#but yeah the monster under the bed/haunted house project is going to be another Thing origin.

[bitchfitch]

Squid comming me to do that painting of Geir put the Things back in my head. and idk. I just want to do a rundown of the current cosmology of the main setting right now.

There's seven elder god style critters in the main setting. They're responsible for the making and shaping of everything and are the only lights at the end of time. They're constantly building and destroying their world over and over as a form of play. but they can't exist in their worlds without pupating into them.

Theres seven of them, but only four are currently accounted for in any story (outside of their presence as stars in that pirate thing), with a fifth sorta bubbling at the moment

Shining Thing:

Shining Thing is the one most responsible for the smaller facets of life. It had emissaries long before the other six. Namely the main Royal™ Family ™ When Cadfael somewhat accidentally gave all other humans access to magic, he did it by spreading the magic in his own blood. All magic in this setting originates from Shining Thing and Cadfael's attempt to cure his own sickness.

Shining Thing is also the god that Queen Rhiannon shredded to remake herself and bring forth the unicorns. While it did Die, it's not really gone. It will eventually reform, though it will be both the last and first of the gods to pupate in this version of their world.

It's main motifs are light, and spiders.

Grinning Thing and Other Thing

Grinning thing was the first to begin it's pupation. Once Shining Thing was slaughtered the barrier between the worlds was thin enough for the others to begin pushing through. Other Thing was third.

These two are the destroyers of the pantheon. Neither of them care much for the act of creation but they both revel in destruction. They both want Nothing.

Grinning Thing wants everyone and everything else to have nothing, it thrives on being envied. It wants to hoard but doesn't care at all for it's hoard

Other Thing wants there to Be nothing. Pure destruction in its most basic form.

Grinning thing is represented by locusts and glittery things, lots of color and shine vs Shining Thing's bleaching light.

Other Thing is moths and darkness. An absence of all else.

? Thing

? Thing was the second to begin it's pupation, and it will be the second to last to finish it. It's rot plain and simple. The process of making the old into fertile soil for the new.

It's pupation has been paused by one of Shining Thing's fragments. The vessel it chose for it's pupation sought out the fragment, the unicorn Arlo, for help. Arlo didn't care that he was scared and desperate, he just cared that ? Thing's arrival would mean the end of Arlo's play time. So he made the vessel immortal and impossible for even a god to find.

He was kept alive so that the connection between him and ? Thing wouldn't be broken, meaning ? Thing couldn't just find a new vessel to use instead, leaving the vessel to wander the world being forgotten as soon as it was seen.

? Thing is represented by flies and mold.

the last thing I have brewing doesn't have a title yet. I just know it's the step after ? Thing. And that while the others merged with their vessel's completely, to the point the cocoon's original personality and memories became the Things', this new one kept separation between itself and it's cocoon... I suppose it's more akin to a how a parasitoid wasp uses a carcass than how the others used their cocoons. It needs something to perpetuate itself and it's kin, not to remake itself like the others have.

but yeah. Wasps and new beginnings, (eggs, seeds, the first page of a book, sunrise, etc) are what will represent it.

I'm not going to force the other two to come play. They'll show up on their own sooner or later .

[pixieungerstories]

Quarantine -3

It would have been nice to have something other than the word of a shadow to go on.  I stared at the ceiling.  I wished I had a cat or a dog or - hell - a pet hamster.  Some other living thing in the house.  I had no idea what Nick was but I wasn’t entirely sure he counted as a living thing.

“Humans who don’t sleep start to hallucinate,”  I muttered to myself.  Maybe if I actually got some shut eye, I would wake up and this would all be a dream.  “Fuck it.”  I got undressed and crawled under the covers.  I settled under the covers, then realized I was facing the closet, so I rolled over.  Having the door in my blind spot wasn’t necessarily better.

“Nick?”  I wasn’t really expecting an answer.  “Can you move the bed to another room?”

“I can.  I don’t want to.  I like having you where I can see you.”

I nodded.  “I’ll go sit in the kitchen until dawn.”

“Go! To! Sleep!”

I jumped then started to shake.  “Yelling at me isn’t going to help me sleep,” I muttered.

The bedroom door slammed shut.  Rattling the door knob and pulling as hard as I could didn’t make it budge.  “Please don’t do this,” I whimpered, then I screamed as something brushed my face.

The door opened suddenly enough that I unbalanced and fell on my ass, but a moment later I was running down the stairs and out the front door.  I was at the gate before I knew what I was doing.

The cops were still right there.

“You need to go back inside ma’am!” the closest one called.  After that they were all looking at me.  

I paced for a moment, uncomfortably aware how odd I was behaving.  I needed to get out of here.  I needed a smoke.  I needed to stop acting weird before they decided I had killed my neighbours.

Oh god.  I was trapped in a house with a creature that probably killed the looters.

I didn’t want to face the idea that Nick was a killer.

“Ma’am!  Go inside!”

“I saw what happened on the news,” I explained.  “It’s giving me nightmares and I’ve been stuck in that house for more than a month.  I wasn’t expecting to be quarantined in a construction site.”

“Be that as it may, you need to go back inside,” the patrolman called.

“I’m more than six feet away from you.  Can’t I just stay out here near some other people and the street lights? Please?”

“You aren’t exactly dressed for the weather,” he pointed out.  

I crossed my arms over my chest as I realized I was standing on my lawn in my night dress.  I should go in and at least get my robe.  It was in the room with Nick’s closet.

I thought about just confessing to something so that I could go with them.  Prison wouldn’t have Nick.  Maybe I just needed a hospital.  No.  That was a death sentence these days.

He was driving me off.  He had flat out told me that he was good at that.

“Are you alright, ma’am?”

“No!” I snapped.  “I’m scared.”

He gave me a pitying look but still insisted, “You need to go inside now.  You will be safe in your house.”

I snorted, and swatted at the bugs that had found me.

“Go inside,” he said gently.  “The last thing you need is to catch something from the mosquitos.”

I nodded slowly and headed back in to sit in the kitchen.  Maybe he would let me make a pot of coffee.  When I got inside the lights in the kitchen was on and the bed was set up on the main floor.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“You’re welcome.  This is temporary.  You will sleep upstairs when the walls are repaired.

The next morning I got a phone call ordering me out into the garden as a forklift delivered a load of drywall.  It was left in the middle of the floor next to my bed.  I looked at it.   Nick’s voice was too close to my ear, “Someone will come hang in tomorrow.”

