felt kinda bad for her though, she seemed uncomfortable being the center of attention which Mr. Clarke inevitably put her under the spotlight.

"Ah, this must be our new student."

"Indeed it is.  All yours" with that, the principal left, leaving the awkward introduction of the new student.

She attempted to rush to find seat but Mr. Clarke stopped her. "All right. Hold up. You don't away that easy. Come on up. Don't be shy."

She didn't attempt to hide her eye roll as she backed up to face the class.

"Dustin, drum roll."

Without skipping a beat, my brother began drumming his palms on his desk and 

Mr. Clarke began the introduction.

"Class, please welcome, all the way from sunny California, the latest passenger to join us on our curiosity voyage, Maxine."

The girl shifted uncomfortably before mumbling. "It's Max."

"Sorry?" He asked.

"Nobody calls me Maxine. It's Max." We all looked to each other, thinking the same thing.

"Mad Max." Lucas whispered.

"Well, all aboard Max."

I couldn't fight the smile growing on my face and like the boys, we all couldn't help but watch as she took a seat at the back of the class.

She leaned back and crossed her arms, obviously still uncomfortable from the sudden spotlight. She frowned when she saw all the guys staring at her and turned to Dustin and Lucas and a loose chuckled escaped me. They were practically drooling.

I looked to her once more and she met eye. I made sure send her a small welcoming smile, not wanting to make her more uncomfortable than she already was.

+++

We all stood in the small baseball dugout, watching, well the boys were anyway, Max. She was riding her skateboard all around the campus and we were debating whether or not she could be Mad Max. I had settled on the bench in the dugout, not feeling comfortable to be standing around watching someone.

"There's no way that's Mad Max," Mike stated matter of factly.

"Yeah, girls don't play video games," Will said, catching me by surprise.

I crossed my arms and looked at him. "What's that?"

He seemed to notice his mistake and shuffled uncomfortably.  "Except you, I mean. You're cool," I only raised my eyebrows.

"I'm sorry, you know what I mean though, right?" I laughed, having already forgiven him, but enjoying being able to mess with him.

Dustin brought his fist up to his mouth and spoke through pretend coughs. 

"Whipped."

Will turned to him and whacked his arm and I only giggled.

"Ok, but seriously, regardless you can't get 750,000 on Dig Dug. It's Max impossible," Mike said, still focused on the conversation.

"But her name is Max," Lucas argued.

"So what?"

"So, how many Maxes do you know?"

"I don't know."

"Zero, that's how many,"

Dustin the spoke up. "Yeah, and she shows up to school the day after someone with her name beat our top score,"

"Here's a crazy idea, why don't you ask her?" I chimed, looking up at the boys.

"No, no way! She'll be weirded out,"

"Oh, and stalking the poor girl is doing you everybody so many favors,"

"My point is, I don't even think it's necessary. She gotta be Mad Max, she's gotta be,"

"Plus, she skateboards, so she's pretty awesome," Dustin argued, much to the dismay of Mike.

"Awesome? You haven't even spoken a word to her!"

"I don't have to, I mean look at her. Shit, I've lost the target."

"There," Will said, and we all followed his gaze to the back entrance of the school.

She stood at the top of the steps, and before going inside she dropped a crumpled up piece of paper into the trash.

The boys, looked to each other, silently communicating before simultaneously running towards the trash can much to my dismay.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," I mumble, begrudgingly walking after them.

Sure enough, they began digging through the trash can and by the time I reached them they grabbed the piece of paper.

"Seriously, guys this is a new low," I snatched the piece of paper from them. "It's just garbage,"

"Well, if it's just garbage, then open it," Lucas retorted.

I sighed, looking them in the eye while unfolding it.  "Fine, but only to show how ridiculous you are being, I mean come-" I stopped short when I read the words, a loud belly laugh erupting from me.

"What? Let me see!"

"What?"

"Give it!"

Your laughter died into giggles as you watched their faces fall as they read the words,

"Stop spying on me CREEPS"

They sighed and looked up at me as I stifled my giggles with a hand against my mouth. My hand dropped my side and I sighed, before smirking.

"I like her."

"Well, shit," Dustin sighs.

I feel a pit forming in my stomach when I hear one of the teachers speak. "William Byers, your mother's here," we all turned to face him, and I could immediately feel the anxiety radiating off of him.

I grabbed his hand in mine and I gave it a reassuring squeeze and he squeezed my hand lightly in return as he looked at me.

He was doing it again. He was shutting himself down again.

He gave me a weak smile and without another word, he followed the teacher into the school to get his stuff.

Without even a second thought I walked quickly around the building and the others followed. I peeked around the corner and watched as he walked slowly to the car where his mother was waiting for him greeting him with a smile and a wave.

"You guys think he's okay?" Dustin asked.

"He's always weird when he has to go in,"

"I don't know. He's quiet today," Mike said worriedly.

"He hasn't been himself lately. I ran into him in the hallway and he was acting all weird and secretive."

"Well, you're basically his girlfriend. Has he shared anything with you lately, I mean he tells you everything,"

My face fell and I looked to my feet in sadness before looking back up and watching as he reluctantly got in the car. "That's just it. He hasn't said a word. I think something is really bothering him,"

"And, for the first time, I feel like," I sighed. "I can't help him."

+++

Tag List: @fuckwaad @aimee-lucass @iblesstherainsdown-in-africa@miscellaneoustoasts

DM me if you want to be added!

[mister-lucky-bunny]

Scooby Doo: Monster Menagerie Chpt. 4

Description: Mystery Incorporated heads to Grimwood's to meet the students.

Scooby Doo: Monster Menagerie

Chapter 4: Back to School

A few patrons of the small restaurant looked in the direction of a certain group of friends, who happened to be enjoying a story between the five of them (well, six, if you counted the great dane). Some looked amused, a few looked rather annoyed, as at random intervals, they would often break off into fits of laughter, sudden breaths of gasping, and even a bit of groaning.

Googie would be the one retelling most of the story, although Shaggy and occasionally Scooby would interject to fill in any blanks that she would have missed. For the most part, the other three members of Mystery Incorporated would be very interested in the story, albeit for slightly different reasons.

Freddie was greatly invested in the amount of action that Shaggy, Scooby, Scrappy, and Googie had to go through. It would have made a great story in and of itself, but with the fact that monsters were thrown in almost made it hard to believe! He didn't seem to take that into account, though, rather focusing on everything else.

Velma, however, focused more on the fact that none of them seemed to be quite nonchalant about the whole ordeal. Sure, sometimes they'd react with a grimace at the mention of two certain hunchbacks, or even slightly angry about the fact that Dracula had no intent on keeping his end of the bargain. That didn't seem to surprise the curious girl, though. The King of Vampires was known to be regal and a bit uptight. His reputation to be a deadly creature of the night was something he felt like he needed to uphold, and if he had to do so by lying and cheating, so be it. Still though, why he would do so for a ridiculous road race was beyond her.

As for Daphne, she didn't seem to carry any disbelief for the very outlandish story. For a little while, she didn't know why. Shaggy as a werewolf driving in a monster car with other monsters? It was definitely not something she should have blindly believed as she listened to the story unravel. Strangely enough, though, she did. It wasn't until around halfway through the story did she even realize why. It would also unknowingly give her an explanation as to why Shaggy didn't seem comfortable talking about that school he used to teach at.

At one point, she and Shaggy, along with Scooby, Scrappy, and a boy who passed himself off as a con-artist, managed to track down and recapture a bunch of evil spirits (after accidentally setting them free, that is). At the time, the whole prospect of it was quite terrifying, but they all made it through to the end. It was certainly an adventure that they would never forget.

And yet, neither one of them seemed to bring it up again afterwards. Why though? Was it the feeling that the others wouldn't believe them? Perhaps they both felt guilty about having not included them? Guilt over whether or not they'd be worried for their own safety when they, at the time, almost carelessly disregarded it? Strangely enough, even as she thought about it now, the only part about that whole adventure that scared her was how she had decided to style her hair back then. Just thinking about it made her wince a little.

Eventually, the story of the werewolf Shaggy, Dracula, and a monster road race would end, leaving most of the others in almost stunned silence. "In the end, it's strange to think back on that whole event. If anything, all of those monsters turned out to be kinda... well, dumb," Googie concluded, smiling a bit as she held in a laugh. Scooby wasn't as thoughtful, snickering to himself.

"Ryeah! Real dumb ronsters!"

Shaggy was grinning as well, although he was meekly slurping from a milkshake, not wanting to bring too much attention to himself.

Freddie was the first to speak, grinning widely at Shaggy, heavily impressed. "Wow, Shag, I guess you weren't lying about being a race car driver after all," He began. "Not only that, but you had to do it with a bunch of monsters!"

"As a werewolf too," Velma cut in, smiling, although looking down in thought. "Never knew someone could turn into one without being bitten..."

"Like, neither did I, really!" Shaggy said in between sips of his shake. "I guess, like, even on my own time, I can't help but get into monster related trouble," He said with a small laugh.

"...is that why you two broke up?" Daphne suddenly asked. It must have been the reporter in her to make her ask such a thing, but it still got some reactions. Shaggy immediately snorted milkshake in shock, making a lot of it shoot up into his face. Scooby was there to lick it off of his face, though once his vision was cleared, he gave a shocked 'Why would you ask that?!' face to Daphne. Freddie and Velma turned to her, slightly confused, eyebrows perked up. Googie also seemed quite surprised, eyes wide as she thought about what the red head had just asked.

"Oh..! Well uh, that's quite sudden..." Googie replied, blushing and looking away awkwardly. "Let me put it to you this way... you're kinda right." When it was apparent that Shaggy didn't seem to have any sort of input other than trying to bury his face into his glass once again, his ex-girlfriend continued on. "Like I mentioned earlier, he's told me about you guys, as well as the types of 'mysteries' you all get into. While they don't sound dangerous, other than a bunch of weirdos dressing up, it just... wasn't the kind of thing for me."

Googie looked down, almost looking guilty. "...he even offered me to have me tag along. But with everything that had just happened, I was shocked and angry. I couldn't understand why he wanted to go through all this again. I know I certainly wouldn't! So I... broke it off." She finished simply, rubbing her arm, avoiding everyone's gaze.

After a few minutes, Shaggy spoke up, having gotten the nerve to find his voice. "Hey, Googie, c'mon. Like, I don't blame ya." She turned her head to him and tilted it, wondering what he meant. "Like, It was a lot to go through, and asking such a question was a bit in... poor taste, I guess." He chuckled a little. "I mean, if I was in your position, I would've broken up with me too." He said, smiling gently. "So, like, don't go beating yourself over it. It's in the past, and we can move on, right?"

Googie returned the smile, her eyes looking somewhat embarrassed. "Yeah, we can."

Everyone else at the table watched the two make up, staying quiet and enjoying it. Even Scoob was touched by it, letting out a little "R'aww..." Good old Shaggy Rogers. Never one to hold a grudge for too long, and always looking to forgive. The moment didn't last too long, because soon, Shaggy turned to get another bit of shake, only to find Scoob slurping the rest of it, leaving an empty glass.

