#GoGoxDale

[orleans-jester]

GoGo had stayed hugging him for a while, until she was able to calm her mind somewhat. Until the memories and the smell of smoke had escaped her. Yes, her and Scout had been doing their risky streetraces, and going out and doing crazy things like joyrides and pushing what speeds were possible in different vehicles but this was the first time that there had been someone that she knew hurt from these things. It was like Dale flying through the air had nearly stopped her heart, brought her back to that place.

She was too emotionally drained to get all grossed out by Flotsam at this point. He might as well have just been picking his favorite color out of a pack of starbursts with the way that she was reacting. Eyeballs were just the new pink starbusts - the best kind.

“Interesting choice,” Go-Go said. “The only cells that survive from the time you’re born until you die are in the eyes. So he’s collecting whole lives.”

Back to the nerd. She couldn’t help it. It actually was interesting that the eyes were a focus. Don’t even get her started on what she would think of the psychology of Bastien if she knew about those eyes.

She took a half step back onto the grass, excluding herself from the scene of Jetsam leaving, and took the time to take another breath. She felt bad for Scout, Dale and Chip, having a family member that was actually good to them - so it seemed - and that they loved that would disappear in front of them like that. And also a small bit of gratefulness that she wasn’t in their place. Having a shitty family sucked but at least she didn’t have to waste any brain power missing them.

Family had never been cohesive in her mind so … actually, seeing some of the cracks in the Laveaus made her feel a bit more like she could relate to them. Was she a bit concerned too when the twins started to fight? Yeah. But also, knowing them, they’d calm down and make up. But seeing that there were still arguments, fights. It felt more real. Less like the fantasy that them being witches and werewolves and zombies and shapeshifters painted it all to be.

She only stepped towards Scout, because she hated seeing her friend upset. Especially by someone whose ass they couldn’t just kick, or who they couldn’t just X out, like that girl that she had been seeing. A father - that was different. And she understood, God, did she understand, she used to be in the same boat, until she realized that she was wasting time that she could spend on better pursuits rather than a fathers love.

When Dale gave her the choice, she looked towards Scout again, and then pulled her in for a hug too. “You go on ahead,” She told her friend, giving her a reassuring smile. “I think I’m going to tour the town a bit. Who knows when I’ll get another chance to look for scrap in a place like this.”

It seemed like a good excuse - it was a real reason, she would absolutely have a ball of a time going through the cars around here and look for parts that might be harder to get back in New Zealand. But she also wanted to give them a bit of space to do their family thing. Scout really seemed to need her parents right now. She wasn’t ready to sleep, still jittery from adrenaline, and didn’t feel like sitting in a room, trying to calm her heartrate.

“I don’t mind the company though,” She said towards Dale, smiling a little sheepishly and rubbing the back of her neck. If this were a normal abandoned town, she’d feel absolutely fine going through it alone. But given the zombies, and the apparent random people that are just walking around waiting to get killed, being alone seemed not to be the best idea.

Who knew the "selfish" family that showed up could fill such a void? They'd been called worse. But, in this case maybe not being selfless in every single instance ever put in front of them just for the sake of being selfless wasn't always as selfish as they seemed? It seemed they might be a family in hot debate once upon a time. They'd fled to New Zealand in hopes of getting out of the spotlight in some attempt to lead an ordinary life as far as ordinary goes for extraordinary people.

Scout noticed her friend seemed "off" her usual demeanor for such an adrenaline moment. Scout and GoGo had been doing the high-speed races illegally in NZ along with other risky behavior, but this was the first time she saw her completely wig out in this manner. She'd actually never seen her lose her cool until now that she was thinking about it. Sure, they were sassy and sarcastic atypical behavior for any friends of this family, but this was different. This was a full blowout. It was hard not to pay attention and notice even if they didn't know what was going on in their head.

Dale however was hardly looking for an apology. He was just reacting himself. GoGo was holding him tight back. He wasn't sure how she'd respond. He was ready to wrestle her to the ground and go full on forced hug WrestleMania style. No consent. Don't care. Until she screamed Uncle/Mercy or laughed. One or the other. But she hugged back. That was good. He squeezed and he hugged, and he wouldn't loosen until she did after he felt her return it. No way he was letting that one go.

He still had this pumped-up energy when she loosened though. He wasn't angry just still on edge and in aching pain. He was lucky his whole body wasn't broken. Parts of him were. He just didn't have the official x-ray type diagnosis yet. They weren't the types of fractures he wasn't able to grind his teeth, grin and bear it though. He was always like an animal that didn't like to show his pain even when it was hard not to.

He had an intensity and exhaustion in his face even after they let go.

To even look over at his father digging out the eyeballs on some rando after all his absence for so long and to see GoGo so nonchalant about it was oddly comforting and surreal all at once. It felt like long gone days and a dream all at once being relived.

Yes, GoGo had been through a lot with the family by now, seen and heard much out of the norm by way of the supernatural and magical world, but this was different... a bit. They were used to it, but they weren't so desensitized that they weren't aware murder, death, mutating a corpse, or using it in ways unbecoming or undignified to who used to inhabit it yada yada normal society stuff, it just did not fly under their radar no matter what they were used to. So, seeing this girl from New Zealand be so casual after such a short time of knowing them without drawing any lines that were too far to cross was something they all took notice of, but especially Dale.

Right then.

Scout was more worried about her friend's reaction and what it meant. Dale knew all too well people they hoped would be life-time friends didn't always make the cut, so he kept his walls up, much like Piper. Hell, Scout did it too in her own way. No one ever wanted to be hurt again. This however was a moment. An invaluable moment.

That's why knowing werewolves exist or a world of zombies exists was still different than this moment. Maybe they were in Feral where they wouldn't get in trouble for a murder of some random no one had any connection to, but they weren't stupid. This family had been through enough to realize GoGo could have easily freaked out that they'd killed an innocent someone and not for a natural reason like werewolfing out through no fault of their own, or vampire feed, a natural need. This was just oops. We killed you having fun and they weren't another thrill seeker on the road with them who they could pass it off as well they knew the risks like all of them knew the risks when they got in those cars at such speeds. Dale and Scout knew the risk when they decided to not stop Chip from driving. They wanted so badly, both, to give him his moment with his father too, or just a moment to be who he used to be. They didn't know the history or life of that someone and none of them seemed to care as long as it didn't affect them. Even GoGo. This mattered.

Then the treatment of corpse mattered. She tore it up and used it and before noticing what Jetsam was doing with it. She could have picked up anything, but she picked up that arm. Every bit of this mattered to Dale and Scout when it came to their walls. Chip was a little too in his own head to think much through, but it would all come together for him eventually. Even Koda noticed, but he also assumed if it was a friend of the family they were on the cool already.

Dale and Scout had seen the law of impermanence play through their lives and run its wickedly natural course, an accidental lesson taught by Flotsam that keeps their walls higher than Isengard's. So, maybe they weren't consciously thinking it through, but it was a moment the walls restructured as Dale stared at GoGo who was looking at his dead father holding gouged eyeballs so proudly.

"Uh, yeah it's kinda his thing." He said out of breath as reality started to swarm back in around them all.

Dale watched the eye be put into Chip's barely self-controlled hand. He watched his sister; Scout be slightly ignored of her pleas to take care of the eye for him. Maybe it was because Jet didn't hear her? Maybe it was because of the time? In the middle of all this they'd lost track of it. He noticed Jetsam was looking less tangible and more transparent. Dale wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer after he saw his sis shout.

"Oh Dad!"

She ran over to him trying to hug him goodbye. She couldn't quite get a grip on him. It could be easily seen that she was clawing at his back to try and grip him back to the earth, but it was to no avail.

"I love you, Dad."