“How did you pay for this?”

“You have an excellent credit rating and you aren’t spending much of your money.”

“Great.  Did they say how long it would take?”

There was no answer to that.

“I guess drywallers wear masks all the time anyway,”  I mused.   “At least there will be some other people around.”

“Yes.”

I didn’t have walls the next day.  In fact things were worse as the last of the lath and plaster was taken down.  They found hundreds of razor blades in the wall in the bathroom.  The construction guys assured me that it was normal to find all kinds of weird things in the walls of old houses, but they still looked uncomfortable that it was razor blades and that some of them were more bloody than you would expect from a mere shaving accident.  I spent the night picking them up with tweezers and dropping them into a jar for safe disposal.  Nick didn’t say a word and the lights stayed on that night.

One half the team turned up the next day.  No one commented on why that was.

I ordered a hammock and a grill for the backyard.  I got the hammock but someone had changed the grill to a chiminea when I wasn’t looking.  It was nice, but I couldn’t cook on it.  My order had also been edited to include a bunch of bug repellant candles and some sunscreen.  I tried to figure out if that was something a shadow creature would actually do or was this another sign that I was losing my mind.

Either way, I worked on the concrete table out back at the very limit of the wifi during the day and concentrated on fixing up the yard after official work hours.

One of the drywallers sold me a patio umbrella.

I also got the lecture that just because the walls were up didn’t mean that it was safe to use the shower.  

“You still have to get a membrane installed and your tiles up and sealed,” the guy explained.

I nodded, “You don’t happen to know a tile guy that is still working?”

He frowned, “I’ll ask around.  Do you have tiles yet?”

“No,” I admitted.

“That might be the hard part.  You can still find a few guys willing to come out, but all the factories are shut down.”

“Shit.”

He gave me a look of sympathy.  “Yeah.  There are stories of people doing penny walls or using their grandma’s china to tile just so they have a working bathroom.”

“I don’t have either of those things,” I said sadly.

He nodded, “I’ll ask around.  It isn’t a big project and people might have some leftovers.”

Given how protective Nick was of the house I should have expected his warning.    I was still unimpressed to see “no ugly tile” written on the drywall in the morning.  Still, he could have used the last of my lipstick and instead had found a pencil somewhere.  I tried to ignore it as I brushed my teeth.  I didn’t even have a mirror over the sink.  Grumbling around the toothbrush I realized, “Fuck.  I’m the only person who could buy a haunted house where the ghost had been watching too much HGTV.”

That earned me a creepy house shaking laugh and proof that he hadn’t just left.

“It’s your fault,” he purred in my ear.  “You are the one who fell asleep all those nights with decorating shows playing on repeat on your computer.”

I sighed. “Yeah, it was,” I agreed sadly.  “If I hadn’t would you be haunting me right now?”

“If you hadn’t, I wouldn’t have seen the value in what you are doing and I wouldn’t have spent a week keeping you alive when you got sick.  Perhaps you would have been haunting me.”

I frowned, “I wasn’t sick for a week!  It was only a couple of days!”

“You should check your calendar.  It was a couple of days of you being sick and a week of me forcing you to breathe.”

“There is no way I lost a week without noticing!”

He didn’t say anything.  When I checked my calendar there were nearly two weeks missing.  I told myself it didn’t mean anything.  Nick used my computer, he could have just deleted the information.  I could just call work or Penny or someone and ask how long I was away for.

I kind of didn’t want to.  What if he was telling the truth?

I took my coffee and toast and ate breakfast outside, once again wishing for a cigarette.  Nick had never left the house, as far as I knew, and I didn’t want to talk to him just then.  This was ridiculous!  Shadow monsters didn’t … do that!  They didn’t … exist.  I was just …  this wasn’t happening!

I was out of coffee and the coldness of the concrete bench was soaking through my night shirt and into my ass.  I had left the folded towel I used as a cushion inside overnight so it wouldn’t get damp.  Now I was cold and damp instead.  Fuck.

When I made it back to the kitchen, my laptop was open and had apparently been searching for bathroom tiles.  ‘Fine.  Whatever.  Pick something nice that I can afford.”

I don’t know what I was expecting him to do, but contacting a local stained glass artist wasn’t it.  I really wasn’t expecting her to check if it was OK if my boyfriend picked out the design since it was my credit card that was paying for it.

I was afraid to ask, but I had to know, “What did he pick?”

Nancy cleared her throat, “Well, originally he wanted a reproduction of a stained glass window from Maison Schott in France.  But when we talked about how complicated it would be for a tiler to install that, he settled on a simpler rose on trellis pattern.”

  I set down the phone to close my eyes and scrub my face.  “Do you like what he picked out?”  She seemed a little taken aback by the question.  “Yes?  It’s a little modern for your age of house, but it’s a nice piece and will be easy to install.  It mostly uses different textured white glass, so it would be in keeping with a white bathroom. I can have it ready next week.  I’m not exactly over run with work right now.”  She paused before she added, “I’ll send you some sketches and if there is anything you need changed, just let me know.  I could really use the income, to be honest.”

“Yeah.  I understand that.  I guess I’m just doing my part to keep the economy running.”

“I really appreciate that.   The whole ‘buy local’ movement ended when we weren’t allowed to leave our houses,”  Nancy pointed out.

“Ok.  Send me the sketches and the quote and I’ll get back to you in the next couple of days.”

I lay in bed that night and looked at the newly drywalled dining room ceiling.  “What are you doing, Nick?”

“Making a home for you,” he whispered.

“Can I even afford this?  You don’t have a secret money vault hidden in the walls with the razor blades, do you?”

There was a long moment of silence, then he whispered, “You could sell the wine instead of drinking it.”

I froze.  “Just because it’s old doesn’t mean that it’s valuable,” I pointed out.

Something caressed my calf as he purred his reply, “But it is.”

I closed my eyes and let my body melt into the mattress.   My breath caught in my throat as the touch moved up my leg.  As soon as I made the noise, the contact vanished.  I groaned.

“What are you doing?”

“Breaking the rules,” he grumbled from across the room.

I needed to know, “Why were there razor blades in the walls?”

“There was a slot in the back of the medicine cabinet for used razor blades to be dropped between the wall boards so that they were safe and wouldn’t hurt anyone in the trash.  That was perfectly normal at one point in history,” he explained.

I considered this, “Why were there bloody razor blades in the walls?”