"Hey..!" He said, glaring at his dog, who began to giggle apologetically. Everyone else was amused by this, as they started laughing a long.

"Hm, guess some things never change, huh?" Googie mused.

"Seems like it," Velma agreed, nodding as she began to stand up. "By the way, we should probably head out to that school if we wanna get there before it gets too dark." The gang looked out the window, realizing they had spent a good portion of their day listening and talking in the cafe. The sky was a faint orange color as the sun began to set over the small town.

"Woah! Guess we kinda lost track of time," Daphne said, beginning to get up as well, everyone joining in.

"Right! Shag, you still remember where it is, right?" Fred asked his friend.

"Like, of course! Shouldn't take too long. We may even make it just in time for dinner!" Shaggy added, making Scooby nod.

"Ooh a school?" Googie said, looking between everyone. "I didn't know you taught, Shaggy. Okay if I tag along? Y'know, for old times' sake?" She continued, smiling shyly and looking down. The foodie and his dog froze in place, looking between each other for a bit.

"Hey, yeah! Come along with us, it should be fun!" Freddie answered, looking to his frozen friend. "You don't care, do you?"

"Uh..." The thoughts of Googie running away from the school after having met the monster students soon came to mind. His nerves got the best of him, as he quickly answered in a voice that was slightly higher pitched than usual. "Like, sure! Why not?"

Scooby merely shook his head and mumbled to himself. "Ruh roh..."

None of the others seemed to notice this as they began to head into the Mystery Machine. "Great! You can sit in the back with Shaggy and Scooby," Fred said, getting into the driver's seat. Soon, everyone got in their usual spots, Googie looking around some.

"So this is the infamous Mystery Machine..." She thought aloud.

"Like, what do you think?" Shaggy asked, leaning back in his seat some.

"Not bad! Pretty small, though, don't you think?"

"It does the job," Daphne continued, looking back at Googie.

"Hey, Shag, where do I head from here?" Freddie asked, starting the van up.

"Oh, like, head on down this road until you reach see a small soft-shouldered road to the right. You're gonna, like, head on down there through the woods," He answered, leaning over to point out the directions.

With a nod, he began to turn the wheel and they were off.

Out of curiosity, Googie asked, "So, now that I've told my story, what about you guys? Got any good adventures to retell while we wait?"

The sun began to set semi-quickly as the van rolled through the woods. Laughter filled the Mystery Machine as they all began to retell some of their favorite past adventures. Naturally, many of their stories ending as they usually did, with someone getting their disguise pulled off. It never seemed to get old, at least not to them.

As Freddie continued to drive further and further into the woods, the clouds above would seem to get heavier and darker. A rumble of thunder seemed to get everyone quiet for a little. "Hey gang, might run into a bit of rain."

"Like, turn your brights on, then. Last time I had to drive out here, it was raining. Almost got lost!" Shaggy advised. The blond nodded and quickly did so. In that moment, he seemed to almost drive directly into the storm. A wall of rain begin to hit against the windshield, and it was coming down hard.

None of the others could hear their own thoughts as rain pounded against the van, Freddie making sure to turn the wipers on high so that he wouldn't lose track of the road. "Hey Shaggy, how long until we get there?"

"Uh, like, not sure..." He said, rubbing his head.

"Wait, I see a sign up ahead!" Daphne pointed out. A couple of seconds passed as Freddie got closer to it, letting his lights hit the sign.

"Calloway Military School for Boys," Freddie read aloud. "Definitely not the place..." He said, a little disappointed. He had to speak a little louder, as the rain didn't seem to ease up any.

"Wait, we can't be too far away," Velma interject, also having to speak up. "The detective did say there were two schools out this way, right?"

"Like, yeah, I remember having to pass Calloway's. We're getting closer, Freddie, just keep going!" Shaggy continued. This seemed to spark a small surge of enthusiasm back into the blond, as he backed up a little and continued on down the old road. At this point, even though they could barely see anything else, they all began to get a bad feeling. Despite it being so dark, the overall feeling of dread seemed to fill everyone's mind. It was almost palpable.

"Hey, Shaggy..? Was it this... spooky when you drove here?" Googie asked somewhat nervously.

He nodded, but also seemed to be shaking a bit, Scooby holding onto him in a cowardly way. "Yeah, b-but that doesn't make it any less freaky!"

"Ruh huh!" Scooby agreed.

"Hey wait, I see... a gate!" Freddie laughed. "Finally, we made it!" Sure enough, the Mystery Machine made it to the metal gate, two gargoyles perched on either side. On the stone fence was a wooden sign, which Freddie shined his light on.

"Miss Grimwood's Finishing School for... Ghouls?" He read, sounding confused. "Huh, guess one of the boys back at the military school must've done a bit of graffiti."

Shaggy and Scooby shared a look with each other, nodding somewhat sheepishly. "Like, yeah, probably..."

"I'm just wondering why the police seemed to intent on keeping this place secret..." Velma started, as she looked to the sign. "However, I think our bigger problem is the fact that there's no one out here and the gate is-" In that moment, the gate slowly swung open, wide enough to let the van through. "...closed?" She finished, everyone starting to feel on edge as they looked at each other in an uneasy manner.

"...are you sure this is normal?" Daphne asked aloud.

This question was met with a gulp from Shaggy. "Like, I hope..."

The gang was met with the image of a giant mansion, which began to grow closer and closer to them. Freddie soon began to slow the van to a halt, analyzing the area the best he could. It wasn't that easy to do in all the rain, even with the wipers at maximum speed. There was one easily noticeable thing that he felt like needed to be pointed out. "Hey gang, there's a moat here."

"So I guess this is as far as we go?" Googie asked, looking both a bit scared and confused. She wasn't the only one, as the others seemed to be nervous too.

"Like, don't worry guys, the drawbridge should come down any second," Shaggy stated, rather calmly. Almost on cue, the crank of an old wooden handle and the clinking of chains was audible, even through the pelting rain. The giant drawbridge opened up, revealing a rather warm looking light coming from inside the massive mansion. "Like, we have to walk from here. I don't think Miss Grimwood would appreciate us driving into her school." He chuckled before stepping out with Scooby. The gang was even more confused at this point. Why did Shaggy seem so... calm about this whole thing?

With a shrug, Velma unbuckled and opened her door. "Well... I guess we follow him," She stated simply. The other three gave a nod and left the van as well. They hurried along the drawbridge, wanting to get out of the rain as soon as possible. The wood creaked gently as they stumbled along a bit. At one point, Googie let out a shriek and seemed to jump, hurrying inside.

"G-guys..?! I think I saw something move in the moat..!"

Shaggy merely waved his hand casually, shaking himself off from the rain, Scooby doing the same. "Like, don't worry about him, he's harmless."

Freddie and Daphne looked around the room they were in. It looked quite old and dusty, as if it hadn't been cleaned in a long time. Cobwebs hung from everywhere, candles being used to light up rooms. Old bookshelves, dusty looking couches and chairs. Everything looked very antique, as if they were hired to upkeep the mansion and weren't doing a very good job of it. It was hard to believe that this building was the school in which Shaggy used to teach in.

Velma dried her glasses off with her sweater, raising a skeptical eyebrow. "Him? Harmless? Shaggy, is there something you're not telling us?"

Shaggy chuckled sheepishly, looking a bit bashful. "Like, don't worry, you'll know soon enough."

"Maybe sooner than you think," Came a new voice. This got everyone's attention as they watched a stout woman with black hair and a pink dress walk in.

"Like, hey again Miss Grimwood," Shaggy greeted, Scooby giving a wave.

"Riya!"

"Hello again, Coach Rogers. Scooby."

While the woman was clearly quite friendly, there was something a bit off about her. She didn't seem like the type to keep her own building in such a frightful state, but yet she didn't seem at all perturbed by it. Even stranger, neither did Shaggy or Scooby. The rest of the gang watched with wide, confused looks. It wouldn't be long before she stepped forward and shook his hand, which he eagerly returned, doing the same with Scoob. "I also see you brought some friends, this time."

He turned around and saw the four of them huddled together, obviously weirded out by the weird house. Velma was giving him a strange look, as if waiting for him to explain where they were. Freddie, Daphne, and Googie seemed pretty nervous, watching to make sure a spider wouldn't land on them.

"Oh, like, these are my friends! Freddie, Velma, and Daphne are part of Mystery Incorporated, and that's Googie, who I, like, used to go out with," He explained, laughing a bit. They all gave a sheepish smile and a wave.

"Uh.. a pleasure to meet you, Miss Grimwood." Velma began, trying to sound polite.

"Yeah, real... lovely place you got here," Daphne added, eyeing roach crawl from a crack in the wall all the way up to a crack in the ceiling.

Miss Grimwood smiled a bit more, laughing some at her comment. "Oh well thank you. I made sure everything was just perfect for the girls' arrival!" She explained, leading them further into the building. Shaggy and Scooby followed closely, the rest soon catching up after a few seconds. Was this a... design choice by the woman?

"Erm... if you don't mind me asking," Googie began nervously. "I assume the girls don't mind this type of decor?"

"Oh, they adore it!" Grimwood replied happily, stopping in what appeared to be a big foyer. She turned her attention to Shaggy and Scooby. "Speaking of which, would you like to see the girls again, Shaggy? I'm sure they wouldn't mind taking time from unpacking to see their favorite coach again."

"Like, I'm their favorite?" He asked, sounding surprised. Miss Grimwood replied with a giggle.

"Well of course! Not only did you help them win their first volleyball game, but also saving them from that evil witch! You were bound to leave an impact."

"Witch?!" The other four replied, sounding surprised by how casual she threw that out there.

Shaggy gulped and laughed nervously. "Oh right! Heh... uh, Miss Grimwood... I like-"

"Didn't tell your friends, hm?" She finished, looking up with an eyebrow cocked, her grin not leaving her face. A meek nod from the two gave her the answer she needed. The woman turned her attention to the four, smiling wider. "Not to worry, we'll be sure to explain everything over dinner." Shaggy and Scooby shared an excited expression at the mention of dinner, while the other four shared one of unease.

Miss Grimwood cleared her throat as she kept on. "But first..." She turned her head towards the stairwell, calling at them. "Girls! Come downstairs, your coach is here!"

None of them, save for Grimwood, expected the response that was given, which sounded like it came from a rough, tough girl. "Ugh, no way! I've had enough of him!"

Miss Grimwood put her hands on her hips as she huffed, everyone else making a confused noise. "Now, really, Winnie! That's no way to treat a guest, let alone your-"

"Coach..?" Came a new, timid voice. It was quite small sounding, but still made an effort to make itself known. This got the attention of everyone, looking at the source of the sound. To Freddie, Daphne, Velma, and Googie, they saw a bandaged girl decked out in gold jewelry peek out from behind a door frame. To Miss Grimwood, Shaggy, and Scooby, they knew exactly who that was.