But he was gone. Chip was left with the eyeball in his hand and still unable to move quite freely as a truly lucid Chip should. Koda continued to hold him up from under his shoulder.

That's when Scout just stood there.

Stood there.

Tears started to well up in her multi-colored eyes.

Dale instantly tried to make things better like a brother always does. "He would have said it if he had more time."

Chip's very shaky lips, not from nerves, but from attempts to push through the zombie veil that shadowed over him said, "Y-you c-c-can hav-vvve it." He held the eye up trying to offer his sister any comfort, once again, as brothers do.

Scout shook her head at the eyeball. "Nah. He gave it to you."

This welled up so much anger in Dale he had no idea where to place it. He wasn't sure whether to be mad at Jetsam, at the clock, at life in general, at his father's vices that led him to this, whatever makes a man tick, at all of it, but it came out at Chip.

"This is your fucking fault, you know?" He charged at his barely there twin. "If you wouldn't have fucking killed him, she wouldn't be crying right now."

"Woah! Woah! Hey!" Koda actually had to hold Chip up Dale had pushed so hard. It must have snapped some coherency back into Chip because he pushed back full in the chest.

Now GoGo was in the middle of what really was at the heart of the family. Right when she was managing her own triggered insides the rest of the family pushed to their own edges.

All Koda could think was how could Jet fuck this one up? It was so easy. He was here. All that kid ever wanted from him was to show up.

Scout saw her brothers getting into their same old same old fight and she didn't want it to happen. It got her motor running and she jumped in between them.

"No! No. Stop. Just stop it. I'm fine. Don't drudge it up. Everything's fine."

Dale pushed himself back up from being knocked down by Chip's shove. Dale was a person who was fed up with feelings and frankly not very good with them.

She looked down more than once at Thomas's texts. "Actually... yeah. Everything is fine. I mean it."

She rolled up Chip's hand to make sure he wasn't going to lose that eyeball. "Just keep it safe in case he ever comes back. He'll come back for you."

Then she turned and gave a Dale a Scouty-hug as Scout often did being the petite little clinger of the family. She whispered in Dale's ear, "He came back. That's enough."

Dale hugged her tight, but seeing tears in sister's eyes wasn't on his Bingo card for any day ever, so he wasn't so sure it was enough until he heard her next words.

"I just want to go back with Mom and Dad."

Damn. It was the whole reason Dale came to NZ from the US. It was to help his sister adjust when he found out maybe she wasn't adjusting as well as she might have. So, from a brother perspective to see Scout want to run back home to her mom and dad, current and real, no hesitation, he had to smile finally. It came out of her mouth so naturally and for Dale felt like it was for the best.

"Yeah okay. I think they're staying at The Inn tonight." Dale would say as if every person in their shared sight didn't already know.

Then there was Koda an actual resident of Feral and was just catching up to what the other family was so intense on because his brain was more on keeping Chip balanced through most of this or worried about the Laveau kids as they mattered to his favorite people. "Oh, yeah, don't worry about this body. It'll blend in with the rest. No one will notice here. Let's put it this way, there's going to be no manhunt or FBI search here. He doesn't look familiar so I doubt they're anyone important to Delta. Honestly, if it's not Bastien or Dr. Frankenstein I doubt she'd pull much of a fuss over anyone else either."

Then he looked at each of them as if the whole scuffle didn't just happen because that's how things went sometimes. High emotions and then just move right along, that was hardly abnormal here. He was accostumed. "I can drive you guys up to The Inn. Drop off anyone who's staying and then I'm heading back up to the ball. I should get back to Elsa. But great run guys. Kick ass. Totally kick ass."

He wanted to offer to drive after the Chip fiasco though. He also liked to leave shit on the positive. Koda's giggling got Dale chuckling. "You should have seen how far you flew."

"I fucking bet, bruh. I hit hard. Road rash for days. I gotta walk this one off for a fucking ass month, fucker." He laughed. Dale took up the offer too.

"Sounds good to me." He trusted Koda to get his sister where she wanted to be. He figured if Koda was going back to the party to see Elsa he could also drive Chip back to his family at the party too.

That left Dale and GoGo.

He looked at GoGo and sighed. "Looks like we have a few choices. We hitch a ride with them and go to The Inn tonight. We could be like roomies again-" he gave her a little nudge as a playful reminder of the time they once had to bunk together, "-go back to the ball to get that bus out, or we go rogue and tour Feral? All I know is any choice that includes me in it tonight also includes a big bottle of I don't care what. But I'm finding it. Be forewarned."

A part of Scout looked tempted to be a part of that but she also had this pull that just wanted to see her parents first that was even stronger. She went for the car ready to be driven to Thomas and Valerie.

She texted Thomas.

Scout: I'm coming to you

It wasn't like her parents couldn't see, but it was best to warn of intentions in case they weren't focused on their magic sight. As much as they could all tune in, it went just as much to say they all had their own style of tuning each other out.

[orleans-jester]

GoGo x Dale

GoGo: Not even a see you later prom date?

GoGo: Really?

[orleans-jester]

cryptid-killjoy​:

Dale: Cool. If I try to do anything to it someone’s bound to catch me and see it at home or in my shop. Whenever it gets revealed I need to be pure surprise

Dale: I’ll swing through this weekend. Maybe we can catch lunch or something too

GoGo: Makes sense, I’ll move my shit and we can do it in my spot in the parking garage. GoGo: Sounds like a plan.

Dale x GoGo

Dale: What you up to?

[orleans-jester]

Most of them were worried about the dead body and what they were going to do with it. Jetsam wasn’t worried at all, which was very him, and he just seemed to want to get back to the chaos before his time was up. But GoGo was lost in her own worries about nearly losing Dale, seeing him go swinging out of the car. It brought back some of the worst memories that she had.

She’d been there that night. They were driving around, GoGo in the driver’s seat, rebel with a cigarette and no drivers licence, just having stolen the family car. They were celebrating in a way. They just got their test results back in chemistry and had both gotten full marks. Tadashi was a genius in his own right, being an inventor, but in a different way than GoGo. While she just created things for herself and had no mind of marketing or releasing things out to society, Tadashi was a boy-scout. He wanted to help people. It was noble - but also annoying. But they accepted each other, had since they were in the gifted program back in elementary school together. They just fell into this completely platonic friendship.

Driving through the streets, taking the backroads to avoid the cops. The fuck the police mentality wasn’t as strong here as it was over in America, but they still had it, even Tadashi. Getting caught was something that they did not want to do, since it could mean juvie, and juvie would mean less time working on their shit. But they still took the risk. The chance.

They went through the winding roads of the university because they would typically be empty this time of night. All of the steep turns through the many different buildings of Auckland University, going around the historic Bell Tower which was lit up at the top and gave a gothic grandeur to it all. GoGo turned the car towards the science buildings, where she and Tadashi hoped they would be able to learn in one day, to rule the school with their knowledge, and were greeted by an awful sight.

Light flared up behind the windows. Smoke poured out of the doors as they opened and closed, students running out. Without thinking about how the firetrucks woud access the building, GoGo stopped the car in the middle of the small road and stared with wide eyes at the fire. For what person would be able to just pass that by? Not curious teenagers, that’s for sure.

“What the fuck happened?” Go-Go asked, rolling down her window and looked out at the flames. It took the sound of the other door closing to get her to realize that Tadashi had gotten out of the car. His figure running, full on running, towards the building. Mumbling curses, she got out herself, the sound of crackling and screams just barely covering the far-off sirens. “Tadashi, you idiot, get back here!”

She just managed to get ahold of his sleeve, trying to pull him away. He faltered for a second, looking at her, his expression hard to read. But she knew him. The conflict in his eyes, with the lowering of his brow. The sound of sprinklers inside of the building now, but nothing seemed to be working. Windows were breaking. One broke just above the door, a large one, sending glass in GoGo and Tadashi’s direction but she didn’t let go of her friend’s sleeve. Tadashi looked back to the building once, and then back to Go-Go. “Please-” She pleaded.