He didn’t answer that one.  “Why haven’t you used your little toy since I cleaned it for you?”

Now it was my turn to be silent.

“You liked that toy,” he prompted.  “I liked watching you enjoy yourself.  Good for everyone.”

“That’s really creepy.  Can’t you just watch porn like a normal person?”

“Porn isn’t as satisfying,” he replied.  Then he added, “For either of us.  And I am not a normal person.”

“I noticed.”

“Would we have fucked by now if I was?”  he just sounded curious.  The vocal leer from a moment ago was gone.

“I would have had you arrested by now if you were.”

The low chuckle rumbled through the house at that.  I closed my eyes and he stroked my face.  “Let me watch,” he purred.  “I can feel how badly you want.”

That made my eyes snap open.  “What?”

“I can taste your fear, but also your pleasure.  I enjoyed watching you cum in a way that humans can not understand.  And I am very aware of your frustration.”

“What happens to my soul if a shadow … creature watches me play with myself?”

“It gets to live in a house with a happier guardian?” he suggested.

“A guardian?  Is that what you are?”

“Guardian sounds better than monster or eldritch god but that’s just semantics.”

“I’m pretty sure there is a difference,” I pointed out.

“Perhaps the difference is what I’m doing at the time.  And right now, I am guarding this house, taking care of you and hoping you will take care of yourself.”

“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” I joked.   “I’m too damn tired!”  I thought for a moment, “I need more rules, Nick.”

“Like what?” he asked in a breathy hissing rasp that sounded pretty much like how I imagined a death rattle would sound.

“Well, there’s that,” I pointed out.  “Now I’m scared and I can’t see you so this is going to be another night of sitting up until I fall down.”

“You need to rest,” he murmured in a more normal voice for him.   It wasn’t human sounding, but it wasn’t deliberately scary.

I had already set up and was fumbling for a light switch. I shrieked when he caught my hand.  “Ugh! Look, either I get to sleep or you get to scare me, but you have to pick one.  And I can’t see when you are going to touch me, so it’s scary every time.  That’s why I asked you not to.  But if you can’t do that, can you at least tell me when it’s coming?”

“Would that really make it better if you knew I was going to lick my way up your back?”

“It would if I knew you would listen when I tell you not to.  This is about trust, Nick.  I don’t trust you.  I am already very aware of how vulnerable I am here.  You could easily lock me in the basement and wait for me to starve to death.  You could smother me with my pillow.  Hell, you could slice open an artery and hide the razor blade in the walls.”  I stopped abruptly, wondering if I was just giving him ideas.  “I can’t stop you and I can’t leave and I can’t trust you not to lock me in the bedroom because you think that will help me sleep.”  He let go of my hand.  I turned on the light and looked around the empty house.  “My head hurts and I don’t want to be afraid any more.”

“I have never done anything to hurt you, but I can see how I have done things that are frightening.”  It sounded like a whisper on the very edge of hearing.  “Turn out the light, lay down and I will rub your back until you can sleep.  I will do my very best not to be scary.”

I turned on my laptop as a source of light and sound before I turned off the light switch.  “I can’t believe I am saying this, but if you want this to be less scary for me, find me a nightlight.  I haven’t needed one since I was ten, but, congratulations, I do now.”

I felt the bed dip.  It didn’t always do that.  “I’m going to rub your back now,” he whispered. “You can tell me to stop.”

“Ok,” I acknowledge.

It wasn’t a massage; it was more like a person petting a cat.  He started at the top of my head and stroked back to my waist, then stopped and started again.  It was vaguely soothing and I was really exhausted by then.  At some point in the night I woke to see a huge black shape hunched over my keyboard.

In the morning I had emails confirming my order of six cartoon animal night lights from IKEA and one from an auction house saying they would be happy to broker the sale of my wine and that they would send an expert to confirm its authenticity.  

I wondered how you forge wine.

[comfy-whumpee]

NaNoWriMo Extract 1

As my writing brain has been taken over by this (admittedly whumpy) project, I thought I'd share some of the story. As it’s NaNo, it is all extremely first-draft and you will likely see typos and awkward phrasing.

It was on the third anniversary of their escape, and there was no way it was a coincidence.

Rain was the one who opened the door. Draped in an oversized woollen cardigan, dyed a faded forest green and hanging over their hands with the sleeves too long, they were the unassuming one of the duo living at the seaside cottage. Their hair was tousled as though they had just woken up, though it was 11am. Hazel eyes gleamed in a round, serene face, with nothing but the slightest purse of the lips to indicate that Rain did not enjoy receiving visitors.

Their tranquillity shattered when the door swung wide and revealed a skinny, pale man with shaggy blond hair around a stubble-smattered face, hugging his elbows in a half-slump on the doorstep.

The door slammed shut again before Rain knew what they were doing, and they stumbled back. The floorboards were dark and slippery under their bed socks as they paced back, back again, and their shoulder bumped into the doorframe to the kitchen.

"Rain?"

Footsteps clumped towards them, and a vision of brown skin and black clothes moved across their blurry sight. Fingers moved to rest on their cheek, tipping their head up gently. A beautiful face with dark, shadowy eyes came into focus.

"Hhh," Rain tried to speak, and realised suddenly that they were barely breathing.

There was another knock on the door. Why was he knocking?

"Breathe, raincloud." A deep, warm voice, the sound of safety. "Breathe, you know how."

Rain's chest stuttered and jerked, and the air poured down their throat. "Hh-he's here," they wheezed. "He's here."

Thick brows pulled down over her eyes. "Are you sure?"

Rain nodded, up-down-down-up, shivering with the effort. "I-I'm sure."

She didn't ask any further questions. She pulled her hand back. "Go to the bathroom upstairs. Lock yourself in. You're going to be okay, I promise."

They nodded, down-up-down, and at her gentle nudge, they hurried upstairs. Their ears were ringing. Uncoordinated limbs managed to climb the staircase until they were on the next floor, and after a brief, panic-induced hesitation where they couldn't remember where the bathroom was – they scurried into it and closed the door, pulling the bolt over.

From downstairs, they heard the patter of another knock on their door.

Then, all there was left to do was sit down on the edge of the bath and try to catch their breath. In and out, they knew how. They can breathe. They can breathe.

-

Kala was doing her morning stretches when the door slammed, sending a bang through the house and reaching her all the way out in the back garden.