Scooby grinned and waved a paw. "Riya, Ranis!"

Miss Grimwood stepped out of the way as the girl suddenly let out a squeal, quickly running forwards at the two. Now that she fully revealed herself to be fully bandaged, the other got even more confused. Was she a burn victim? She didn't sound like one, nor did she look like she was in pain. The jewelry looked Egyptian, certainly. Was she a...?

In that instant, the mummified girl jumped up and clung to Shaggy's neck, hugging onto him tightly. Shaggy, oddly enough, laughed. As he returned the hug to the overeager young girl, he looked over her some. "Like, you can't be Tanis! You're all grown up!" He joked.

The girl replied by nodding happily. "Yeah..! My mummy-daddy made sure to freshly wrap my bandages before I got here, even supplying me with more in case I hit another growth spurt!"

At this point, the other four shared a look, as if sharing the same thought. Was 'mummy-daddy' a weird way of her saying 'mother and father'? Before any of them could ask, however, the voice from before was heard as Shaggy gently put the short, bandaged girl down.

"...wait a second..." The voice mumbled. The next noise heard was a door quickly opening up. A couple of seconds passed before a very loud howling noise was made. The noise sent shivers down everyone's spine, although Shaggy seemed to keep smiling happily.

"That sounded like..." Daphne began. Before she could continue, though, something heavy came rampaging down the stairs.

Thump thump thump thump thump thump thump THUMP THUMP THUMP

A brown and blue furry blur came leaping down the stairs, hitting the floor and immediately jumping at Shaggy. Tanis had tugged Scooby out of the way to avoid the oncoming collision. "COOOOOOACH!" The blur howled out.

As she made contact with the lanky man, he let out a loud grunt, being sent back at least five yards. The gang let out a yell, Googie shrieking loudly.

"A werewolf!" She cried out, watching with wide scared eyes. The sight before them, thankfully, wasn't Shaggy being gored alive. It was Shaggy laughing. Again. He was trying to wrestle the girl off of him, who was taking to nuzzling and hugging him as tightly as she possibly could, giving Shaggy a face full of brown fur and messy orange hair. Up close, they could see that the wolf wore a baby blue tank top with shredded jeans. Obviously, she lacked shoes.

"Coach! Aw man, I can't believe it's you again! I didn't know you were here until I thought I heard your voice! I opened my door and took a whiff and... it was you! You actually came back!" She rambled in a giddy manner, her tail wagging like crazy.

"Hahaha! Like, it's good to see you too, Winnie!"

Freddie gave a little, nervous smile. "Uh... maybe it's just a really hairy girl?"

Googie shook her head, pointing towards the nuzzling wolf. "Then how do you explain the tail?!"

In that moment, Winnie lifted her head up and eyed them all, making them flinch a bit. She turned back to Shaggy. "Who're they?"

"Oh like, a few friends of mine I decided to bring along!" He answered. With this, she finally got off of Shaggy's chest, quickly moving towards the others, who were now huddled in a tight group, worried what Winnie was about to do. She began moving around them, eyeing them up with glowing yellow eyes and sniffing them loudly.

"Hrmm... they don't smell dangerous..." She grumbled, eyeing over Freddie a little. "How do we know they're not gonna cause trouble?" Winnie asked skeptically. Oddly enough, Velma was thinking the same thing.

Tanis had taken to hiding behind Scooby, who was looking over the group cautiously. Scooby was gently patting her head as she smiled shyly. "Th-they're friends of Shaggy's, so they wouldn't do anything. Right..?" She asked nervously, peeking up at them with her bright blue eyes.

Daphne couldn't help but smile at the shy young girl. She was really adorable, even if something about her did seem off. Did the bandages really mean she was a mummy?

Another noise seemed to echo through the room. This time, however, it sounded more like heavy footsteps growing louder and louder as they ascended a stairwell. Items seemed to shake as the rumbled grew louder, a few people losing their balance, even some of the students. "Ah, that must be another girl eager to meet you again!" Miss Grimwood stated.

One cue, a door loudly creaked open, and a tall girl started lumbering towards them. A very tall girl. Covered in stitches. With standing black and white hair. And bolts out of her neck. And very intimidating muscles. The girl seemed to be wearing patchwork green clothing, which almost matched her sickly pale green skin. From the looks of it, she also wore an old (and, thankfully, clean looking) apron. She wore matching pants and large black boots. The way she seemed to stare at everybody looked like she was going to murder them all in an instant.

That is until Shaggy spoke up. "Like, hey, Elsa! I see you've grown up lots too!" In that moment, her face softened up, smiling brightly as she quickly ran to him, quickly scooping up Scooby and Shaggy into a backbreaking hug.

"Coach! It's been so long!" She boomed happily. Her voice came out quite slow, yet loud. The two squirmed in her grasp, Shaggy's grin turning into a pained grimace.

"Mmf... yeah..! Like, great to be back..!" Shaggy strained.

"Reaking of racks..." Scooby grunted, starting to feel lightheaded.

Miss Grimwood seemed to chuckle a bit before speaking up. "Careful now, Elsa, or they'll pass out before the others get a chance to see them."

The girl named Elsa opened her arms and let out a sheepish laugh. "Sorry about that, Coach. Without your guidance I think I got a bit weaker." She said, rubbing her very toned looking bicep.

Shaggy laughed and gave her muscle a playful squeeze. Or at least tried to, but it looked like he was trying to squish a rock. "If that's weak, then I'll bet your A-game is, like, off the charts," He joked, laughing a bit.

Freddie blinked at the sight of more and more... strange girls coming in. As the werewolf continued to sniff them, he gulped. "...maybe she got into a few accidents as a kid..?"

"Including two bolts in her neck?" Velma added in sarcastically.

"Maybe an incident at a construction site?" He added in hastily. Winnie looked to Tanis, pointing a thumb at him and giving a look that said 'can you believe this guy?' The mummy girl hid her face in her bandages to stifle her giggles.

As Shaggy and Scooby readjusted their spines, a very loud cackling filled the room. All of the humans, save for Miss Grimwood, seemed to flinch at it. Suddenly, the torso of a blue girl phased through the floor, right in front of Daphne, who let out a shout, staring at her with wide eyes. She was a translucent blue, her hair white with a blue streak down the middle, almost like a side mohawk.

The girl didn't seem to take any mind at this, looking around. "Hehehe, hey hey! What's with all the ruckus, huh? Are we having our Halloween party in September this year?!" She joked, giggling maniacally. She turned her head 180 degrees, landing on the group, who seemed to back up. There was no denying that this girl was a ghost, and a loud one, at that. "Hiya, strangers! Pleasure to meet ya! I'm Phantasma, but you can all call me Phanty! Everyone does, after all," She continued to speak, pulling herself through the floor and floating above everyone. Her body was still dressed in a tattered blue dress, her feet covered in white cowboy boots. The biggest difference in her was that she definitely looked older, even if she didn't dress that way.

"And hello to you too, Winnie, and Tanis, and Shaggy, and Scooby, and Elsa, and Miss-" Phanty stopped mid-sentence, gasping loudly and over-dramatically. In an instant, she flew over to Scooby and Shaggy, pulling them by the waist so that she was in between them in a sandwich type of hug. The phantom let out an ear piercing squeal, bouncing in place in a giddy manner. "Ohmygod ohmygod ohmyGOD! It's really you two!" She laughed happily, her energy not having gone down an ounce.

Despite her loud voice and her cold touch, Shaggy smiled and returned the hug with Scooby. "Like, of course it is! I'm surprised you're this excited over us!"

"Well duh! You're the bestest coach in the world!" Phanty screamed, circling around the two happily.

"Come now, Phanty, try not to overwhelm our guests too badly," Came the purr of a sultry voice. Everyone turned to see a purple girl descend the stairs, staring with a half lidded gaze between everyone. She had a strange beauty to her, and it was almost hard to believe she was a teenager. She looked very much like a young woman, her complexion practically perfect in every way. Her dress seemed to flow gracefully behind her.

Thankfully, to the off-put group of four, she looked relatively normal, if a bit goth and... purple. Her eyes seemed very strange, for some reason, though. They peered into the eyes of the four before she turned to Shaggy and Scooby. She let herself curtsy and bow her head slightly. "Welcome to Grimwood's. I am Sibella Dracula," She introduced politely, almost regally. At the mention of the name 'Dracula', Googie's grasp seemed to tighten against Fred's shirt. Whether out of fear or anger, even she did not know.

There was definitely something... terrifying about the girl. Not outwardly, but something inside. With the name Dracula, there was no doubt this young lady was a vampire. Powerful beings, ones that shouldn't be trifled with. The gang remained silent as Shaggy stared blankly at her. For a moment, they thought he was going to come to terms with reality. He was in a mansion filled with monsters, one of whom was the daughter of the worlds' most dangerous vampire. They expected him to suddenly realize where he was and hit the road.

Imagine their faces when he merely put his hands on his hips, raised an eyebrow, and gave a wry smile.

"Like, c'mon, Sibella. You know there's no reason to act so proper around me!" He stated.

A few seconds passed before her lips curled upwards into a grin. A blur of purple flashed forward onto Shaggy, not unlike how Tanis had earlier. It was a bit creepier, though, since she was tall enough to reach the floor, her face right near his neck. Despite the fact the rest of the group held their breath, expecting her to plunge her fangs into his jugular, she merely kept hugging.

"...it's fang-tastic to see you again, Shaggy," She sighed, letting go of him after a few seconds. Shaggy smiled brightly at her and laughed again.

"Like, there's the Sibella I know!"

Googie, Velma, Daphne, and Fred were dumbfounded. Shaggy hugging monsters like it was nothing! Fred cleared his throat, finding his voice.

"...well, gang, I think it's safe to say the sign wasn't vandalized."

[femslashy]

begin again | chapter one

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It’s been three years since Baz left the sleepy Isle of Mage to attend university in London, and he hasn’t regretted a thing--except maybe leaving Simon behind. Convinced he’ll never be forgiven, Baz refuses to even visit until a frantic phone call from his stepmother sends him running home. Once there, Baz is forced to confront his past, question the future, and maybe, just maybe, get that second chance he’s always desired.

genre(s): angst+fluff+smut (in later chapters)

chapter length: 3163 words

triggers/warnings: none for this chapter

author’s note: a giant thank you to @amandaisnotwriting & @rainbowbaz for the beta/britpicking! full acknowledgments will be posted with the last chapter

The Isle of Mage is six kilometres long and six kilometres wide. It’s home to a mere 1,078 citizens who inhabit its three villages--Salisbury, Thistledown, and Watford. The island relies on tourism as its main source of income, and every year people flock here to see the various sights. There’s no shortage of those; everything from the natural tide pools on the rocky beaches to the castle that looms on top of the hill. It’s the type of idyllic place everyone fantasises about living in.

Everyone who isn’t me, of course.