“Someone might be in there,” Tadashi said. “Someone has to help.”

And he pushed Go-Go back, and went running up the stairs past the last few stragglers who had come out. His hat went flying off as he went running, landing right at Go-Go’s feet.

“That’s literally the firemens’ jobs!” She called out, and these were probably the last words that Tadashi Hamada would hear. She picked up his hat and took a couple of steps back from the building, not really the noble kind. She wasn’t going to go in to save someone who may or may not have been in there. That was a job for the firefighters. The sirens came closer and she swore, realizing that her family’ car was right in front of the building and would hinder them. But as she took another step back, the building seemed to erupt, the last of the glass flying out from the windows, scratching her face and hands. Fire shot out, along with a blast radius which knocked her on her ass, hat still in hand, some light burns on her face, just a little worse than a sunburn.

Facing reality was something she could not do right then. Almost in a daze she stood up and went walking calmly back to the car, putting her foot on the gas and driving out of there, off of the campus, and to a nearby McDonalds parking lot when it finally sunk in. Tadashi was dead. There’s no way he could have survived that. There’s no way anyone could have survived that. And all that she had was this stupid hat, the only proof that he had really been there with her. She was not the very emotional sort. She didn’t scream and cry, but she stared at that hat, feeling the burns, feeling the cuts, and felt this wave of anger. No, it was almost hatred.

She hated the fact that he had been so selfless. That he had to go and be a fucking hero. It was his own damn fault. DAMN HIM. Damn him for being so fucking stupid and irresponsible and stupid and dying for nothing! He didn’t save anything! Not a person, not a plant, not an animal, not a goddamn thing.

The fire turned her cold. She dropped off the hat anonymously at his house, let his brother have it. She didn’t want to look at it. She would just keep feeling anger if she did. She went back to school and had to deal with the pitying looks from other students and from the teachers. The muttered ‘I’m sorrys’ from them because they had been friends, everyone knew that. She kept excelling in her studies, and getting into the clubs like the robotics club, chemistry club. She made the soccer team, one of the few times she could let her mind focus on other things. She never really grieved properly, not really.

And then came the Laveaus. They warmed that up. They were able to create peepholes in the walls that she put up, popping them brick by brick until she was exposed and found that it wasn’t a bad feeling. She felt alright enough to go to the same university, to the rebuilt science building which had a small plaque with Tadashi’s name. Yeah. He was the only one that died, other than some lab animals, but they didn’t even have stupid names to go on the plaque. She avoided walking by it. She didn’t want to see it, still on anger part of the grief process. But she was angry at a lot of things. Her parents, the fact that she wasn’t as far in her work as she wanted to be, her job.

But there hadn’t been any worry, any true worry, until she saw Dale being thrown out of that damn car, crash landing on the ground.

Overreaction? Sure. She ripped off a dead man’s arm. It wasn’t the most civilized thing to do. But it was like all of that past anger had come back to her in those seconds, making her feel like she had hulked out then.

She wouldn’t try to defend herself when he got up. She wast thinking in terms of actually fighting. She just needed to take out what she felt for those few minutes there. His shouting seemed to snap her out of the last of it, looking at the blood, at the bruises. The damage that she had done on top of what he had already suffered.

Was she going to apologize? No. Even though she had been out of her mind and knew that she definitely had done the wrong thing and might have scared away her real friends, she wouldn’t. Because fuck Dale for putting himself through what he had done. It was his own fault.

She hadn’t been anticipating the hug though. Not at all. But it only took a second for her to wrap her arms around him in return, squeezing him, making sure that he was real. His curls smelt of blood and grass, neither of which were fire and chemicals so that calmed her down even further.

“You fucking better, or I’m going to beat your corpse until it’s ugly,” She said, tightening her grip.

Thomas’s text back didn’t seem like it was important right then to GoGo. There was a dead guy but it wasn’t anyone that they knew so it was a lot easier to deal with. And she had already touched it. Her DNA was on the body but - it was actually hard to take that seriously in a dead-zone like Feral.

With a breath, she finally loosened her grip on Dale and nodded towards Scout, and then noticed Jetsam.

“Your dad is into eyeballs?” She asked Dale. “Interesting.”

Everything was going wild. Everything seemed fun and pretty typical until they couldn't decide if they should try and cover up the body or not. The Laveaus weren't the types to let a little crash and burn disrupt their fun. It was all part of it. Anywhere else they understood the usual rules though. They knew the aftermath murder code. Autopilot had a way of taking over. Still, if they could get away with not doing things the methodical way they'd take the out.

Scout was focused on her phone waiting her dad's answer out. Grinding someone down and eating them up was a messy and time consuming task. If they could get out of it they'd like to know for sure. Logic was telling them maybe in Feral where rules were lax it might just be okay to not go through the usual precautions. They also didn't want to do anything wrong and upset their hosts either. They just weren't used to the Feral rules, if there were any.

While all these converstions were going on between Koda, Chip, and Dale, and Jetsam not giving two shits all hovered over the stranger digging one of their eyes right out of it's sockets. Old habits died hard. He might have been dead but he noticed they were a cool color and couldn't help but want to harvest them as if he might add them to the collection he didn't have anymore. Maybe he'd start a new one?

"Weenie-balls." He was laughing. "That's the name of my new collection. I'll get a new set every Halloween. Keep 'em at your place, Chipper."

Scout broke in, "I can do it. I can keep them for you, Dad." She was trying so hard to be a part of it still wanting to be a part of his life as she watched Jet shove the wet thing into Chip's hand.

Then there was Koda who was trying to hold up under Chip's arm since he'd just been through a wreck. Chip was also still in slow-mode. Zombie-ish mode. His reflexes weren't back. He was looking at Scout like he wanted to respond but nothing was coming out. Jetsam took his silence as a yes because his hand held onto the eyeball unable to do much more quite yet.

Then there was GoGo. She came in and Dale was gazing at the sky when she came in out of nowhere and Smack!

Incoming.

Thack!

"Hey?!"

GoGo went off. She was practically barking at him. She kept going.

Dale's sore arms went up trying to protect himself but it was too late. She'd already hit him before he managed to sheild himself at all. A bloody third WOMP.

"Damn it!" Dale's body rolled and cringed away ready to jump up and ... and do... do something... he wasn't sure what... stop her he supposed but she stopped herself as he managed to roll over onto his side.

Scout stared at her as Dale managed to push himself off the ground holding his ribs, covered in the dismembered arm's splattered blood, and got his feet. It happened so fast. It had every hair on the back of her neck standing straight up. Then GoGo even yelled it out. Something about loss. It was bone chilling.

Once Dale was on his feet he limped over, red faced, wide eyed.

Dale's initial reaction was anger. Pain and anger.

Then he saw her face.

Okay, maybe he was still angry, but fuck. Then he just pushed through the pain, stormed through it actually. He hadn't wanted to move at all. The adrenaline had made him jump up and next when he saw her face, he rushed forward and forced a hug on her.

"Fuck you. Are you trying to finish me off, GoGo?"

Damn, the hug hurt. Yelling hurt. Breathing hurt. He didn't care. He squeezed her in.

"Fuck you so hard."

He groaned over her shoulder, "You push me away. I'll squeeze harder. So fuck right off. I'm staying here."

All Scout could see was the fragility of human life, something she wasn't anymore. It was scarier than it used to be. It was the sort of subject she never thought about until her family fell apart. They used to feel so indestructible. Thomas built it back up so strong. She wasn't sure what this feeling was watching her brother and GoGo. Next to them was her zombie bit brother touched by death who caused the crash. Next to them was her actually dead parental who she'd been dying to see for years now, missing him, and conflicted feelings were still stirring. She watched him not pay attention fully focused on gouging out that second retina from the socket.