She was running inside immediately, abandoning her yoga met and dumbbells to the grass. Through the kitchen, and she found Rain pressed against the wall beside the door, eyes wide and face drained out to  sickly tan instead of their usual warm beige.

He's here. Rain was sure. They rarely said things they weren't sure of, but she had to ask anyway. She had to be sure herself. If it wasn't that guy, and she was about to open the door to a stranger, she would probably get in legal trouble, given what she was planning on doing.

She waited until she heard the bathroom door lock. Rain didn't have to be part of this. They wouldn't be able to stand up to this guy gain; that much was clear enough.

Kala stretched her shoulder muscles and glanced around for any likely weapons. Short of an umbrella, there didn't seem to be anything useful. Better to use her own fists.

The bastard knocked again. Why the fuck would he do this? There was nothing to gain.

She sighed, she rolled her neck, and she strode to the door. Five, four, three, two, and she pulled it open.

One split-second pause to check that the face of the visitor was the same face that had haunted their nightmares for years. One momentary hesitation. And then she lashed, knowing she wouldn't get another chance.

To her surprise, when the blow swung out, he looked at it, but didn't crumble. It smacked into his nose and he blinked dazedly.

"Get the fuck out of here!" Kala shouted, hoping someone from the neighbourhood notice that she has a fucking wanted criminal on her doorstep trying to get in.

Two bony hands clutched his face, and Kala noticed bruises across the knuckles. Fuck, what poor bastard had he beaten up recently? She moved forwards again, filling the doorway. "Get the fuck away from us before I call the fucking cops."

Yeah, said the cynical voice in her head, because a trans woman of colour punching a white guy is going to end well for you.

He still didn't move. He lowered his hands slowly, and the look in his eyes was panicked, even confused. She didn't move an inch as he blinked again, blood trickling from one nostril, and after a pause, he spoke in a hoarse voice. "I'm sorry, I..."

Icy wind flew up her spine and she grabbed him by the collar of his ragged flannel shirt. "Shut up and leave!" she barked, over the sudden pounding of her heart at hearing his voice again. "Leave us alone!"

"I need help," he croaked. The panic in his eyes was real. "P-Please." He stepped closer, almost to the threshold, and Kala instinctively stepped back, letting go of the door to raise her arms defensively. "Please, I-I don't remember - I don't know where I am or - or who."

"Bullshit," she spat. "Bullshit, what the fuck are you playing at? Get out of here or I'll fucking tackle you. You're not hurting me again. You're not hurting Rain."

His eyes widen, and fuck, he must be a good actor to be pulling this off. But that's all it is, that's all it can be, an act. It's an act. He's the same fucking monster he always was. "I don't - I don't want to hurt anyone, I... Please." Another step forwards, and he was in the house, stare plaintive, hands - shaking? How was he getting his hands to shake like that? "Please," he said again.

"Rot in hell," she snapped, but her voice was tight. He was too close. The blood was crimson down his face and some buried instinct told her she would pay for that. Or - Rain would.

"Kala?"

Fuck, speak of the devil. She didn't turn. "Stay back, Rain. He's pulling some shit."

"I heard." Their voice was calm, diffident, as their footsteps descended the stairs. "He says he can't remember anything?"

"He says," Kala said, as the weasel man before her nodded, turning his sad grey eyes up to her best friend.

"You don't know your name?"

He shook his head.

"You don't know who we are?"

He shook his head again.

"But you're here."

His gaze dropped. Caught in a fucking lie.

"I... I-I remember the address, I knew it was - somewhere important." He hesitated, fingers coming up to tug through his tangled ponytail. "I don't... I didn't know it was, that I was someone who hurt you."

"Mm." Rain took another step, and Kala felt their hand slip around her elbow, holding her back from lashing out again. "You want us to help you?"

Surely the guy didn't have the fucking nerve.

"Yes, please," he said, staring at the floorboards now. From this angle, she could see there were more bruises under his shirt, clustered around the neckline of the tank top he was wearing under it.

Rain thought. Kala let them. They were the brains of the outfit. "I think we might. But we have to do some things to keep ourselves safe, you know? This house has an attic, Kala, do you think he could have that as his room?"

The attic wasn't a room. It was bare rafters and beams, with a square of floor in the middle that was little more than corkboard. "Yeah, if you... If that's what you want, Rain," she agreed. "Come on. Up the stairs, and don't try anything fucking funny."

"I won't," came the quick reply, and his eyes were slightly wide, disgustingly earnest. "Thank you," he turned to Rain, "thank you."

[cirvat]

Week 4- Creatober

(Ahhh! Week 3 drew a blank! But week 4 brought me back!)

Prompts: Obsession, Become, Repress, Dusk, Exsanguination, and Break

Havenwood Apartments, Maddie mused to herself, was like a feel good monster cartoon come to life. Everything, from the campus grounds to the general theme of the building, was like a bastardization of an Addam’s Family spinoff. 

It was the little things. 

The general color scheme of the building, a dark wood paired with sophisticated shades of teal and gray, evoked a feeling of perpetual dusk. The refusal of the sun to break through the clouds and shine on any part of the grounds. Even the quirks of the tenants were odd.

Ms. Pennyweather of apartment 2A never went anywhere without her needlepoint projects which were always complex collections of foreign words and dark imagery. She would smile in that sweet auntie way while embroidering gory scenes of war and death. Maddie quite liked the bloody embroidery she had done on one of her jackets. She’d called that one ‘Exsanguination’.

Mr. King, in apartment 2B, was never seen during daylight hours, or what passed for daylight hours here. A knock at his door elicited no response before 8pm and his cat, affectionately called Fido, was never in his apartment. The animal was always napping elsewhere, in the kitchen or library or sitting area.

The twins, Misters Warton (apartment 4A), on the other hand never slept. Whenever Maddie got up, be it 7am or 2am, either one or both of them would be up in the library dithering away in their books and debating some inane topic of history.

Finally, there was the Garcia family in 4B who were the most normal tenants in the whole building, and yes Maddie knew that included herself. Or, they seemed like it until she had witnessed Mr. Garcia say, completely unprompted, how chilly a midsummer day was going to be hours before the wind came. 

The only person that seemed halfway average was Regina, Mr. Garcia’s daughter and Maddie’s newly enforced best friend. She attended the same little private school Huang Mulan, Maddie’s latest guardian, had enrolled her in. She giggled like a teenager, watched makeup tutorials, and posted artful pictures of her food to her Instagram. 