I hate this place. I’d hated it then, and I hate it still. I hate how small everything is, how everyone seeks to know everyone else’s business. I hate the near constant stench of fish that never seems to go away--despite the fact that the fishery shut down close to a decade ago--and I hate all the fucking sheep.

I hate how everyone is content to stay here, to waste their lives in this mediocre village on this mediocre island where no one has ever actually accomplished anything noteworthy. At all. Ever. (If you don’t believe me, check the Wikipedia page.)

The thought of living here forever--of being stuck--had terrified me as a teenager. I’d always known I would leave when I could, that I had no future here. For most of secondary school all I focused on was getting out. I worked hard to stay at the top of my class, and had my eyes set on uni (any one, really, as long as it wasn’t here) as long as I can remember. It had been the perfect plan; I wasn’t attached enough to anyone on the island to miss them. Not enough to stay.

(Except maybe Simon.)

“I’m going to bed,” Daphne says once she turns off the car.

Her voice sounds remarkably different than it had when she rang me in a panic yesterday afternoon to let me know that she was at the hospital with my father, and that he’d had a heart attack. She hadn’t explicitly asked me to come, but the expectation was obvious. So I did. I came back, like I said I wouldn’t, to play the role of the dutiful son, standing by my father's bedside and consoling my stepmother as she cried.

I nod to show I’ve heard her, but make no move to exit her SUV. I’m not ready to enter the house just yet. (Or at all, really.)

Eventually the lights inside shut off, and I crack my neck before I climb out, slamming the door harder than necessary. The empty space where my car used to sit makes me sadder than it should. I’d only had it for a short time, but it was long enough to grow attached.

The fact that my father sold it is old news—he wouldn’t allow me to take it to school unless I went to Oxford like he’d wanted. Which I didn’t. So I left it and he sold it. (Bastard.)

My gaze flicks to the right and a slow grin spreads across my face, because on the opposite side of the garage is my father’s most prized possession: his forest green Jaguar, kept in perfectly pristine condition, with the top down and the keys still in the ignition. Growing up I’d barely been allowed to look at it, never allowed to ride in it. Definitely never allowed to drive it.

Taking that car would be a spiteful, juvenile thing. Petty. Immature. Unnecessary.

I do it anyway.

* * *

Once I’m far enough from the house, I slow down and just let myself enjoy the drive. The car hugs the line between the road and the grass, and I feel my shoulders relax. This is nice, this is familiar. I feel grounded now, like I might actually be able to make it through this in one piece. (And then proceed to get properly pissed with my best friend on the beaches of Ibiza once I get home.)

A rabbit darts out onto the road, and I swear as I swerve to avoid it.

And that’s when I notice Simon.

He’s running along the side of the road in my direction, and I groan. Because of course it is. Of course I couldn’t slip on and off the island without seeing him.

(I must be cursed. It’s the only explanation.)

I speed past Simon, and he double takes so hard I swear I hear his neck crack. I don’t look back, and I think I’m in the clear until I glance in the rearview mirror and see that he’s turned around. He’s fucking turned around and is now jogging in the opposite direction. Towards me. After me. I speed up, and so does he.

(Cursed. I’m definitely cursed.)

***

I only stop because I have to there’s no more road. Or, more accurately, the bridge in front of me is blocked off, with a large orange sign declaring it to be “IN REPAIR” hanging from heavy-looking chains. I park, and wait for the inevitable.

When Simon finally catches up, he only looks slightly out of breath as he approaches the car. He’s smiling. (Why is he smiling? I wish he wasn’t smiling.)

“I’m not here to see you,” I say coolly, cutting him off before he can say anything, because we’re not doing this. We’re not going to talk.

His smile falters. “I didn’t think you were.”

“I’m not here to see you.” My tone is harsher than before.

“I know.” He steps forward, “I just wanted to...”

“Did it ever occur to you,” I sneer, “that I don’t want to?”

Confusion flickers across his face, followed by hurt. Good. Maybe he’ll leave.

“I just thought--”

“That must have hurt.”

His hands ball into fists. “Shut up.”

I smirk, because I’m getting to him. “I don’t remember you being so sensitive.”

“I don’t remember you being such an arsehole.”

“We were enemies; I hated you.”

“Not the entire time. Not at the end.”

“And yet,” I remind him, “I still left you.”

He’s glaring openly now. I’m playing with fire.

And I can’t stop.

Simon’s eyes widen as I throw open the door of the Jag and stalk towards him, forcing him to back up until his back hits a tree.  I get right up in his face, and chuckle as he flinches.

“Don’t you remember that day, then? How I told you I was leaving? How you practically got down on your knees and begged me to st--”

The pain is a shock, and then it burns , a throbbing ache spreading steadily outward from my nose. It hurts like hell, and I’m bleeding; it’s running down my chin. I lick my lips and taste copper. Fuck. I can’t believe he just punched me.

“Typical Snow,” I tut, “resorting to violence. You never were good with your words. A pity, really. Maybe if you had been, you could’ve actually convinced me to stay.”

He lunges forward at that, causing me to stumble until I’m the one backed against the tree. There’s a second punch coming my way, and I only just manage to duck in time. The resounding crack is satisfying, especially considering what he just did to my bloody nose.

(Pun very much intended.)

“What the fuck!” he yells, curling his arm into his chest, “You broke my hand!”

“You did that to yourself, you idiot.”

Simon growls, and yanks his white t-shirt off. The world stops for a moment as I catch a glimpse of his bare torso, and I have to swallow a few times before I manage to snap, “Christ, Snow, what’s with the bloody striptease?” with any sort of convincing indignation.

Simon snorts, covering his mouth with his hand like he’s trying not to laugh.

“What? What is it? What’s so funny?”

“It’s literally…” he lets himself go, almost wheezing too hard to answer. “It’s literally--literally a bloody strip…a bloody striptease.”

My jaw drops, and this sends him into another fit of hysterics. The situation has become so ridiculous, and I’m so fucking sleep-deprived, that I find myself laughing along with him, all the tension from earlier gone.

“I’ll drive you home.” It’s a statement, because I’m afraid that, if I make it a question, he’ll say no. But I want him to say no. Don’t I? Christ, this is confusing.

“Here”, Simon says, holding out his shirt, before climbing in, “so you don’t drip on the seats. I know how you get about your car.”

“It’s fine,” I say, “it’s not my car.” I still take the proffered shirt and use it to wipe my nose. Simon appears unbothered, even when I hand him back a significantly bloodier shirt, as I sit down in the driver's seat. (To be fair, Simon is unbothered by most strange things, so I’m not concerned.)

Simon’s eyes flick around his surroundings, and it’s like he’s only just realised where he’s sitting.

“This is…”

I turn the key. “Yes.”

“And he let you…”

“Nope.”

Simon nods like he gets it, and goes quiet. He starts to fiddle with the radio, and I don’t stop him. Eventually he settles on a station-- one of the mere three available on the island--and turns his head to look out the window.

I can feel my eyelids growing heavy as I drive, but, luckily for us, I’ve made this particular journey often enough that it’s basically muscle memory. With Simon in the seat next to me, it’s as if I never even left.

I hate it.

* * *

“This isn’t my house.”

I look from the house in front of us to Simon and then back to the house.

“What do you mean this isn’t your house?"

“I mean I don’t live here anymore.”

“What, did you move?”

Simon acts as if he hasn’t heard me. “You need to get back on the main road and make a right instead of a left by the school. I’ll direct you from there.”

I bite my cheek to avoid asking the questions that are threatening to spill off my tongue, and check to make sure the street is clear before reversing and driving off towards Simon’s mysterious new place.

***

I recognize it instantly, even though I’d only visited a handful of times.

“You live with Ebb?”

Simon shakes his head, and pushes the car door open. I quickly do the same when it becomes obvious that he’s not going to wait for me, and it’s only the burning curiosity that convinces me it’s a good idea to go with him.

We climb the steps side by side, and I watch as Simon digs his hand around in his pocket, wincing a bit as he does--presumably from the drag of denim across his scraped knuckles. He produces a key that requires a complicated set of manoeuvres to open the lock, and then he’s pushing the door open and I’m following him inside.

(It occurs to me that I haven’t actually been invited, but when have I ever cared about that?)

Simon kicks his trainers off and nudges them with the side of his foot so they line up with the wall, then looks at me. “Tea?”

“Please.”

He brushes past me to get to the kitchen, and I drift towards the lounge.

The interior hasn’t changed much since I was here last; the furniture is still sparse and mismatched, and there are knick-knacks covering every inch of available space. The only new thing that stands out is the sofa I’m currently staring at. It’s a terrible pea soup green, and it’s fucking corduroy, of all things. It screams charity shop. Severely discounted. It’s absolutely something Simon would buy without another person around to stop him.

Which means Simon must be here alone.

“When did Ebb leave the island?” I ask, making sure my voice carries so he can’t pretend not to hear me this time.

The sound of the mug shattering seems to echo off the walls, and I flinch. Simon’s still facing the window, but I can see his shoulders starting to shake. I stand up to help clean the mess and Simon holds up a hand. “I’ve got it.”

I don’t listen, and approach his now crouching figure. He’s scrambling to pick up the broken pieces, and one grazes the side of his hand. It’s not large, but blood still begins to stream.

“Shit!” I jump up and grab a dishrag, rushing to run it under the tap. Simon doesn’t fight back when I hold it to the cut; he just sits there, looking at the wound like he has no idea how it got there.

My knees start to hurt after a moment, and I pull back the rag to inspect the cut. It’s stopped bleeding, and looks a lot shallower than I’d expected. Definitely not deep enough to require stitches. Simon is still staring at it, looking bewildered, and I’m half-tempted to leave him there on the floor. (I would too, if I didn’t feel like it was my fault he dropped the damn thing.)

“Come on, Simon. Up you get.” I haul him to his feet, and guide him (push him along, really) over to the ugly sofa. The kettle begins to whistle, and I push Simon back down when he starts to stand. “Stay. I’ll handle it.”

(Miraculously, he listens.)

I prep the tea in record time, and even remember how Simon takes his--no sugar, lots of milk. Our fingers brush as I hand the mug to him, and I almost drop my own; it feels like I’ve been electrocuted.

Simon drinks his tea, his throat working as he swallows. (I’d almost forgot how ridiculously long he takes to swallow. It’s a whole ordeal with him.)

My own cup sits neglected in front of me. I couldn’t find any sugar, and I don’t have the energy to pretend I like it any other way.

After what seems like an eternity, but in reality is closer to five minutes, Simon finishes drinking. His cheeks are noticeably rosier as he leans forward to set the mug on the coffee table next to my discarded one, purposefully not looking my way as he says, “I am happy, you know. To see you. I know you’re not, but I am.”

I blink. I wasn’t expecting that.

Before I get a chance to respond, Simon’s mobile buzzes on the table in front of us. He grabs for it, answering it immediately and leaving the room with a quickly mouthed sorry. I hold up a hand to let him know it’s fine, and rest my head against the back of the sofa, closing my eyes and trying not to think about how many hours it’s been since I last slept. Leaving the house was a mistake, and I should really go before I do something mental, like fall asleep on Simon Snow’s sofa.