Before she could get much deeper in those thoughts her phone went off and Thomas's text came in. It shook her back to the present.

"Okay guys. Dad says it's not a big deal to just dump it here. GoGo's probably right. We can just blame it on a zombie. Looks like we don't have to take the time out for disposal here. We're good guys." She said taking the lead on the situation which under normal circumstances would have been a much bigger situation had they been anywhere else.

Jetsam stood up with his second eyeball in his hand grinning, "Told ya guys. Fuck it all." Then he kicked the corpse's eyeball-less head.

[orleans-jester]

She saw Koda looking behind him and she gave him a little peace sign with her fingers, bursting the bubble with her tongue. She watched her own rearview mirror and playfully moved to swerve next to the VW, her open window meaning that she could reach across and ruffle Dale’s curls.

After that, GoGo sped on ahead, feeling her groove the same way that Kuzco did when he had a guitar in hand, the same way that Valerie did with a microphone, the same way that Delta did when she had her wings out, the same way Frank did as he kicked at a suspended reporter, making his body sway on the hooks while he read.

GoGo had been a girl who fell in love with cars, a real engine geek, and didn’t have much love left over for people. Not even her family. Once it was clear that they weren’t going to understand her, that they were going to try to dictate her life as if she was anyone else, she had given up on them. They became roommates. They didn’t do family dinners, or going out together, or even celebrations of birthdays.

It had taken a while for the Laveaus to permeate through that. It wasn’t even as if Go-Go had big walls up, the way that Elsa did, trying to protect herself or thinking that she was protecting others. She just hadn’t even realized that there was a door that they could even knock on. But it had opened and - now, she couldn’t imagine a world without them, the same way she couldn’t imagine a world without cars.

Loud music coming out of stereos, the noises blending together during the split seconds that they were near one another. Her eyes would dart over to see who it was, and would make faces over at Scout if it was her, and then would chuckle to herself. Her heart was beating with the engine, almost feeling like they were one. As she went up in speed, plowing through a zombie or two, only flipping on the windshield wipers as her reaction, she thought to herself, ‘This is better than masturbating.’

Unlimited speed. No cops. No sirens. No one telling her to slow down. If someone got in the way, hit them. This is just what the Autobahn must be like.

The sounds of gunshots weren’t even unwelcome. They echoed through the empty streets, with no one looking out windows, or running for cover. They would be heard up from the tower, where Frank and Delta were busy, but weren’t bothering them much either. As long as it wasn’t pointed towards them, or their people, Frank didn’t give a fuck. He was too deep in … well, a fuck.

She would have kept going when Dale was out of the window, but realized a moment or two later when there weren’t any more headlights in her rearview mirrors. Curiously, she turned her own car around and encroached on the scene. She had her own window down and climbed out through her window, exactly like Dale had been sitting when he had been ejected.

It was rough seeing Dale laying on the ground, like a piece of roadkill. It was rough seeing Chip behind the crumpled hood of the car, the windshield broken, pieces of glass. It triggered something in her. She couldn’t move for a moment. It felt like she was underwater. She could just about hear the garbled voice of Dale talking to Scout, and Chip’s eyes being open as Koda got him out of the car.

Tadashi. The outline of him, the silhouette, against the fire as he had run in like he thought that he was fireproof. Like he was immortal. Like he was a goddamn hero. The situations were different but the feelings were the same in that moment, a clenching around her heart and her stomach, a sense of loss. Everyone was, thankfully, preoccupied with the twins and the body and texting while she had her moment or two of panic before she felt like she was able to breathe again.

She wasn’t thinking the clearest though. She climbed off of the car door, walking around the glass-littered ground, the blood-soaked asphalt in her bare feet, and approached Dale, still on the ground. The panic was still in her eyes, the tenseness of her bones, all of it. And what she did was lean down and gave Dale’s head a smack.

“You don’t get to come close to dying, do you hear me?” She said, and then realized that her own little hand was barely going to do anything to Dale’s head, not through those curls anyway. She took a short march towards the dead body, picked up an arm that had been driven over, detatched at the shoulder, and then used that arm to hit Dale again. “You stupid, egg-headed shitpuddle!”

After hitting him a third time with the arm, she threw it down and then ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it out of her face to try to calm herself, taking deep breaths. “I’m not losing another friend,” She said in a quieter tone this time. It was only then that she seemed to realize what she had done. That there was a detatched arm beside her that had been attached to a body only seconds ago. She leaned down and then wiped her hand on Dale’s shirt because she wasn’t going to do it to her own dress.

While this was happening, Scout’s phone would get a text. Thomas was paying attention to his drunk wife, but also to his phone because he had meant what he had said when he offered to pick Ches up, all she had to do was text. Same with Scout, but that went without saying.

‘If Chip doesn’t want to eat it, I’m sure just tossing it into a sewer or something is fine? Just don’t leave a big mess.’

Go-Go was coming down from that short-lived panic attack. It hadn’t gone full blown, just enough for her to go full-throttle rather than her more subdued self. She was a bit embarrassed so decided to gloss over what she had just done rather than address it, and move onto the next topic.

“If anyone asks, zombies did it?”

"Yeah-yeah!" Scout knew the punch buggy game. Who didn't know the punch buggies? She loved that was GoGo's first thought.

Somehow even though GoGo called it out the boys in the car didn't think to do anything for themselves and Scout started to punch them. A slug to the side of Jetsam's arm and then she could be seen hanging over the back of her seat trying to reach Koda while he was dodging and blocking. He'd call out for Jetsam to do something with his daughter. Jetsam of course did nothing but laugh. Nor did he do anything remotely parental like tell her to turn around in her seat or put her seat belt on, but that was to be expected. All fun and games to Jetsam. He even jabbed her butt with his elbow to push her more into the back to help her reach Koda. It made her fall through the middle.

It was all laughter from there.

What started as a joyride, music blaring, each car in their own world, GoGo had their vibe, the twins had theirs. Chip and Dale were blaring Nascar 2000 sountrack because their brains thought in video games and outlaws. Car guys were sometimes just big boys playing out their outlaw fantasies on the track. Then there were Chip, Dale, Scout, and the like of GoGo who took their speed games to the illegal side and were actually outlaws of their own kind. It was how Dale knew GoGo would go against her parents eventually. It was too in her nature. She wasn't just an adrenaline junkie. Even an adrenaline junkie could be a conformist in Chip's book if they never let go of the safety line. She wasn't. Dale always just had him a feeling.

Then there was Jetsam's car, driver controls the music. However he did not exactly bring his playlist from the land of the dead. He had to get Scout to hook up when the radio failed to appease him. She hooked up and was put on what she considered dad music. It was stuff she remembered him listening to when he was alive. She had the lists and would listen to them over and over missing him. She put one on now and it made her face light up when he started to jam to it. It made her feel like she did something right and good which was all important to the good missing her dad dynamic.

This parade of cars started out as a loud joyride of ecclectic music and wired minds. Then the weaving would start. Jetsam dodged the first zombie out of habit used to having to weave if he was causing a rukkus in public in Nola. Then when he realized it was of the dead variety and even moreso a little part of him said even if they were alive he'd be gone by day light and what was anyone gonna do? Kill him? Send him to Hell? BWahahahaHa! No. He decided right then he didn't care either way and suddenly he got a bloodlust in his eyes as he peered through that windshield.

That's when Jetsam's car became a bowling ball and anything walking became targeted bowling pins. It started to be more like Simpson's Road Rage than a regular joyride. He'd hit the first one and the body would swirl up into the air over his car and smack down onto the hood of GoGo's.