The only weird thing about Regina Garcia was how determined she was to be Maddie’s friend. She was kind and helpful and it set Maddie’s teeth on edge like nothing else. She didn’t even complain when Maddie started staring off at the spirits that were haunting her shadow or glaring down the ones that got too close. 

Maddie shook her head, repressing that warmth that bubbled under her skin. She let her eyes refocus back on her newest obsession, although maybe that was too strong of a word.

Watching Huang Mulan, Ms. Huang as Maddie had taken to calling her, paint was quickly becoming one of her favorite pastimes. 

Ms. Huang was honestly the coolest adult Maddie had ever seen. She either dressed to the nines with collared shirts and slacks or she looked like she had just rolled out of bed. Tattoos traced their way from her neck down her arms and spine in waves of dragons and plant life. The septum piercing was pretty cool too. And the pet raven.

“Not a pet.” Ms. Huang said as she dipped her brush in a frankly gorgeous shade of robin’s egg blue.

“What?”

“Have you gotten a chance to explore all that Havenwood has to offer?” Ms. Huang ignored her question as she traced the blue along the tree branches on her canvas. “Perhaps you could allow Ms. Garcia to give you a more in depth tour.”

“Are you really trying to get rid of me right now?” Maddie frowned. “I’ve already seen everything.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, everything I was allowed to see.”

“‘Allowed to see’?”

“Yeah, I’m not a creep!” She huffed. “I didn’t go digging in anyone’s apartments and Mr. Warton told me not to go snooping on the third floor.”

“Hm.” Ms. Huang smiled. “Charlie really should mind his own business on these kinds of matters.”

“What?”

“Madeline. A-Ying. You can go through the third floor.” She turned to look her ward in the eye. “You have my blessing.”

“What, really?” Maddie’s shoulders tensed. 

“Of course.” Ms. Huang turned back to her painting. “Bring your friend along. Who knows what you’ll meet.”

Maddie, who had checked out of the conversation as soon as Ms. Huang had given permission, bolted out of the room. The door of their ground floor apartment slammed open and she turned to the stairs in her sock clad feet. 

She sprinted up the steps, two at a time, to the fourth floor and pounded on the door to apartment 4B. When Regina opened the door she grabbed her arm immediately.

“Huanggavepermissiontoraidthethirdfloor! Mr. Gracia! I’m stealing your daughter!” She screamed into the apartment, hearing something vaguely like an ‘ok’, before yanking Regina out into the hallway. 

“Wait, Maddie, what’s going on?!” Regina stumbled on the carpet. 

“Third floor!”

“What about the third floor? We can’t go there, remember?”

“Ms. Huang gave me permission and told me to bring you so that means you have permission too and we are gonna raid the place I bet there’s some cool shit like dead rats and rotten furniture and maybe you can take a picture for your Insta or some shit! Come on!” She barely spared the time to breathe as she pulled her snooping buddy back down the stairs to the floor beneath them. 

“Uh-Um.. A-are you sure she meant me?” Regina fumbled for her words. Maddie would never understand this girl’s fear of her guardian.

“Who else is forcing their friendship on me? Fido the cat?” She scoffed as she took Regina’s shoulders and frog-marched her to the door for apartment 3A. “He doesn’t give a shit. He’s probably in here all the time.”

“I-I don’t know, Maddie.” Regina rubbed her hands together. “Mr. Warton said that we shouldn’t-”

“And Ms. Huang, you know the owner of the fucking building, said that we could. So we’re gonna.” Maddie tried the door and immediately knelt to pick the lock when it didn’t turn. “She said that ‘Charlie’ should keep his nose out of it.”

“I doubt she said that.”

“Spiritually, she did.” Maddie smirked when the lock clicked and the door opened. 

“You can pick locks?” Regina blinked when she sprung back up to shove the door open. 

“Hell yeah, I can.” Maddie winked at her. “I gotta use these delinquent skills somehow. Come on!”

The room that they entered was nothing like Maddie had expected.

Instead of old wood and dust there were stacks and stacks of paintings. Canvases and frames covered every wall. Almost every square foot of floor space was taken up with statues and busts. There was a small winding path that led through the unlit room. 

The girls glanced at each other before making their way inside. 

“Is this just where she dumps all of the crap she doesn’t sell?” Maddie frowned as she tiptoed along the path. 

“Do you mean Ms. Huang?”

“Yeah. She paints, like, all the fuckin’ time. I just assumed she sold it all to afford shit like this house and art supplies. You ever look at the prices in those art stores? It’s crazy expensive!”

“I guess I didn’t think she had a hobby like that.” Regina shrugged. “I thought she just went around fixing broken stuff and collecting rent.”

“Don’t you do her dirty like th-! Stop!” Maddie threw out an arm, freezing in place. “Did you see that?!”

“See what?” Regina looked over her shoulder. “I didn’t see anything.”

“Sh!” She pointed. “There it was again! Something moved!”

“Oh, god. Do you think there’s actually rats in here?!” Her friend took a step back. 

“No, no! It was up high! Look, look!” Maddie pointed again. This time she caught the movement and watched as a ink-black goldfish slowly swam through the air. It floated over to a painting and disappeared into the canvas, becoming part of the image depicted there.

“What in the world?” 

“There’s more!” The two girls looked up and watched as a school of goldfish meandered through the ceiling beams. Regina glanced to the side staring at one fish as it sailed into another painting and tugged Maddie to watch as the painting itself began to change. 

A young girl swung on a rope swing as a storm slowly approached from behind her. Wind shuffled the leaves, changing their colors, and tugged at the girl’s hair. The fish made its way to her and she started to laugh, cupping the creature close.

Soon they noticed that each painting moved. A seascape patterned through a rushing tide. Ink slowly dribbled across fresh snow. A single wolf shifted in between forest trees. A young man blinked at them from his spot at a low table. 

“Maddie, what’s going on?” Regina tugged at her sleeve. 

“...” Maddie closed her gaping mouth and smiled. “My aunt is a fucking witch!”

[bluepunkmon]

WIP Wednesday! Is it Thursday night? Maybe! Does it matter? No!

For today, a Flash fiction piece that was recently rejected, and I understand why it was. So. Yeah. Enjoy some wlw and haunted activities.

Elle woke up shivering under the heavy duvet.