(As if that would ever happen.)

***

The door to my room opens, and someone’s moving around with no regard for the person (me) sleeping in here. I don’t open my eyes before snarling, “Mordelia, leave.” But she only continues to make noise, finally prompting me to lift my head and glare at her. Except it’s not Mordelia, I’m not in my room, and I’ve been lying on the world’s most uncomfortable sofa.

“Sleep well?” Simon asks.

I’m up and off the sofa as soon as I realise what’s happened. “Did you leave me alone in your house? Are you mad?”

Simon shrugs. “I had to. Someone phoned in sick at work and I had to go in.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“I tried, but you kept pulling my hair.”

(Okay, so maybe Andrea wasn’t lying when she accused me of doing that to her. I’ll buy her apology chocolates once I’m home, the fancy kind with the lavender and sea salt.)

(Speaking of chocolate…)

“Why did you bring me cake?”

Simon looks down like he forgot what he was holding. “I didn’t bring you cake. This is my cake.”

“Alright, why do you have cake?”

“Because it’s my birthday,” he says, like I should have known.

“It’s your birthday,” I echo, because of course it is. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Simon shrugs (again) as he sets the box on the kitchen counter. “I didn’t think you’d care.” He seems to realise what he’s said, because he quickly follows it with, “I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s just...well it’s not like you’ve acknowledged it at all since--”

The since you left hangs in the air, a topic neither of us want to touch--especially not after what happened earlier. Suddenly, I can’t be here anymore; it’s too much.

I clear my throat. “I should go. My stepmother will be wondering where I am.”

Simon looks like he wants to argue, but I don’t give him a chance before I’m stalking past him and walking out the door.

I hadn’t expected him to follow me,  and he nearly crashes into my back when I pause to take in the night. It’s later than I thought; the sky is pitch-black, but clear, and littered with stars. I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed seeing them until this moment.

That thought unnerves me; I don’t want to miss anything here. But it’s only the stars, only the sky. It’s normal to long for those things;  I'd be ridiculous to think it meant I missed anything else.

Like the island. Like Watford.

Like Simon.

Simon, who’s moved to stand beside me now, hand next to mine, barely centimetres away. It feels strange not to be holding it. (We did a lot of that when we were together. Handholding. Almost more than kissing.) There’s a chill in the air, making me even more hyper aware of how close we’re standing. Simon’s body is warm (so warm) and it’s coming off him in waves.  

I tilt my head back. “There’s so many stars. London doesn’t have stars like this.”

“Do you miss them?” he asks, and I know he doesn’t mean the stars.

“Yes,” I say, because neither do I.

“Enough to come back?”

“London has stars too, Simon.”

“But not like this.”

“No, not like this.”

We’re silent then. The night is still, and the air feels charged with something both familiar and new. I fight the urge to indulge, reminding myself that I left and there was a reason, and that I really should get home and pack because I’m leaving first thing tomorrow.

“I really do need to leave.”

Simon hums in acknowledgment, and I push off from the rail, standing up straight until I’m taller than him again. He doesn’t move, or even turn his head towards me. Feeling my way across the porch, I make my way down the stairs.

“I’ll see you around then,” he finally says as I climb into my car, and I wave before driving off.

***

I’m halfway home when I remember he won’t.

chapter two 

[nomaji]

Never-mind Bout’ The Others

Character Pairing: Neville Longbottom x Slytherin Reader

Requested

Plot Summary: Set in OoTP (Fifth year), the reader and Neville had been secretly dating. Using the excuse of tutoring each other, the two managed not to get caught. Sometime due an incident involving Neville, the reader and Umbridge,their relationship is revealed...

Disclaimer: All things JK. Rowling had created are not mine, the gif belongs to its respective owners.

Also, my very first imagine, yay! Sorry if it wasn’t what you’re expecting, but ‘A’ for effort heheh..I’m also working on two other requests, with more “what’s inside xx common room” things, along with some original short stories, and a Hogwarts short story coming up, but definitely feel free to request more Hogwarts related things you want me to write about!

Hope you enjoy~

It was nice to have Neville by your side, despite your differences.

To begin, he was a Gryffindor, and you, however, was sorted into Slytherin. History had played out to ensure your house’s intense rivalry get passed down through generations. How did the two of you ever got together was beyond anyone’s comprehension. You had your fair share of talents and intelligence, one of them being coming in close second between your housemate, Draco Malfoy, in potions. Neville, however, being not as competent in Potions as you, excelled much further in Herbology, the one subject you swear you’d rather consume sleeping draught than going towards that greenhouse every week. In short, you’re not blessed with the magical green thumb within your year.

So here you are, absentmindedly flipping through your Herbology textbook, occasionally eyeing the weird, tentacle-like plant in the greenish clay pot. Not far left, Professor Sprout’s lecture droned on about the sticky properties of Tailtomortencia, the plant wiggling sloppily next to you, producing a purplish sap that rolled slowly down its sides. You choked back the nausea as the all familiar bell rung through the school, signaling the end of the last class of the day.

You dashed through the stone door right after the common room entrance slid open, paying no mind to the greenish ripples reflected on the ceiling by the waters of the lake, and headed straight for the dorms. Daphne Greengrass, your best friend, tossed you a curious look as you plopped onto the bed, your face buried into your pillow.

“Don’t try to suffocate yourself y/n,” she drawled in amusement, “I don’t want your corpse become the future embodiment of the Slytherin Girls Dorm.”

“mrrffff...”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t speak gibberish.” 

You lazily lift your head from the comfort of your pillow, and proceeded to glare mockingly towards the blond witch, who met your unamused look with a small smirk.

“As if I want to die in here, Daphne. But I do know that if you keep smirking like that, your face is going to stay that way, and it’ll take more than magic to change it back.”

Rolling her eyes, Daphne stood up and headed towards the exit. “Whatever, I’m going to get dinner, hope you have fun tutoring Longbottom again, judging by his potions skills, you’re gonna need it.”

“...right.” 

“ I don’t get it, it wasn’t supposed to be that hard!” You groaned possibly for the eighth time after struggling to extract the sap from the Tailtomortencia. 

It was nine after, you and your boyfriend have been ‘tutoring’ for the past four hours, but still with no avail. You scrunched your nose as you watched Neville took one part of the plant, curled it up gently, and squeezed it while catching the familiar, purplish sap in a medium sized vial. He glanced at you, and motions you to follow suit. 

“..what?”

“If you don’t at least show me that you can do this, we might be stuck here all night, and I know you’re not a morning person.” Neville chuckled causally, earning a playful glare from you. 

With a dramatic sigh, you pulled the pot containing the plant towards you, and with slight disgust, you followed his instructions. After some effort, you watched as the sap slowly dripping down into the remaining space inside the vial. With bright smile plastered on your face, you hugged your boyfriend with excitement, ignoring his surprised oomph. Neville quickly wrapped his arms around your lower back and pulled you closer to him, nearly lifting you off the ground before pulling away.

“We better get back, it’s way past curfew, and even if Professor Snape and McGonagall not murdering us for returning so late, Umbridge will certainly not react the same.” He said, concern dawning his features. 

Nodding in agreement, you gave his hand a light squeeze and pulled your boyfriend towards the exit.

The walk felt long, and unsurprisingly quiet. Both of you scanned left and right for any sign of Prefects, Filch, or worse, the she-devil herself. The dimly lit hallway left you alert, listening for any sound around you other than the not-so-subtle snores from the portraits. Nothing, that is, except the light footsteps against the stone floor. 

Then, a faint meow was heard.

The two of you jumped, suddenly remembered a familiar caretaker that owns a feline.

“Mrs. Norris.” You cursed under your breath.

Neville, however, frantically began to pull you along as he picked up the pace, panic replaced his usual features. Soon, the two of you streaked towards the direction of the Entrance Hall, zig-zagging from one corridor to the other in attempt to lose the blasted cat. In the distance, you spotted the familiar hallway that would be your saving grace of the night. 

C’mon, you breathed, almost there...

“Hem hem, and where do you think the two of you are heading?”

Umbridge.

Neville stuttered to a stop, resulting you to bump into his back. Your hands are still linked, though bit more loose than before. This was it, you brought your head to meet the high inquisitor’s in an innocent fashion, while taking a short, but reassuring glance to Neville, who was still slight pale with shock.

“Mr. Longbottom, as the high inquisitor of Hogwarts, I expect student to follow my rules.” She said in faux sweetness. “ I noticed, one, you have been holding...is it Ms. l/n ‘s hand, and two, both of you are out and about way past curfew hours. According to Educational Decree number twenty six, no boy and girl shall be eight inches within each other, and let me remind you that holding hands is being less than eight inches within each other.”

“W-we were out tutoring Professor,” Neville answered respectfully. “ We lost track of time, I hope it is forgiven.”

“And you were tutoring because?”

“Actually, professor, he was tutoring me.” you interjected.

Umbridge finally turned towards you, her small, beady eyes stared at you curiously for a moment before a faux smile plastered on her round face.

“You can let go of Mr. Longbottom’s hand now, Ms l/n, no types of affection can go unnoticed by me; “ she said,“ Now, what are you....being tutored for?”

“Herbology, professor.”

Umbridge proceeded to hesitate, as if lost in thought, before responding once more. “I see. Judging by me previous observations, you don’t seemed to pay too much attention during that class. Perhaps that’s why you needed Mr. Longbottom’s assistance?”

“No professor, it was because I was confuse on the matter of extracting the sap from Tailomortencia, that’s why I asked for Neville’s help.”

“Peculiar...Slytherin and a Gryffindor ending up together....Well, in that case, both of your head of the house - Professor Snape and Professor McGonagall, is it? - will be notified of this incident. Like all mistakes, this will have consequences, including a week of detention with me, and a month’s suspension of all extracurricular activities, in addition to the twenty points will be respectively taken from each of your houses.”

Your heart plummeted to the pit of your stomach. Three punishments, just for breaking two rules?! Just when you’d think this lady was bad enough, her punishments seemed to get even worse. Beside you, Neville paled significantly, and seemed to be sweating in panic. Fuming, you turned to a smirking Madame Toad in protest.

“Professor, in my defense, your punishment is severe for two students who had only broken two rules. Neville’s got nothing to do with this, I asked him to tutor me, so it should me, not him get detention.”

Umbridge stood before you, silent, emotionless. Her eyes seemed to be calculating, for she kept eyeing you both. For seconds it was just like this: Umbridge glancing back and forth between the two of you while you glanced defiantly back. After what felt like eternity, she smiled sardonically.

“..Reasonable excuse, I’ll be sure to keep this in mind when I report to your head of the house tomorrow morning, but this consequence will make an example of the school to not ever challenge ministry’s Educational Decrees. Now run along, the two of you will start the punishment on Monday.”