"WoahEwww!" The twins yelled out. A second would come flying as they were trying to dodge the tailspin of that one sliding off her car and in their car's path. "Shit. Watch out."

Then the next thing the twins knew they were cracking up at their own tailspin after regaining control. "Sure you don't want me to drive?"

Chip gave him a, "Not in this lifetime" expression. Then Dale started to get his shoulder hoisted out the window ready for some target practice. Every now and again he'd swing and knock over a mailbox just to feel like he was playing baseball again like the old days and started keeping score out loud with the butt of his gun. Chip indeed gave Dale a side eye for that too if only because it was his gun he might damage in doing so, but then said nothing because fuck it. He had so many more. They were having fun.

This kind of driving could go on through the streets of Feral as long as they wanted, a rip revving, zombie bashing good night. The challenge would come more whenever any of them decided it might be time to end it. Whether it was because someone crashed or because the driver of a certain vehicle was about to disappear the moment would come the group would have to slow down after they'd riled up the town's undead population.

It would be getting closer to that time too when Dale had propped up his hip on the window ledge as he was shooting. Chip would start to slip into more of slow motion daze and was having hard time releasing the gas pedal much less lifting it to push the break. When he went into that sort of middle minded haze it was harder for him to communicate what was happening too. He'd appear like he was driving forward full throttle on purpose in adrenaline mode, so Dale didn't realize at first. That was, not until he saw the flag pole coming way too fast. They were swerving off road wrong. It didn't feel on purpose. "CHIP!" But before he knew his body went flying thrown from the VW and landed in someone's lawn.

He laid there in pain looking up at the night sky smiling.

Scout would start screaming for Jetsam to turn and go back. When they got there Koda jumped out fastest and had run up to check on Chip. Scout ran to Dale. "Was it worth letting him drive?"

"So worth it. How far did I fly? That was impressive, right?"

Another corpse was nearby that Jetsam hit earlier. It was pooling bright red blood. "Oh shit. I don't think that one was dead." Koda would say as he walked with Chip's arm over his shoulder over to where the others were.

"I guess that's Zombie Formula One Racing. If you weren't a zombie before racing you'll become one." Jetsam gave no fucks. "That's the formula."

Chip stared at it from over Koda's shoulder still looking dazed with a bruise on his head attempting to speak. It came out slow but he managed it. "I should eat it."

He was used to having to get rid of the evidence when they had accidental murders in the family anymore so to speak.

Scout looked around unsure. "I don't know. Maybe you don't have to? I don't think we can get in trouble here can we?"

All the kids looked at each other like they were confused for the first time in their lives. They knew family rules and how to go about things, handle business to keep the family safe, but they also understood Feral was a little more lax and secure from the rest of the world. They also didn't live here so they weren't used to thinking so freely as if they didn't have to cover their own trails.

If GoGo had turned around and came up at all she'd hear the group conspiring to cover up a rando murder and speak of cannibalism as if it was nothing. Maybe she kept going with her car on her own, who knew? Or maybe she'd be right there after everything finally listening as if nothing could shock her anymore, just a part of the whole wild bunch?

Scout looked down at Dale still on the ground. "I don't know. Ask Dad." Dale answered never being the cannibalism expert and was slightly jealous still that Savvy picked Chip when he left Flotsam. Their dad Jetsam was standing right there and yet Savvy didn't seem to be taking over here in leadership, so when Scout heard 'ask dad' her mind went to Thomas. It also felt right to go to him when something felt wrong and to ask for help.

Scout texted Thomas. This would come in around the time they were going to the inn.

Scout: Dad! SOS. Dead body. Dale and I don't have our bone grinders. We can make some. Should Chip still have to eat it in Feral? Can we just leave it? Or no? ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ

Jetsam was groaning. "You guys worry too much."

[orleans-jester]

GoGo barely clocked the looks anymore. They were just starting to look normal, because of all of the ones that she got at work from her gag patrons. Going from a lanky, almost sexless car-girl to a full blown cat-maid fantasy had been a major adjustment but she was making it just fine. She considered her profession to be a fuck you to her parents. She’ll use her culture to make some decent money and get her fuckin’ dream car, and fuck anyone who got in the way of that.

But she did catch Scout’s grin and chuckled back, shaking her head. This night was finally going to get interesting. As if the entrance of a bunch of fuckin’ ghosts wasn’t enough to be considered that. No. Vehicles were getting involved and Go-Go was rearin’ to go.

And it looked like she was going to be the only one with a car all on her own, which was how she preferred it anyhow. Backseat drivers were a fuckin’ nuisance. She got the engine running, and started up the windshield wipers to clear all the dust outta there. Visibility wouldn’t last long, not if they were going to be running over zombies, with the risk of blood and other sorts of gore getting all over the windshield. But better to start on a clean surface.

She looked out the window again to see what Dale had picked and started to laugh. “Damn, now if I only had someone to punch! I owe you one, Scout, remember that!”

The thrill of the upcoming drive was making her comfortable. NO. More than that. Making her confident. She revved up the engine, hearing that beautiful sound of American craftsmanship. They might put out shitty presidential candidates, but they could make a real nice car.

That’s when Go-Go caught Scout’s eye again, and tilted their head slightly at the concern. She didn’t put two and two together, that werewolf Chip wasn’t exactly the best person to be the driver. In her mind, Thomas did it all the time. Then again, she didn’t see Chip enough to know the differences between the two. That Chip was more … zombified.

But then she just shrugged. Whatever it is - better here on the near-abandoned streets of Feral than on the Auckland roads with a whole bunch of innocent people. She popped a piece of gum into her mouth and blew a bubble, one arm hanging out the window, the other adjusting the rearview mirror, then hanging onto the steering wheel, feeling the fine leather.

Go-Go plugged her phone into the more modern stereo that had been put into this beautiful baby, and started to blast her own music along, pushing the pedal down to the metal, cruising barely behind Jetsam, literally burning some rubber as the tires started to smoke. She blew another bubble and changed gear, going faster.

She saw Koda looking behind him and she gave him a little peace sign with her fingers, bursting the bubble with her tongue. She watched her own rearview mirror and playfully moved to swerve next to the VW, her open window meaning that she could reach across and ruffle Dale’s curls.

The fact GoGo was feeling more the abandoned cars than faceless people is probably why she got along with this family.

Dale looked with his hands up, "A'ight. A'ight. Fair 'nuff." Then he took a few steps back. Scout didn't miss the look exchanged between brothers when GoGo shortened her skirt either.

She really wanted to scold them, but they weren't wrong. Scout's expression was just as approving. Maybe all the siblings were incorrigible.

Koda who had lagged behind from making a couple pit stops saying hey to people on the way out finally caught up. "Slick." He liked GoGo's style when he saw which car she picked.

He kept looking back up at the castle though. He knew this was one night only with Jetsam so he wanted to take his opportunity now, but he could also see he was trying to have a family moment with his kids. His heart was back up with his date too. It was the intention of the evening. Koda didn't want to pick a car or drive around for old times sake. He wanted to sit down and spend time with his lost buddy one on one. There was just only so much Jetsam to go around. There was the part of him that had gotten to know Flotsam and was smiling inside himself knowing Jetsam spending this time was going to do a world of wonders. For Koda, he was starting to think maybe that was enough for him to witness tonight.

So, in a last ditch effort to get closer to his buddy he asked if he could ride shotgun, but Scout ran up, "That's my seat, bub. You can get in the back."

Koda thought about that and it worked for him. The backseat it was.

Then there was Chip. He was still being Chip.

He seemed to be on zombie surveillance in the parking lot, on high alert, and loving it.

"Dale, pick us a car. I'll keep watch."