A figure stood at the foot of her bed. It was small, with dark tangled hair that obscured its face and stretched down to the floor. It wore a loose piece of clothing that might have been a nightgown, but was tattered beyond recognition. The edges of the figure flickered, like she was seeing it through a broken television set. It swayed to a strange echoing noise filled the bedroom, like a distant death rattle.

Elle took a deep breath of frigid air and tried to sound composed. “Hello there.”

Careful not to disturb her fiancé Billy, Elle shucked off the covers. She immediately regretted it – her feet felt frostbitten the instant they hit the old wood floors. She griped the sheets to keep her hands from trembling.

“Do you like pancakes?” She asked.

The figure disappeared. Elle slipped into a robe and slippers. From the doorway, she saw the figure peeking out from the kitchen.

Elle followed it. The figure retreated to the corner. It was smaller than she thought, and almost transparent in the sunlight.

Elle retrieved mixing bowls from the cabinet and ingredients from the fridge and got to work making pancakes from scratch.

When she started blending the dry mix and the eggs, the carton began to levitate off of the counter like a soap bubble.

The figure extended a clawed hand, and chairs and dishes followed the egg cartoon into the air.

“Sweetie,” Elle said, trying very hard not to run away screaming, “I can’t make food unless everything is on the ground.”

The room trembled. For a moment her heart froze, but then the dishes and furniture fell back to the ground with a clatter.

The figure flickered and reappeared beside Elle. It was tiny, its head barely coming up to her hip. It stood on its toes to look at the counter.

Taking her life in her hands, Elle knelt, a mouse before a lion. There was no face behind the figure’s long hair – just static, and a fine line that might have been a mouth.

She asked, “Would you like to help?”

Billy stumbled into the kitchen to find Elle at the stove, flipping pancakes next to –to –

“What the hell-?”

All the summer light died, like the sun’s fuse had blown, and the temperature dropped like a stone. Billy couldn’t see anything except the writhing walls and the monster, backlit by ice blue light. It reached a long, twisted arm towards her.

“Sweetheart, we talked about this.”

Just as quickly as it died, the light came back on. The thing returned to the stove, watching Elle poke pancakes with a spatula.

Billy stepped around the thing as if it were a rabid dog, edging close to her fiancé. “Ellie, what’s going on? What is that?” she whispered.

Elle put a hand on her arm. “Well, first thing, don’t panic,” she murmured, “But I might have solved our ghost problem.”

Billy had so many questions. Too many questions, for this early in the morning without coffee. “Did it hurt you?”

“No! They’re actually really sweet.” She smiled at the thing. It flickered in a color Billy couldn’t recognize before poking the griddle with a spoon. “You know all the stuff it kept doing?”

Billy did, all too well. The slime writing on the walls had taken forever to wash off, and they still couldn’t watch movies without objects being hurled through the air.

“Well,” Elle continued, “I wondered why it only happened when we were home alone together, and never on camera when we were out. I thought, ‘Maybe it wants to interact with us’, and look!”

Billy did look, as the thing dutifully took a stack of food to the set table.

She leaned closer to her fiancé. “Elle, I think we should leave this to the exorcists.”

“But they haven’t been able to do anything!” She argued. "I think this thing is here to stay, so why not be polite? Maybe we can live together.”

It was crazy. They should get more exorcists, or find a way to move out, or do something to regain a shred of control over their lives.

But Elle was smiling at her with the Puppy-Dog Look, and before Billy knew it she was sipping coffee while sitting across from an eldritch abomination.

Elle talked about her new job at the law firm and painting projects as if this were just another summer day. The thing ate its pancakes without a word (if you could call it eating – it cut them up, stared, and the food was gone in a blink).

When the thing struggled with a particularly large piece, Billy conceded that this was life, now, and cut it up. She smiled. “There you go.”

The thing stared at her through long, matted hair. A shock ran down Billy’s body. Its face was everything, and nothing, and the fine line at the bottom opened to reveal swirling, unknowable darkness.

The edges curled up, like a smile. “Many thanks!”

That, for all intents and purposes, was the end of their haunting. The house still shook, the dishes rattled, and the television glitched, but there was no real malice behind it. Their guest (as Elle called them) would appear for Sunday breakfasts, and would even sit on the other end of the couch in the evenings, calm as anything.

And if Billy bought toys and a whiteboard and set up nightlights in the corners of the house, well, that was her business.

[mpmwrites]

Thirteen

So @swota and I decided that we’d Take a HAnkvin prompt and I’d write Fluff and they’d write angst for it! Prompt from @beggars-blog for a seasonally scared Gavin! Here we go! Rated T for swearing and fake gore!

He hadn't been in a haunted house since he was a teenager. It wasn't that he was scared. He just figured, haunted houses were just college kids that took a temp job and dressed up in creepy costumes. All they did was jump out and scream at people or make startling noises and that wasn't really scary. Anyone would be scared if you startled them with unnecessarily loud noises. He wasn't gonna shell out the twenty bucks to walk through a dark building with cheesy props for fifteen minutes. Especially when, more often than not, you could even know what's coming based on some inevitable teenage blonde chick screaming her head off at every single scare.

So when Hank said they were going, obviously he gave a slow nod and a "Yeah, sounds fun." over his latte. Because it was Hank, and he wasn't about to sound like a cynical little bitch about some charity event the state police were doing. Cut to dinner on the patio at Chipotle when Gavin finally started to think about the evening's plans. Hank had not only invited him out, which wasn't really something they did, but had invited him to a function at others at the precinct would be going to.

Call him cliché, but going on a date to a haunted house was kind of a cliché move to get your date to be all over you.

Maybe he was thinking too far into it. It wasn't like he could back out anyway. Hank wanted to go and he had no real reason not to other than the fact that he'd probably leave in a bad mood of get thrown out for decking some asshole that screamed a little too close to him. Hank would find that funny, he thought.

That was not what happened.

The whole thing wasn't bad. It was a special cops-only night, so it was most people that he had at least the one thing in common with. Socializing before hand with old buddies of Hank's didn't hurt too much; they arrived about thirty minutes before they were allowed to line up and enter. Some teenager handed him an information pamphlet that he glanced over. Warnings about strobe effects and loud noises, don't touch the actors and they won't touch you, etc. On the back there was a promotional image titled "Triskaidekaphobia: Fear of the Number 13" with a list of fears below it. Hospitals, Death, Zombies, Torture, Blood, Clowns, Dolls, Darkness, Nightmares, Snakes, Spiders, Closed Spaces, Heights.