The rest was a blur. The two of you managed to trudge your way back to the Entrance Hall, stopping at the bottom of the staircase. Neville had stayed silent the whole time, with occasional glances met by yours. You stood next to him at the foot of the staircase, unsure what to do next.

“...Are you alright, Neville?” you asked tentatively.

“Relieved, I guess....y/n, what if they find out?” he replied softly, a sad smile spread across his face. “What if everything changes tomorrow?”

You gently turned the teen to face you, and rested your hand on his shoulder. 

“Neville, you are possibly the kindest person I’ve ever met. We’ve been through loads together, and now you’re telling me you’re afraid of tomorrow? Never mind ‘bout the others, Neville, you have me and that’s all it matters. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything else.”

You felt two strong arms wrap around you, pulling you close. Smiling, you snaked your arms around his back. It was all you needed, after the chaos that had just happened. 

“ I love you, y/n.” He murmured next to your ear, letting out a sigh of relief. “I’m sorry for today to end this way.”

“Never be sorry, Neville, I love you too.”

Short Bonus:

“Really? Longbottom. You’re dating Longbottom.” Daphne whispered to you as the two of you sat in the Three Broomsticks at Hogsmeade.

Words had gotten out about your detention since Professor Snape gave you a pointed look during breakfast (after his glare to Neville and the rest of the Gryffindor table - the usual), and it wasn’t long before Daphne cornered you inside the pub, insisting that you tell her the truth.

“Yes, really. I’ve been dating Neville since last year. Being one of the smartest girls in our year, I thought you’d figure it out by now.” 

Daphne jabbed you playfully, nearly knocking over the butter beer you were about to drink. “Not cool. But why, out of everyone, you choose Longbottom? Not to mention the fact that he’s a Gryffindor?”

You rolled your eyes before setting down your drink. “Well first, he’s not a snob like a certain Draco Malfoy (or constantly talks about Potter for that matter), or disinterested like Nott and Zabini, and let’s face it, I’m nowhere compatible with Crabbe or Goyle.”

Daphne snorted.

“Plus, when you actually get to know him well enough, he is intelligent, caring, and great to hang out with.”

“Whatever, at least now you’re not unhappily single like Parkinson, no offense to her that is.”

The two of you snickered as you paid for your drink and exited through the door.

“By the way, have you seen the gorgeous golden chocolate frogs that just arrived at Honeydukes? It’s amazing!”

[mister-lucky-bunny]

Scooby Doo: Monster Menagerie Chpt. 7

Description:  With the detective now joining Mystery Inc's investigation at the school, the research can truly begin.

Scooby Doo: Monster Menagerie

Chapter 7: Investigation Party

The emotion that seemed to run the highest was unease. It was hard to not have such a feeling when someone looks as menacing as the detective does. The freaky man pulled back his damp hood, having been caught in the middle of the rainstorm on his way to the school. As his face was revealed better, his long bushy hair spilled free. Despite his long hair almost covering his eyes, they were still quite visible to all, looking just as unhinged as they were when Mystery Inc. first saw him. They were still just as put-off as they were before, as well. It wouldn't take long before his eyes began to quickly look over everybody, scanning over the familiar and new faces in front of him.

It would be quite predictable to see Shaggy start to cower a little in his presence, Scooby hiding under his paws as he peered out timidly. Daphne and Freddie shared an uncomfortable glance to each other while Velma raised an eyebrow. While he was certainly creepy to behold, there was a reason he was here. She mentally began to chide herself, because it was the same reason they were there. For the most part, they hadn't done much for their own investigation.

A few of the ghouls were visibly shaken by the man's strange appearance. Tanis, naturally, was hidden behind Googie the best to her ability, peeking out from behind with a nervous gaze. Elsa was a bit more composed, although the raised eyebrow and apprehensive look on her face showed that she had no idea who this person was or what their intent happened to be.

Of course, not everyone seemed frightened of the detective. Naturally, Miss Grimwood wouldn't show much else on her face besides a courteous smile. She would be the only one allowing such a friendly exterior, though. Sibella was perhaps the most calm looking, a cold, analytic gaze on her face as her green eyes seemed to scan over him. Her instincts knew that there was something off about this man, but showing fear would only show weakness. Winnie was a bit more open with how she felt, her hackles on end as she glared at him through her yellow gaze, almost unblinking. Her growls were audible to only the people around her. One wrong move would surely have the detective end up on the bad side of a werewolf attack. The pet dragon had left the kitchen to see what was going on, not pleased with seeing the detective. Matches was not looking to put up with some stranger's crap, as he was growling much louder than Winnie was, his tail twitching in irritation as smoke puffed through his nostrils. If it weren't for the fact that Miss Grimwood was standing right next to him, he'd be toast.

Googie and Phantasma, for the most part, were confused. While the blonde had certainly seen the detective around before, she never really took him much into account. She merely thought of him as some random bystander. While he was definitely quite freaky and off-putting, she could only look puzzled by his appearance. Phanty as well, although she seemed less puzzled, and more intrigued. A weird fellow with strange eyes and a weird smile reminded her of herself, after all. Once the strange man gave everyone a quick once over, he opened his grinning mouth, to start speaking.

"So the rumors are true," He began, his gruff voice chuckling a bit. Before he could continue, he sneezed, quickly covering his face with an arm. With the sudden movement, everyone seemed to flinch at this, their confusion rising just a tad. This startled Miss Grimwood a bit as well, although for a different reason.

"Oh goodness, how long have you been in that rain? Matches! Some assistance please," She gently ordered, taking a look at her pet dragon. A few turned to the dragon, curious as what she meant. Of course, he did so unhappily, not wanting to be associated with this kind of company. Still, he knew that Miss Grimwood wouldn't take no for an answer. The grumbling dragon made it's way over to the two, smoke pouring from his nose. The detective watched with a cocked eyebrow, curious as to what would happen with the odd creature. One could almost mistake him for getting ready to spew out a fireball. Instead though, when he opened his mouth, very little flame came out. Instead, it almost seemed like a giant smoke cloud that enveloped the man.

The detective almost felt like he was in a sauna, a large warmth quickly drying him out. He let out a bit of a relieved sigh, shuddering some. Once the smoke cleared up, the detective was revealed once more, his hair frizzed up quite a bit. Phantasma managed to restrain a giggle, pushing her hand to her growing smile as the man merely shook his head and chuckled, fixing his hair up. He did look much dryer and more comfortable, as if he wasn't even in the rain in the first place. After the slight comedic moment, the detective continued speaking.

"I can see that you all took my advice in searching this school out," He spoke, directing his attention to Mystery Incorporated. "While the rumors of this school were kept somewhat hidden, I always figured it would be true. After all, why would anyone even talk about it if it didn't exist?" He chuckled darkly, putting his hands into his hoodie pocket.

At this point, his eyes began to scan over the ghoul students with vast interest. As his eyes darted from ghoul to ghoul (with a brief glance at Googie), he continued with his little talk. "So... what have you all found out?" The humans took another uncomfortable look at each other.

Daphne cleared her throat, finding her voice first. "Well, we haven't actually... discovered anything new right now." Her fingers fidgeted as she couldn't maintain eye contact with him, since he quickly moved his sights over to her. The detective's eyes narrowed very slightly, his grin not lessening.

"Hm, a shame. At least I haven't missed anything." At this point, Winnie finally managed to say something in between her low growls.

"What are you talking about?" Her eyes didn't leave his figure for one second, his own gaze turning to her. His smile flashed a bit more, although he sounded surprised in his response.

"You mean they haven't told you?" The detective sounded quite amused, although it was mostly because he got to see a werewolf first hand.

"I thought it was because Coach wanted to teach us again..." Elsa added, sounding somewhat disappointed, if nervous. After his eyes darted over to the tall flesh golem, his face looked a tiny bit more thoughtful, though no less excited.

"Hm, well that may be his motive," He began, flashing a gaze to Shaggy, who was now looking down in an uncomfortable manner, rubbing his arm awkwardly and trying to not look at anyone. "As for everyone else, they're here for a different reason." After a small pause of anticipation, the man blinked and continued on, saying, "I'm the homicide detective for the nearby town, and recently, someone was killed. And not by anything human."

Tension seemed to rise a bit, the ghoul's eyes widening some. Phanty, naturally, let out a loud dramatic gasp, Tanis's and Elsa's being a bit less loud. For Sibella and Winnie, their eyes merely widened. This did nothing to lessen the werewolf's menacing gaze on the man, while Sibella decided to speak up in defense of her schoolmates.

"If you don't mind me saying this, detective, but there is no reason for you to search around here," She began coolly, her bored gaze staring into his own wide eyes, which were now turned to her. The sheer cheek of her statement made a few others look at her, Miss Grimwood looking quite shocked as well. The man raised an eyebrow and she continued on. "I assure you that all of us here keep our distance away from others. We do not harm mortals." As she stared into his eyes, anyone observant enough would notice his left eye twitch a little.

The man's smile grew wider as he lifted a finger at her. "Vampire, correct?" Sibella gave a simple nod, not removing her own gaze. He tapped his temple a little bit with a dark chuckle. "You're gonna have to do better than that," He began. Most everyone at the table gave the vampire a confused look as she merely flipped her hair off of her shoulder. Miss Grimwood raised an eyebrow at her vampire student in bemusement before the detective continued. "Anyways, while that may be true, I still have a job to do. Your gracious headmistress has allowed me to stay as long as needed to conduct my investigation. As I'm sure she allowed you all," He said, flashing a smile to the human group.

Velma managed to find her voice as well, building up a bit of courage to speak to the odd man. "If it would help, we could assist you with anything we find."

The man looked to her and grinned, giving a little nod. "I'll be sure to return the favor." Before anyone else could say anything, he turned to Miss Grimwood. "If I may, I would like a small rundown of your building, if you please."

"But of course, detective," Miss Grimwood said, giving a little whistle with her hand. Soon, the floating hand and octopus butler would come in, his eyes seeming to brighten up at the sight of it. "If you could, please show this man around the school. I'll summon you all once dinner is ready." The man gave a final nod to the woman before limping away silently with the even stranger guides.

No sooner had he stepped out of the room did Winnie start voicing her complaints. "Jeez, who does this freak think he is? None of us stepped foot into that town since we got here!" She scoffed, crossing her arms and eyeing the door frame.

"More importantly, do you all think we had a hand in whatever happened?" Elsa had asked, looking to Mystery Incorporated with an unsure look. Sibella was also studying over everyone, as if trying to get a read on them. The guilty faces they all sported seemed to be a bit of a giveaway, although it was more due to the fact that they hadn't told the girls for this fact alone.

"Of course not..!" Daphne began. "None of us honestly think that at all!"

"Like, yeah!" Shaggy continued, lifting his head up with a look of determination. "I've been around you all before, and none of you have, like, done anything harmful to anyone!" Scooby nodded in agreement, getting the same look on his face.