The twins were teaming up too. Dale was always the comedian at the demolition derbies. While others were supping up big old trucks and old muscle cars, he was the clown. He always picked something funny that should never supped up with giant tires and big ol' rims or flame stacks just to be a spectacle. So, when he looked around the parking lot his mind didn't think street car racing, or even cruising to be cool. He scanned as quickly as he could for what the opposite of what would seem like his kind of car.

Bam. He found jumped in a neon green VW Bug with daisy rims complete with lashes. Okay so maybe over it's abandonment one had fallen crooked due to the weather and looked pretty janky giving the car an expression like it a painted up drunk who just came in from her walk of shame after a pretty rough night.

Chip was so busy watching his back for zombies he didn't really pay attention to his choice until he heard the vroom of the engine when Dale got it sparked.

Chip often gave Dale the silent 'God damnit' look. He got one now as Dale looked all too proud of himself for remembering how to wire a car. It'd been quite a long time. That was the old Chip and Dale dynamic. Team Rescue Rangers. The serious face and the goof.

Then Dale would act oblivious like he had no clue what Chip was annoyed by only to moments later egg him on, "What? You don't think you can handle this baby? You need me to drive?"

It would always be something to knock him down a few pegs because Chip always had the upper hand as kids. This is just how they were. Then out flared those Chip nostrils and with silence he'd pull down his goggles and shove Dale aside to take over the driver's position.

Dale would hoot, literally hoot and call out a woo. "Now we're talking. Atta boy. You can do it." He'd change it up and act like Chip just needed encouragement.

Dale would roll his window down and pump his fist outside of it. "Ready! Let's do this!"

Chip would pass his big gun off to Dale since he was driving. Scout had no idea Chip was going to be the one driving. She looked from her car over to GoGo with some amount of worry in her eyes. There was a reason his wives didn't let him fly solo since the bites. It was a special night. She didn't express her concerns.

Jetsam would call back, "Let's tear up some road boys!"

The engine revved and Jet was the first to spin tires and take off. Scout's high pitched yell of joy could be heard after it. No plan. Just winging it. Thus would begin the free range joy ride through Feral that caused more loud noise than this city was used to with so many engines going at once. The zombies did start to wake from dormant states and it drew them towards the sound. Cars were faster though.

As Jetsam jacked up his music Koda watched out the window from the back at the other drivers and noticed the sheer amount of undead all this noise was waking. His bear sensitive ears were catching motion and smelling death whiffs of death in motion. He could always tell the difference between decay in the ground and up and about. It tickled the nose different. He was starting to realize what he'd just gotten himself into.

He didn't get to come out here for a quick hello to his old pal. He just stepped into an amplified version of the past. They were at a Laveau zombie shoot party without the weapons. Rewind or maybe fast forward because the weapons were about to be cars and the amount of death he was smelling in Delta and Frank's world far more than doubled whatever he could scent in those past parties. Tripled.

All Koda could think was 'Well, I'm in it now.' So he said, "Let the good times roll."

[orleans-jester]

And, of course, Frank would be by her side, looking down at the chaos that was occurring. He had his elbows against the top of the ramparts. He had enjoyed rebuilding Feral to be their own, with Delta’s touches, her style, his own twisted darkness coming into play. It was chilling, but it was far from the commercialism of Halloweentown. There’d be plenty of surprises out there for the demolition derby crew to discover.

Go-Go just ripped off the heels and switched them for her rollerblades, which she always had on hand, stashed in her backpack. Of course she had invented a way to make them foldable, to make them compact so that she could bring them with her. She was on a trip to Feral for christsake, she wasn’t going to be staying in heels all night.

She was wheeling along, following closely behind the Laveaus, as if she was one of them. Hell, with her jet black hair, and her thin and lanky frame, minus the eyes, she could have been thought to be Chip or Flotsam at a very quick glance.

They came to a sudden stop, turning their ankle, when Chip did a fuckin dive roll in front of her and shot at a zombie. This was Go-Go’s real first experience with a zombie. River didn’t count, though lately, he had been looking pretty damn close. She raised their arms to try to avoid the splatter, but of course, some got through because her arm was the size of fucking spaghetti noodles. “Damn,” She said, bringing them down, looking at the corpse of a corpse laid out on the ground.

What this brought to mind were those 3D-coaster rides. With the bolted down seats that you were strapped into, that moved and shook with the screen ahead. With the 3D glasses and the fake guns that you used to shoot the zombies off of the ride as you bucked back and forth. But real. No glasses here.

“Yup - I can completely believe that you all grew up here,” Go-Go said, focusing a bit more on the blood on her arm than what might be on her face, it not really occurring to her yet that there was any there. And of course, she had meant this in a good way. Even though it had changed from when they lived in, this looked like a Laveau playground. Their own sort of Disney.

But what was more surprising than a zombie, than a castle with a Halloween ball in it with a bunch of ghosts coming back to life, filled with fey soldiers, being hosted by a couple that had both died and come back to life?

The Laveau twins, the junior ones, working on ripping their shirts to get a bit of undead blood off her damn face.

She reached up for her mouth, making sure that if she felt something, she moved it away from the opening, squeezing her lips together. She wasn’t stupid. She had seen 28 Days Later, seen the blood drop into the guy’s eye and watched him turn. Zombie lore in movies might not always be right but - some things just seemed like common sense. And then there was Chip, trying to find a part of his shirt to rip off and then there was Dale, volunteering despite his brother already being on it, tearing apart his already small shirt.

Weirdly enough, it was very flattering for a second to be the center of attention from two boys in the coolest family ever. And not even having to wear a stupid cat-maid costume to do it.

“I do have hands, you know,” She said, rolling her eyes to the two brothers, bending over to look in the mirror and wipe it off herself. She sent Scout a wink as a thank you though. Last thing she needed was to see more of Dale’s torso, and get flustered.

Once she had that wiped, she started to rip at the bottom of her dress to make it shorter, making it about mid length so that she could rollerskate better, without worrying about having to trip up on her own clothing. At least until Jetsam had given her the choice of car. She stood there, hands on her hip, before rolling around and looking at them all, examining them with a very careful eye.

This looked more like a graveyard to Go-Go than any other part of Feral. All of these lost cars, rusting away, waiting for their owners who would never come back. She felt more for them than for the people.

Oh, she found it. It was the kind of car that made a male driver look like he had a little dick, just because of how extended the front was. Men who drove cars like this were compensating for something. But when GoGo threw her skates down into the passenger side, and slid into the driver’s seat, hot wiring it effortlessly, and heard that original purr - she felt like hers must he as big as Frank fuckin’ Skellington’s. Is this what being American felt like?

She was in a 1984 Cadillac Coupe DeVille, painted a sleek and shiny black, only slight affected from the almost two years of sitting there. She rolled down the window with the handcrank, and climbed half out of it, sitting on the door. “I’m drinkin my poison, neat,” She said, thinking it sounded rad.

If GoGo was looking for a demolition derby squad she gathered the right crew. That was basically the name of their game back in their Nola days and they were ready to make Feral their playground. When Delta got wind of so many of her guests running off she made her way to one of her tallest towers to have an over look view of the city. It was her favorite view. It wasn't just a great place for an aeriel view of her dominion, but right now it felt like a good place to take that breather now that she saw her party seemed safely under controlled enough chaos for her mind to handle. The uninvited guests so far weren't as unwanted as they could have been.

So, she'd stand atop her tower with her magically mixed and melded staff of her mother's and the trident, her own signature object of power, and would watch the misfit demolition crew below begin their games.

The city despite all their "redecorating" was still full of abandoned objects and places. That was part of Bastien's hoarding fun. Tonight this would be a joy riders dream come true with all the parking lots just full of vehicles at their disposal. Chip and Dale were running alongside Scout trying to keep up with Jetsam's gazelle legs. Scout was a shorty but she had the stamina to keep up with those lanky legs as all the hooping and hollering stirred up the zombies. Quiet had a way of keeping them at bay and Feral was vastly unpopulated most of the time so all the noise at the center of town started to stir the undead before they ever hot wired a car to zoom around town in.