So that was what he was in for; it didn't seem so bad on paper. Maybe he wasn't so keen on hospitals, but it wasn't like he was afraid of them. Sure, dolls and clowns were creepy but, once again, what's an underpaid teenager yelling in his face really gonna accomplish? Closed spaces he'd never really liked, but it's not like they were gonna shove him in a closet and leave him there. As far as heights went, who wasn't afraid of heights? Were they gonna try to dangle him off a cliff? He was doubtful at best. He told Hank so.

"I don't know, it's for charity. I think for the special olympics." Hank shrugged, "Fowler made me come when I started becoming a shut-in…" Hank attempted without going into detail, "Now I'm just expected. It's usually not too bad. See some old friends, do some good in the world, scream a couple of times without looking crazy." It was nearing their turn to enter. Hank shook hands warmly with the officer wearing a police academy hoodie that reflected Hank's own and clicker-counting the participants. Their hands separated, but Hank's quietly found Gavin's and led the younger man inside. Gavin probably turned the shade of the blood on the walls of the first room. Because, Hank had not only taken him to an event with colleagues, but had bought him dinner first and was now nonchalantly holding his hand in front of all of them. Gavin wasn't thick, he knew that Hank wasn't ashamed of him, it was just that he didn't really think it was anyone's business. They stayed strictly in the friendly and platonic realms when outside of their homes, and they were both more than okay with that.

Until that night, apparently.

Unless, Gavin figured, unless Hank thought he might be scared. Maybe the whole event was more than it put off; after all, Hank had attended for the past several years. Maybe it was just dark inside and he thought they might get separated easily. Gavin didn't comment on the contact, just pulled on a façade of relative indifference

The walls of the first room had dimly-lit pastel wallpaper with generic looking sconces that flickered irregularly, and in the center of the room was a secondhand hospital bed with a young woman on it, her intestines artificially falling out of her abdomen as she writhed and screamed. Hank offered an amused smile as they and a few other patrons followed the path around the outside of the room. Suddenly, from a dark corner a chainsaw whirred to life noisily and a surgeon lurched toward the guests threateningly. Gavin scrambled slightly at the perceived threat, but the surgeon pulled away from the crowd and swing the chainsaw around to the girl and brought it down near the foot of the bed. The machine hit the mattress, but left no impact as they filed out of the room.

"Not scary, huh?" Hank offered, not letting go of the detective.

"Yeah, tell me that someone coming at you with a tool that could maim you wouldn't make you jump." Gavin snarked back. They entered the next room, which was more of a wide hallway, where a body lay in a casket against a wall of flowers. The body suddenly reaching for them was expected; the screaming actor hidden among the flowers they did not. Gavin cursed and suddenly was clinging to Hank's arm, which made Hank laugh heartily. Gavin glared at him. "Screw you."

"There's nothing wrong with being scared. That's the point, Reed."

"Anybody would be scared if someone jumped at them and screamed in their face when they weren't expecting it."He fumed, Hank lacing their fingers again as they stepped into the next room: a suburban home with the dad laying dead-eyed on the couch. His face was covered in fake blood. From behind a curtain, mom lurched toward him and started shambling toward him, dropping to her knees and fake feasting on his arm. "Haven't we moved past the zombie fad, like, 20 years ago?" Gavin rolled his eyes. At least the room passed without him embarrassing himself further. He pulled his hand away from Hank's, "I don't need you to hold my hand, I'm not scared." he insisted icily.

"Gavin, I wasn't…" Hank didn't pursue the subject, just offered a apologetic half smile. "Sorry." He stuffed his hands into his jeans pockets and lead on. Through the torture and blood rooms they stayed silent, unphased by the fake gore surrounding them. The masks of clowns covered the walls of the sixth room, fog machines making it difficult to navigate combined with the rainbow sheets hanging around. it only took the first squeaky horn right behind Gavin's ear to have him stumbling toward Hank. He couldn't see much of anything, but was aware that there was a vague path through the room, and he could hear footsteps of the clowns attempting to sneak up around them with those god-awful horns. He grabbed a fistful of the back of Hank's shirt to guide him through, the oddly sweet scent of the artificial fog making him want to cough it out of his lungs. As they neared the exit, he let go of the fabric and straightened, shaking his head at being so tense.

And then the fucking clown was in front of his face, separating him from Hank with its distorted mask and blood red smile around sharp fake teeth. He froze on the spot, just short of running straight into the actor. He stared them down, the knowledge that it was another cop under there helping to ease his anxiety. The clown slowly lifted the horn and honked it right over his shoulder, cackling maniacally before bouncing away. He breathed a sigh of relief and hastened out the door to catch up with Hank.

The dolls in the next room also lined the walls, but there was a chair in the middle of the blacklit room. The ventriloquist dummies eyes and cracks on the porcelain heads of baby dolls glowed eerily as an actress sat in the chair, taking with one of the dummies. She wasn't talking for the dummy though, the voice was coming from a speaker that echoed around the room. It wasn't so bad, until both the girl and the dummy snapped their heads up unnaturally to stare at them, slowly revolving their heads to watch as they walked by. It was creepy, and Gavin scowled at them before looking away.

Through the darkness room (which was just a winding hallway with literally no light) they had to run their hand along the wall so they didn't get lost, as per a speaker giving directions in a raspy whispered voice. It wasn't awful until the pathway sloped downward and then became soft, causing the person behind Gavin to trip and knocking him into Hank face first. The nightmare room wasn't much, just projections of shadows in the woods and a man pretending to have an awful night's sleep. Beneath the bed another actor dressed as a monster would shake the bed to startle people as they walked by. The hall that held snakes and spiders were mostly just uncomfortable; clichéd fake noises playing as they walked though hanging rubber snakes and cobwebs, featuring a giant furry spider attached to one of the walls at the end.

A young woman grimaced and squealed behind Gavin as they navigated around the spider and then turned a corner. He tried to recall what was supposed to come next, because for the most part he was just ready to be done. It wasn't long before he found out. There was a loud, tinny nose over the sound of a motor running. It sounded like a engine powered vacuum. Before them was a hallway that had air-filled chambers on the sides, so that people had to push through the tunnel airbags. Gavin stopped in his tracks.

Closed Spaces.

People behind them were making vague noises of dissent at not moving, and Hank frowned at Gavin in confusion. Gavin seemed to overcome his initial wariness and stepped out of the way, letting people walk past him. When Hank realized he wasn't coming he turned back to the younger officer's side. "What, did you leave the oven on or something?" he joked.