"Besides, we had no idea what kind of school this was until we got here," Fred added in, trying to muster up a comforting smile. "From what we've seen, we don't have any reason to believe any of you are behind this."

Velma nodded. "All we're looking for is a bit of information first hand. If anything, I'll bet that's the reason the detective is here too."

A few of them lessened their expressions, somewhat relaxed by these statements. Tanis looked around a bit, managing to use her shy voice to speak up and get everyone's attention. "...so does that mean none of us are in trouble?"

Everyone looked to her, Googie deciding to lighten her mood by gently rubbing the top of her head in a friendly manner. "I'm sure that you all will be okay. I bet that once he realizes that none of you are behind this attack, he'll leave and you'll be able to go on without worrying about it."

This seemed to comfort the mummy girl, as she nodded along with her. The cacophonous giggle of Phantasma rang out as she decided to try and be optimistic too. "Yeah, c'mon guys! Don't look so down! After all, none of us did anything, right? There's nothin' to be afraid of!" She said, shrugging the whole event off like nothing happened. At this point, everyone else had started to relax a little more, getting over the initial shock of the news. Despite this, however, Winnie was still somewhat indignant, though her face seemed less on guard and threatening and more huffy.

Miss Grimwood grinned brightly and made her way back into the kitchen. "There's the spirit! I have faith in you girls that you haven't done anything wrong. All I ask is to let any investigations from him and your new friends continue on," She said, walking with Matches back into the kitchen. Before she stepped in, she turned and pointed to the human group, giving a bit of a warning gaze. "Just don't cause any harm, you hear?"

Mystery Incorporated nodded their heads, not even considering doing such a thing. Satisfied with this, she smiled again and headed into the kitchen. While the conversations became less lively, they were certainly less freaked out than they were before.

Googie was the first to speak, looking to Velma. "So, I'm gonna guess you all know him?"

She gave a nod, fixing her glasses. "Yeah, we met with him before we came down here. Hopefully he'll let us in on a few of his gathered clues before we begin our investigation properly." After saying this, the purple vampire spoke up.

"Perhaps we could be of assistance too?" She asked, tilting her head. "After all, who else would be a better expert in monster kind than monsters?"

"She's got a point," Elsa said, looking a bit thoughtful, resting her hand on her chin. "It wouldn't hurt to help out with this case. We can help out whenever our free time allows it."

"Hey yeah!" Phanty said, cackling some. "You all got to solve some cool mysteries, it'd be fun to find this out!"

"Yeah! We could always use more hands in a case like this," Freddie said, nodding along with her idea. Scooby also nodded, looking quite pleased.

"The rore the rerrier!" He barked eagerly, tail wagging some. Winnie rolled her eyes, but started to slowly smile as her own tail waggled a bit. Admittedly, the excitement of being able to hunt down some new guilty prey made her eager to want to join in as well.

"...y'know what? I'm game," She said, smiling to show off her sharp teeth. "Might as well, since everyone's wanting to look around here."

"I'll help too!" Tanis said eagerly, looking quite determined. "I don't want to let anyone down, but I know we'll be able to do everything we can to help!"

Sibella flashed a smile, showing off her fangs. "Fangtastic, so we're in agreement. Don't be afraid to let us know whenever we can assist." Shaggy chuckled and smiled brightly at these reactions, everyone else also quite impressed with how eager all the ghouls were to help with their monster attack mystery.

"Like, wow! It means a lot to us that you're all wanting to be a part of this," Shaggy replied, leaning back a little as Phanty giggled some.

"Well of course, Coach! Anything to help our new friends!" Very quickly, the atmosphere became a lot more lightened, since everyone now had a mystery to solve.

"We should be done with this case in no time!" Daphne said happily.

________________________________________

...

No.

No no no no.

Who are these mortals that dare try and ruin my plans?

...

Ah.

They are all investigators of sorts.

Mere humans.

Easy to pick apart.

But what of the monsters?

...

I see.

Easy to control, from the looks of it.

One of them quite familiar to me.

Yes.

Very familiar indeed.

Let them play their games and have their fun for now.

Let them play detective.

It won't be long before they realize who's really in control.

________________________________________

The excitement from all the detective talk died down somewhat as Miss Grimwood stepped back out of the kitchen after a little bit. "Okay, the alligator is done roasting. Once we get the detective back in here, we'll start dinner," She explained, her expression in her usual, cheery voice. While a little bit skeptical, the others didn't seem too bothered by this notion. She went to the door frame connecting to the next room and let out a whistle. "Dinner's ready! Come on down, please!" It wouldn't take long before the disembodied hand lead the odd man back into the kitchen, who was still smiling as creepily as ever.

"Such an interesting place, Miss Grimwood. By the way, sorry if my entrance was rather... sudden," He explained, his eyes almost looking sympathetic. She shook her head and waved his statement off casually.

"Oh please, no need to worry. Couldn't have you remain out there, or you'd catch your death! Now please sit, dinner's ready." The man simply nodded and replied with a small 'thank you', finding himself an empty seat near the end. Even though they were all willing to assist in the mystery, many of them were still unsure of the man and his strangeness, keeping a small distance away from him. Not that he seemed to mind however, as he sat in silence, waiting patiently. Well, almost everyone kept a small distance away from him.

Phantasma decided to stay put, sitting across from him as she studied him over in curiosity. While she seemed much more bombastic than the detective, their wide eyes and wide grins seemed to almost match. With him, however, it made him look more creepy. Nevertheless, she began to bombard the man with questions. "So you help solve murders and things like that? That's super cool! I'll bet you've seen all kinds of gruesome stuff, like heads cut off! Ooh! Or someone with, like, 50 stab wounds and no feet! Or someone who had their entire guts spill out!" She rambled on excitedly. While the man merely nodded, the other humans were definitely disturbed by how cheery she was being about homicides like that.

As Googie started to look queasy, Sibella cleared her throat to stop her ghostly friend. "Phanty, dear, perhaps you could save this conversation for later? We are about to eat." With that, Phanty stopped talking, covering her mouth and giggling.

"Oooops! Sorry, guys! I think that death is an interesting topic though, seeing as how I am dead!" The ghost girl giggled some more, shrugging off her own statement like she just hadn't said something that was somewhat depressing.

As the floating hand and octopus butler began to serve out dishes of the meal, the odd man merely chuckled a little, shrugging. "Same here. S'why I got into this line of work," He stated simply, eyeing over the plate of alligator. The others did so too, Shaggy and Scooby not hesitating to dig in. While it was quite a strange choice of meat, alligator wasn't uncommon to use in Louisiana. Googie seemed comfortable with eating it, although Daphne had minor qualms with it. Worrying about the taste and whatnot. Everyone else seemed to enjoy it just fine.

Slowly, over the course of dinner, conversations began to pick up again. It wouldn't take long before Winnie started confiding in volleyball techniques, looking for ways to dethrone the Calloway Cadets off of their high horse again. Naturally, being their coach, Shaggy would make sure to be a part of this conversation too. That is, when he wasn't shoving more food into his mouth. Velma seemed to be going over a few ideas on where in the school they would begin to look, Freddie and Daphne making sure to give a few suggestions on research as well. Googie joined in too, even if she didn't have a full clue of what to really do. After all, she was quite new to this investigation thing. Velma, at one point, wondered if they should bring the detective in on this, since he was just sitting and eating, not really making any noise. She figured he had his own ideas to go through, though, and didn't bother him.

"Hmm... isn't there a bog around here? Maybe we'd be able to find something around in there?" Freddie suggested at one point, patting around his pockets. "I thought I had a map on me... must've left it upstairs."

"A bog, huh? I think it'd be okay if we went there as a group," Daphne continued, thinking about it for a little. Elsa had cut in, looking a bit worried.

"Erm, I hate to interrupt, but I suggest you stay away from the bog. It's too dangerous of a place." At this point, the ghouls were kept oddly silent as they heard her talk about the bog. Shaggy, understandably, slowed down his eating as well, Scooby whining some. Only those two actually knew why they wanted to avoid that place, despite previously having enjoyed a small field trip there. After all, that was where Revolta had not only resided, but caught all the ghouls. Not a fond memory.

Velma seemed to pick up on this. "Does this have something to do with whatever the situation with the witch was?"

Everyone nodded, Tanis piping up. "Miss Grimwood won't even let us go near the bog anymore. Just to be safe."

The detective lifted his head up, cocking his own eyebrow up a little. "Have any other witch problems lately?" He asked the smaller mummy, who gasped a bit as he suddenly spoke to her.

She stammered a bit and looked away awkwardly, shaking her head. "Uh, n-no! Actually, things haven't really been too eventful in those regards. Not that that's a bad thing, though," She added. The detective merely nodded, making a little statement before continuing to eat.

"Can't ever rule out dark magic, y'know."

"If that's the case, I say we do a little research of the immediate area. The building, the town, things like that." Velma continued, straying from the plan of exploring the bog. After all, whatever this witch was, it kept these girls from having to return to that place. Not a good idea to wander around in it and get lost, or worse, get pulled in by quicksand.

The rest of the dinner continued uneventfully, for the most part. Winnie, deciding to try and make everyone less uncomfortable, started trash talking the cadets, which the rest of the ghouls seemed to enjoy. The others also laughed, listening and enjoying their meal. The octopus butler cleared the table as everyone began to get up. It wouldn't take long for Phantasma to float over to the detective, talking to him once more.

"Oh my god, I just thought of something! We never introduced ourselves properly! I'm Phantasma, the phantom! And over there is Sibella, Elsa, Tanis, and Winnie! From what I see, you already know Miss Grimwood and the others!" She said, pointing out each classmate as she listed them. His eyes looked over each one briefly as she continued, turning back to her with his wide grin.

"Well, a pleasure to meet a real spirit, Phantasma. Never had the luck before," He said, trying his best to sound more friendly.

"Now you have!~" She said in a bit of a sing-songy voice. "What about you? We can't just keep calling you 'detective'! Too formal, y'know?"

The man merely shrugged. "It's all I usually go by. That or freak," He added in, emphasizing the last word a little. Apparently that was a common nickname for people to give him. If he was trying to be dramatic or sardonic, it went right over the phantom's head.

"Ooh, gotcha. Nice to meet you, Freaky!" She said, giggling in her usual bubbly fashion. This didn't seem to bother him, his usual unhinged look upon his face.

"Likewise. Now if you'll all excuse me, I think I'll peruse a bookshelf for the night. I left most of my personal library at the office, sadly." He had said, moving towards the living room, looking through various books. Velma recognized a few of them he eyed over. After all, being ever the bookworm, she couldn't help herself but take a gander at them herself. He seemed to stand at the bookshelf for quite some time, moving his gaze from spine to spine, almost unblinking.

At this point, Freddie had walked over to him, curious about one little detail. "Hey, uh, detective?" He began, the other man's eyes looking over at him. "Are you going to be staying in our room?" While the blond didn't see any qualms with him sleeping with them, he did still find him quite... well, freaky. His fear was quelled a little when the man shook his head, returning his attention to the bookshelf in front of him.