It was Chip who took first notice.

The boy was never not ready. He took a dive roll right in front of GoGo, blocked her path where he saw one pop out from a hibernated state behind a parked car, shot it in the head, and then turned and skewered a second with the bayonet side of his rifle right in front of her face. Gooky blood would glunk out as he jerked his blade free and nodded his head with an old smirk that hadn't been on Chip's face in a long time.

Yeah. He liked Feral.

Scout grinned at GoGo and Chip both, "Yeah, this is still home."

Dale agreed. "Just like home."

It dawned on them all right then what was missing in the safety of New Zealand. Zombies. Laveau Estate always had a few strays in the woods. One could never be sure. Now Feral was more populated by the undead than the living.

Then he looked at the splatter on GoGo's skin and face. "Don't get that in your mouth. It's a little close to your uh lip right there." Then he reached up trying to find a clean spot on his shirt to help her wipe it off with trying to point to where it was.

Dale rolled his eyes. "Here let me help." Because he had so much shirt to help with wearing that Ken crop top right now, but he'd try to save GoGo from zombie grossness in her mouth if he could. This only made Dale look ridiculous not that looks would matter in trying to not become a zombie, but lifting it up when it barely covered.

Scout rolled her eyes as her brothers were practically smothering her friend. So she marched up to save GoGo from being drowned in overbearing masculinity and tore the bottom of her own shirt off. Then handed it to GoGo. "Here ya go. Look in the car mirror. I'm sure you can wipe it off yourself."

Then she shook her head at her brothers. "Points for giving a shit. Points taken away for execution."

Jetsam was cracking up as he was knelt down hotwiring a rusty old firebird with a layer of dust on the hood. "Who are you now? Headmaster DumbleScout? And leave some zombie action for me my Children of the Corn." The engine revved with his face down in the floor just as he said corn and turned back around. "Oh good. Still has half a tank of gas. That's enough to cause some havoc." He waved his hand at the whole free range parking lot like he was Vanna White. "Pick your poison dollface." Jetsam would say to GoGo.

[orleans-jester]

This dress was well worth the wait. Thomas would be thinking the same thing, even if he had to wait until his death day to see his Valerie in it. He couldn’t wait to spend the night with his arms around that beautiful waist of hers, feeling the fabric, feeling her. Appreciating everything that the dress did to emphasize her - much like she thought of him, she could wear anything. Something like this - it could make someone faceless. Someone would just remember the gown and not the person wearing it, but not Valerie. Not his wife. He’d never forget the way that the fabrics made her skin appear even softer, the colors complimenting her, the shape that it gave her, oh boy, like she was sewn into it. Her face - the most stunning of all, of course. He was going to be looking into her eyes all night as he swung her around the ballroom. Of course he was going to be dancing with her. There was no chance that he wasn’t. Socials always took second place after romance.

Nothing felt more appropriate than Poe tonight. It was a Halloween ball, gothic style, in a dark and mysterious castle. Did it get more spine-chilling than that?

“I know, I always feel the same,” Thomas chuckled, holding tight to Treebeard as they were brought up the mountain in their own special way. Some people had to take the stairs, some people took the bus - these two were special enough to get their own special escort. “I’d say we’re going to end up somewhere far more spectacular than Isengard.”

He checked his pocket again. He wasn’t coming empty handed, no. He was still determined - maybe foolishly since it hadn’t worked yet - to get Frank talking about something. After all, their ladies were friends. It only seemed right. He was bringing along a tin of fine Irish tobacco, since Frank was known for smoking. Might be just the thing to get him through thte door.

--

Iorek was just living his best life right now. He still mainly lived in the zoo, where it was nice and cold but he could leave his enclosure. He knew how to work the doors and it was never locked. He was getting a sugar high from the coke, so he kept wriggling his back in the seat, almost in a dance, just because his body was feeling the urge to move. Being a creature that had been in a zoo all of it’s life, it was used to stares so the gaggle of women who kept looking over at him was hardly a bother. He’d sniff them as they came on but wasn’t threatening.

GoGo wasn’t expecting much attention tonight with her attire, especially with everyone else being so dressed up. All the other ladies, Chip’s wives, it was like a fashion show. But she also couldn’t say that she wasn’t a bit pleased that the effort she put in was noticed, even if she wasn’t really the dress up type. At least not until she met Scout, who had rubbed off on her a bit.

“It was either this or my work uniform, and I made a vow to myself not to ever wear that after working hours,” Go-Go chuckled. Despite being in school almost full time, she still kept up her job at the stupid cafe. Dale had been right. She made some pretty good money there, as humiliating as it was. Besides, not like she had very much shame. If she brought some to the family name … good. “Hot is better than kawaii, I’ll take it.”

She let out a little snort of a laugh. “Independence, it helped.” After bunking with him at Elsa’s, she had moved into her own apartment and had been there since August, while he had gone off to Peru to do whatever Dale does. She never really asked questions. “Quite the crop top, Dale.”

Offended by being called Spindly? Hardly. “All the better to move faster.”

“Fun fact,” Figaro called from the front of the bus. “They put Wybie in the movie to make it LESS creepy. The book doesn’t have him, and it’s balls to the wall isolation.”

Because leave it to them to know.

But as for Ellie, all that time alone with just Babyface for company has really gotten rid of her filter, so joking and teasing, it had become a real big thing. It’s how she showed love, now more than ever. Not that she had a say in her aunt’s relationship, but that little quip was her way of letting Koda know that she approved. Anyone who could influence her aunt into wearing THAT and not something frumpy was well worth accepting.

Ellie’s grin only grew bigger when she heard Babyface stand up for her. She put an arm around his shoulder and looked at Koda. “Yeah, take that, Koda!”

Laughter was all over the bus, even Elsa smiling as she leaned into Koda to hear his compliment. “Thank you,” She said, taking the compliment without ever attempting to fish for more. “Though I do feel different tonight.”

Dapper? Oh yes, Thomas was that and more. Valerie did so love Thomas in a suit, almost as much as she liked him in jeans with his toolbelt... almost. There was just something about those jeans and his boots. But woo-wee when that man went for dashing he actually pulled it off. Not all men could. Suits often wore men and guys all had a tendency to look like these poor things attempting to look grown up, mature, or that they have more grace than they actually do. It never works. The suit wears them. Not Thomas though. He can wear damn near anything and pull it off as a true gentleman even though Val knows quite well he can be quite the naughty fucker in bed. Yeah, he handles his suits and wears them well along with everything else including his beard at every length he'd let it grow.

No matter how cliche it might be there was hardly a more beautifying feeling than seeing such a composed man as this jaw drop and then realize it was because he set his eyes on you. Valerie looked down at herself. She'd been saving that dress for awhile wishing for a proper occassion for it besides one of their own backyard dates as fun as those might be to make up reasons to dress up. Watching his face made her own jaw slack, her chin tilt down. She pushed her hair behind her ear as a way to stabalize the high this man sending through her with just his face. His expression was priceless. Then he opened his mouth. Oh lordy, her private poet was at it again...and quoting Poe during a Halloween Ball of all times. She didn't always know if he was quoting, usually was, or if they were his own words, but Poe was one of the few he sometimes recoginized since Val tended to read darker tales when reading on her own. So, she couldn't hold back her grin at all.

"I feel far more precious than Annabelle Lee when you look at me."

It was true. She had a way of knowing she could slay, but her under-the-bed days despite being shed and long past, still lived somewhere under her skin like something in her wasn't always sure it was okay just to simply exist. Thomas's eyes always fixed that. He was her onion picker like in Holes and her personal poet. She hoped she contributed something here.