"Nah, I don't think so. I'm a bit of an insomniac, so I doubt I'll be doing much sleeping. Besides, there's too much to explore around here," He replied, his grin widening into a smile, quite excited about getting to look around a monster school. The blond was confused by this, but didn't seem to press further. He still found the homicide detective quite freaky, watching him pull out a book (History of Grimwood), and start to scan through it excitedly, limping his way to a chair and settling in it, his wide eyes not removing themselves.

Freddie turned away, rubbing the back of his head as he went to his group of friends. "Man, and I thought Velma was book-obsessed..." The group, as well as the ghouls, headed back into their rooms for the night. Tomorrow, even though classes were to continue on, they all had a new activity to look forward to.

________________________________________________

...

You know what to do.

Summon forth my servant.

Urge them out.

Let them know my power.

And by extension, yours.

Not much longer now before we can begin our plans proper.

Such power.

Exciting, is it not?

...

Your mind shows... hesitation.

Hm.

Hm hm hm.

A shame that does nothing for you.

I apologize.

It will be done, regardless.

You should know this by now, yes?

...

Good.

Good good good.

Now go and do what must be done.

___________________________________

Morning came once again, everybody heading into the kitchen for breakfast. The detective was already sitting when the first occupants (predictably, Shaggy and Scooby) arrived. His eyes were glued to a rather thick book, that looked like a very long biography of a famous vampire. The bags under his eyes showed that he hadn't slept at all last night. Never the less, his smile was wide and creepy, his eyes wide open. The two hungry friends decided to not press about it, since they still found him quite creepy. It wasn't much longer before everyone else filed down to the table, one of them bound to ask about it.

Everyone seemed to take their usual spots, Googie joining the rest of the humans this time around to help discuss plans of investigating the school. A couple of the girls were listening in too, wanting to be a big part of it as well. Naturally, while Shaggy didn't have much to offer, he listened in as well. No point in being lost, of course. Their breakfast for the day was pancakes. The ghouls' had beetles cooked in the batter, but thankfully, none of the humans' had anything as strange.

Sibella took a glance at the detective's book, getting a bit of a smirk as she began to speak to him. "Reading about Prince Lioncourt?" She asked, somewhat amused. The man nodded and glanced up with tired, yet wide eyes.

"Oh yes. I've never had the fortune of meeting Lestat personally, but he was always such an interesting topic, especially around here." He slowly closed the book, tilting his head at the vampire. "Is he your father by any chance?"

Sibella let out a bit of a laugh, shaking her head. "Oh, no. I am the daughter of Count Dracula," She answered. His eyes seemed to bug out a bit more, his smile widening (if that was even possible).

"The big man himself? Amazing... tell me, what is he like?" He asked, sounding a bit more excited.

Sibella merely shrugged, taking a small bite of her stack of pancakes. "Regal, for the most part. A bit stuffy for my tastes. Lately, however, I do believe he's going through a sort of... 'mid-death crisis'?" She ended her sentence with a bit of a giggle. "Lately, he's given up on his racing passion and has instead been occupied with different ways to decorate his castle."

Before the detective could ask about the castle, Googie turned over, smiling uncomfortably. "Heh, uh, that'll be something I'll have to talk to you about later..." Sibella gave an curious look, raising an eyebrow as Shaggy laughed nervously.

"Like, yeah. Let's just say that the last open house I was at wouldn't be the last time I saw him." Mystery Inc. shared a bit of an uncomfortable look, realizing that the awkward conversation about her father would arise sooner than expected.

"Coach, what do you..?" She began, being cut off with a wave of his hand, smiling nervously.

"Hey, don't worry about it too much! For now, let's finish up breakfast and we can, like, get started with our training." A few ghouls shared confused and concerned gazes, Sibella not removing her imploring green eyes from him. When it became obvious he wouldn't continue, she sighed through her nose and returned to her breakfast. While the rest of the freelance detectives continued to plan, already knowing about the whole story, the detective studied over Shaggy some, one eye narrowed. This put off the lanky man, though after a bit, the weird man merely shrugged and returned to his book, not eating anything.

Soon after breakfast, Shaggy and Scooby had all of the ghouls head outside with him. While Velma, Daphne, Googie, and Freddie decided to stay behind, the detective followed them out, with a promise of staying out of their hair while they exercised.

The rest of the investigators remained in the living room, going over their plan. "Okay, so the first thing we need to do is get a slightly better feel of this place. The more we're aware of our surroundings, the easier it'll be to recognize something out of the ordinary," Velma began to explain.

"Didn't we already see most of the school already though?" Googie asked, scratching the back of her head some. Velma responded by nodding and smiling gently.

"A little bit, but it wouldn't hurt to look closer. Besides, an old mansion like this is bound to have secret entrances and other hideaways."

"Perfect places for hiding any evidence!" Freddie concluded, getting a surge of enthusiasm. After all, who wouldn't be excited to find secrets.

"With a house as big as this," Daphne began, waving her arms to accentuate just how big the living room in and of itself was. "We'd better get started then. Who knows how long we'll be looking?"

As they began to split up around the living room, searching through bookshelves and under chairs and tables, Googie spoke up again. "Do you suppose any of the girls know of any hiding spots?"

Velma, who was on her knees, looking inside of a fireplace, turned her head. "Probably, though we'll wait to ask them when they're done with their classes. After all, it'd be wiser for them to stay focused on their education."

Freddie, who was flipping through books for emptied out pages hiding away a key, smirked and glanced over at his sweater wearing friend. "Not surprising you'd say something like that, Velma." The others laughed a bit with his joke, Velma wiping her glasses off with a small smirk and shrug.

____________________________________

Outside, Shaggy had the girls start with their usual stretches, exercises, and a lap around the school. They seemed to keep up slightly better than they had yesterday, but it was still quite a distance around the school. When they circled back to where they started, they found the detective scribbling something in a notebook. He was on a knee, looking at the prints they had left while running. For now, they wouldn't let that bother them, as he was staying a distance away from them, observing them some as they continued.

Okay, maybe that bothered them a little, but they didn't have time to dwell on that. Shaggy had walked them towards a practice net, where a giant spider had just crawled off, heading back into the nearby woods. "Like, thanks Legs!" He called to the arachnid, turning to the girls. "Alright, so today I'm gonna have you all practice against me and Scoob so we can get a feel for your volleyball skills. I already did a bit of it with Winnie yesterday, but, like, the point of this is to see where we can work off of!" Winnie flashed a smile as he mentioned her, the other girls nodding at this.

"Yeah! Maybe eventually you can teach us all kinds of awesome tricks, right Coach?" She asked eagerly. He laughed and nodded, raising his hand to calm her down some.

"Maybe eventually! Like, for now, let's just stick with the basics," He explained, bending down to pick up a nearby discarded volleyball. "Now, like, who wants to go first?" Naturally, they all pushed their hands up to the air, making Shaggy start to think a bit, putting his hand on his chin. "Hmm... okay how about this! All of you will go against me at the same time! It'll be a simple rally, and I'll call out who the ball will go to. They'll, like, pass it back to us, and we'll keep going for awhile. Understand?" With a chorus of 'yes, Coach!', he nodded and moved to one side of the court, the others forming to the other.

At first, he had the girls serve the ball, starting with Sibella. The rally lasted for a good bit as he passed it back to Phanty, floating over to the ball and returning it to the Great Dane. Scooby then passed it to Tanis, who just barely managed to hit it over the net back at him. "Good job, but like, put more power behind your hits!" Shaggy added in before passing to Elsa. Despite not seeming to do much with her arms, the ball still went up into the air...

...and for a few seconds, Shaggy waiting, looking up at the grey sky. "...well, uh, great job, Elsa, but maybe not that much power?" He suggested. Soon, the ball came back down and landed right at her feet. "And like, maybe substitute that power for distance?"

Elsa lifted the ball, looking somewhat embarrassed. "R-right, Coach. I'll work on that." With an encouraging smile, he nodded and let her serve the ball. She did much better this time, focusing more on getting the ball over the net, rather than getting it in the air. Of course, it still went pretty high, causing Shaggy to have to run towards the ball before hitting it back over. "Winnie, this one's yours-" He began, his sentence cut off as the werewolf dashed over, kicking up dust behind her. Right as it tipped to their side, she jumped up and spiked the ball down as hard as she could. Naturally, this caused a bunch of dirt to kick up as the ball rocketed at the ground.

A wave of dirt covered the girls and Shaggy, who stood there in shock. Soon, they began to shake it off of them, Winnie giving a nervous laugh. "Heh... uh, too hard?"

Shaggy coughed up some dust, moving towards the ball and clearing his throat. "Well, like, that's one way of hitting it back. For now let's, like, focus on passes, Winnie." While not looking too embarrassed, she still gave a small smile, rubbing her arm.

"Right. S-sorry, Coach." With that, the lesson continued. Shaggy kept spouting off some advice for the girls as they kept the rally going for quite awhile. A few times, the ball would drop to the ground, but this never seemed to bother their coach. His advice for that would be to let them know to watch where he was going to serve the ball.

Eventually, class would end and Shaggy began to lead them all inside, the detective silently following them in. His notebook was under his arm, having collected whatever information he needed. However, as he passed the werewolf, he began to whistle a certain Van Halen song in a teasing manner. Phanty, being the musically inclined one, held her hands to her mouth to stifle her laughs as Winnie's ears folded in annoyance, glaring at the man. She did feel her face grow warm, but they didn't need to know that.

For now, the ghouls had another class, and the two human men made their way back to the group, who were resting on the chairs and couch, looking somewhat defeated. "Like, what's going on?" Shaggy wondered, wiping his sweaty forehead.

"Would you believe that we haven't found one secret passage in this living room?" Freddie groaned.

"Yeah, we tried all over this room, and couldn't even find a button," Daphne added. While Scooby and Shaggy shared a look at each other, the detective raised an eyebrow.

"Are you sure you checked every inch? Because if they wanted to keep these secret rooms... secret, then they wouldn't make the switch something obvious," He added, trying to be helpful. Velma, on the other hand, sighed and shook her head.

"Trust me, that thought came to mind half an hour in. We tried pushing against every single brick, floorboard, and candle. Not one of them budged." With that, he began to think as well, a hand under his chin as he grinned.

"Hm. Perhaps there isn't anything else here than. There are plenty of other rooms to go."

"For now, we need a bit of a break," Daphne said, stretching some in the couch.

"Feel free, guys. I'm gonna go observe another mad science class," Velma added, smiling as she stood up and walked towards the lab. She was soon joined by the grinning man, eyes wide in excitement. This sent shivers down her spine, but allowed him to follow.

"Oh, mad science? Definitely a must see," He began, opening his notebook to an empty page, pen already poised in his hand.

The others watched them walk into the lab, Freddie speaking up again. "So uh, after a small break how about we go look around in the foyer? There's bound to be something there." With an agreement from the rest, they knew that their investigation was far from over.