As they rode up in Treebeard's branches to the castle Valerie couldn't help but whisper, "I still feel like Merry and Pip on our great adventure whenever we get to do this. It must mean tonight's going to be special." She decided traveling in Tree had to have been a good omen.

On the bus Speed was going on overhead. Who didn't adore Keaneu or Sandra B? Win-Win. Dale was actually paying attention to it about the time Ellie and Babyface showed up and it all the emotional hugging and cussing commenced.

Chip's wives really could not stop staring at Iorek. They were very used to Chip and him continuously bringing more animals than one family would normally take care of, but a polar bear? Yeah, okay... Fig had him beat with that one. This was a first for them. One even slapped him and asked why they didn't have a polar bear. Koda would give her the evil eye like she was being offensive just to fuck with her. Pippin was going to be watching her bear language use for the rest of the evening. At least Elsa wasn't the only one distracted by the polar bear in some kind of way.

Scout would look GoGo up and down and quirk her right brow when she saw her Morticia outfit. "Classic. My Dad loves dressing up as her." She meant Flotsam though she didn't specify, but that quirk did not come down out of her hairline. She was unabashedly checking her digs out. "Damn girl. You look... like...excuse the Paris Hilton speak, but seriously... just really hot tonight." Scout couldn't not say it. She always called 'em like she saw 'em, just like the rest of her family.

That's why Dale chimed in after. "Let me see." If Scout thought so he wanted a better look. So he absolutely let himself take Laveau's worth of eyeballing her. "Damn GoGo. She's right. What'd you go and do? Grow up while I was away in Peru?" He said acting like he hadn't seen her since. "You are looking fly."

Then Chip would say, "You could also be good at being the other mother on Coraline. She was so spindly like a spider. You just need buttons for eyes."

Yup the Laveaus were in the house always calling 'em out alright.

Jenna said, "How about we sew buttons on your eyes Chippy?"

Chip would give one of those blank looks like he had no idea he inadvertantly put someone down and they weren't really sure GoGo's threshold for it. "What? It'd be a good group costume. I was thinking I'd be Wybie."

Dale shook his head. "Oh you mean the character who gets his voice sewn shut because he doesn't know when to shut up?"

Chip's wives were giggling. Koda laughed too until he heard what Ellie called out as she was saying her hellos to her Aunt Elsa in the middle of all this. Should she call him uncle yet? Oh geeze. Oh geeze. So maybe they were starting to be a thing, but that was probably a little too soon.

Koda almost balked though. He got thrown and had that wiggle wobble neck people get when they're anxious about whatever is about to come out of their mouth. "Oh, I don't know....depends..." Then he managed a comeback. "I would say definitely yes if you're looking for a wrassling match. You'll be calling uncle with me faster than anybody you know."

Babyface wanted to Kelso burn her so bad but held off because he was trying to do the stick by his lady thing. So, instead he said, "You clearly haven't ever seen my Hell's Ells in action. You're gonna be calling her uncle."

Everyone paused for a moment because he didn't say it quite right, but that was Babyface. He knew what he meant. So, did everyone else. Dale was cracking up. It was so good to have everyone back in the same room again. Dale's spirits went from emo-depresso to wanna get his drank-on real quick. He was having and they weren't even at the castle yet. They were only on Figaro's bus.... with the polar bear... and his Coke... watching Speed... and taking jabs at one another. Oh yeah, this was the life.

Koda would turn after all the rukkus and say, "You always look pretty, Nizhoni." He felt the need even though it was just a teenage niece bagging on her fashion sense.

Frank was right about this being important to Delta. She always said she'd be happiest if she could just go home with Frank, but as that wasn't an option of permanence she gave long thought to making the best of being in this earthly realm. She access to a few a portals that could wisk her away to other places like Christmas Town, Halloween Town, even a fairy realm. She had friends who had friends on the other side. She had her mother's grimoire in reach. She knew demons. Death. This didn't have to be like before. She referred to Flotsam often in her mind, but that was because she was angrier than him about the past.

This disturbed her. Watching Valerie/Flotsam make so much headway with Thomas in what that family calls progress boils her blood. She doesn't get it. When she let's things go she does so for completely different reasons and she's just not over her father and mother. She can't quite let it go. All of it. To see one of their most affected victims move on is mindblowing for little Delta. It dawned on her it's probably because it's not family that did it to them. Any grudges she holds against her father or mother are more easily comparable to what Flo holds against Jetsam. There's a love/anger relationship there just like she has with her parents. But, she's damned determined to not let King Triton or Maleficent's past ruin anything about her second life with Frank this go around. The same goes for Boogey, Sally, or Jack, anyone relative to the circle of their story. So, fuck yes this ball is important to Delta. She's invited the people back into her world when a little part of her hates them all for existing and not fixing everything for them while they were just kids, and all she really wants is Frank. This ball is her admitting it's time to move on.

She'll still only move on her way. Some people job. Some people drink. Delta dances.

As the bus came in and more guests filled the ball room she noticed more of her dancers had arrived. A couple of Chip's wives were in her crew now. Ray and Jenna were dancing sort. The other's not so much.

Dale was enjoying being introduced to Black Arts and Nebby. "More Beagles. I don't think the world feels right without thinking there's Beagles out there to call."

Black Arts smirked, "If Grandpappy had anything to do with it, there's more out there than we know yet."

Babyface sneered his nose as he put together what that meant. "Ew dude. Just ew." It was true though. Grandpappy got around. He knew the guy wasn't wrong.

"Where's Nebs?" When Black Arts turned around to look around the ball room to where she'd gotten off to she'd already found someone to be silly with. She'd made a quick friend in Scout. Like attracts like and the willingness to put themselves out there started to heavily ensue. Throwing Beagles and Laveaus together had a tendency to do that. So they quickly added to the dance floor. "Come on GoGo." Scout would try to lure her in so she'd have her usual big friends circle Scout tended to have. At least in her own circles.

Delta had found Piper first and told her that she wanted to get the whole dance number over with so they wouldn't have to worry about outfit changes for the rest of the night and just have fun with everyone. So it was Piper's job to rally the rest of the troops. They were all to meet in the dance room upstairs shortly so they could make their entrance, do their thing, and then they could back there to get fixed back however they wanted for the rest of the evening. Delta wante to make sure the most of the guests were there before they did it. It seemed like a good bulk of them was here. Hopefully Figaro didn't have too many more bus loads left on call.

So that's when Piper went up to Maddy in her eyeball outfit and Bastien got a good look at all those eyes. "WOAH!" He started looking all over the place, not just at Piper like her costume extended beyond her actual outfit.

"They're watching." At first he sounded haunted or spooked by it. Then the grins came to life.

"They all wanted to come to Delta's Ball. Holy shit."

He'd yet to acknowledge Piper was even there. He was totally just tripping on the eyes. Her face wasn't viewable in the costume but her voice was crystal clear, not muffled at all.

"It's me Bastien."

"I know." He answered but still didn't seem to be talking to her directly.

Piper couldn't tell what was happening with him. She leaned into Maddy and whispered, "Um we're wanted up in the studio to get ready for the dance. Should I change into a normal dress after I can't tell.. He looks so happy."

[orleans-jester]

cryptid-killjoy​:

Dale: cool

Dale: eh not much, just stuff, you in the mood to pimp a wheelchair and make it off road worthy? It’s a job that pays; It’s also a hush job. 

GoGo: I am always in the mood for a project. GoGo: Especially if there’s cash involved, lately. GoGo: You asked the right girl.

Dale x GoGo

Dale: What you up to?

[orleans-jester]

cryptid-killjoy​:

Dale x GoGo

Dale: What you up to?

GoGo: Working on the bike, got some beaut new cylinders GoGo: You?

Dale x GoGo

Dale: What you up to?