"Hank I can't walk through that." He admitted quietly, not meeting the other's gaze. Hanks brows furrowed quickly at the younger's tone.

"Gav, I don't think there's another way to go. You have to, or we go all the way back." He offered, looking around for help. Gavin looked back at the tunnel and swallowed.

It wasn't a closet. He just had to walk straight through and he'd come out the other side. Some irrational voice inside of him insisted that it could be a dead end and he'd be stuck in there.

"I'll walk with you okay? You can close your eyes if it helps." Hank insisted helplessly. His tone mustered Gavin's courage, his pride not wanting Hank's effort to go to waste and wanting to prove that he wasn't that kid that got abused in foster care as a grown teenager. Hank pulled off his own hoodie and put it over Gavin's head, letting Gavin negotiate the arms while he arranged the hood low over Gavin's eyes. "It's just air and a couple of bed sheets. Can't hurt you." He walked in front of Gavin, holding on to Gavin's wrist to guide him, and then they entered. The gentle but insistent pressure on Gavin's shoulders was enough that he couldn't pretend to be anywhere else, and he walked so close to Hank that he kicked at Hank's heels with each step. The smell of Hank on the sweater he was nearly drowning in made him think of the comforter on Hank's bed and he tried to think of that instead of this hell he felt like he was in. He was going to come out the other side. Hank would make sure of it.

He craved fresh air but was rewarded with none as Hank dragged him away from the polyester walls of the tunnel. Gavin let his back hit the black painted ply board wall of the maze and tried to focus on the semi-open space around him. They were still inside the building. Hank stood in front of him, shielding Gavin from view of the other cops passing by. "You alright?" he offered. Gavin rubbed his eyes to alleviate some of the stress just before his name was called,

"The hell are you doing here, Reed?" It was Tina and her husband, holding hands and smiling.

"Literally hell." He groaned, blinking at her. She looked confused for a moment, then looked to the tunnel behind her,

"Oh god I'm so sorry. I would have warned you." She cooed, rubbing his shoulder. "You did it though."

"I did." He offered warily. "With Hank." He pushed himself away from the wall and pushed the sleeves of the sweater up to his elbows. Tina looked between them and offered an indulgent smile for Gavin, then a look of gratitude to Hank. Hank shrugged it off. The moment grew awkward in its silence, so Tina broke the tense air with a smile,

"Well, one room left I guess. Seeya after? We should get drinks."

"A drink sounds awesome." Gavin conceded, smiling as the married couple went on ahead. Gavin joined the slowly moving line toward the last room, the door with a curtain covering it, letting out a bout of cool light as each person passed though. Hank queued behind him and let his hands rest on Gavin's waist

"I didn't think you were scared. I just wanted to hold your hand." He admitted in an offhand kind of way, like it wasn't important. Gavin craned his neck to look up at Hank,

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Hank nodded, "If I knew you were gonna hate it I wouldn't have made you come. We could've watched a movie instead."

"You didn't make me come." Gavin shrugged. "You asked me on a date and I agreed." Their turn was fast approaching.

"I never called it a date." Hank reminded him as Gavin pulled the sheet open to go inside. No wonder people were moving so slowly. The small room was only eight or so feet deep, but the path across was a one foot wide plank that people were balancing on. Fear of Heights. As Gavin waited his turn to cross, he looked around the room. It was an illusion of a deep gap, albeit a convincing one. The "plank" they were to walk across wobbled just slightly with each weight shift, but it wasn't quite over a long fall. On either side of the plank there were mirrors reflecting an image from the ceiling that was made to look like a hole. While he was quite aware that it was an illusion, he still found it difficult to feel secure on the pathway.

Hank entered behind him and grabbed for his hand, "What the fuck?" he barked, looking straight down. It was Hank's turn to be afraid, his fear preventing him from noticing the illusion.

"It's not real." Gavin reminded him, holding Hank's hand, "Look it's just an illusion. You can't fall." Still, Hank hesitated before moving toward the younger. Gavin watched him totter on the platform, unsure with each step. It seemed silly to him, but he'd also nearly just had a panic attack while Hank watched. He reached his other hand, "It's only two more steps." he assured as Hank watched his feet warily. "You gonna let a couple of mirrors show you up?" He taunted with a smirk. Finally, they reached the end and stepped back out into the late afternoon sun.

Gavin breathed in deep as the state officers thanked them for coming. He was suddenly very aware that he was still draped in Hank's hoodie as they ambled back toward the area in front of the attraction in search of Tina. Gavin made to pull out of it as they walked and tried to pass it back over to Hank. "You can hold on to it." Hank offered, and Gavin stopped in his tracks.

"Why?" He questioned, still holding out the Garment.

"If you want to wear it, you can hang on to it. I don't mind seeing it on you. You wear it at home often enough." He pushed it back toward the brunette.

"Hank Anderson, this isn't an old movie. You can't ask me to go steady just by letting me wear your letterman jacket." Gavin defied with a shit-eating grin.

"You think I want to go steady with you?" Hank asked, and, yeah, at that point they were both a little too stubborn to have a serious conversation about this.

"I mean, you did hold my hand and take me on a date to a place I was pretty much guaranteed to be pretty close and personal." Gavin batted his eyelashes for extra sarcasm, but Hank didn't see, because he was kissing Gavin, right there, in front of at least fifty other police officers. Many of them that they knew personally. Good god, come Monday everyone would know.

So make sure you go check out @swota‘s companion piece here!

My prompt box is always open!

[woah-big-place]

A Freaking Adventure

Author: Bluedefundead Genre: Attempt at comedy and angst cause angst is practically my middle name. Words: 3,773 (I write a lot) Warnings: Cursing, like, lots of it. I swear a lot tbh.

A/N: Heyo. This is my very first story/fanfic on Tumblr, so please be gentle. I’m new to the site as a whole, too. So that’s a thing. Yeah. This is my submission for @mrswhozeewhatsis’s “Not an April Fool’s Joke Challenge”, so thank you! This is set up as if my character/I already met Sam and Dean since it is set up in their universe, not in the FrenchMistake!AU. Last thing, I could not for the life of me figure out how a hunt could involve hockey (since I happen to be a goalie), so I decided to focus on one of my passions instead of a talent; that passion being History. Daz all. Enjoy!

P.S: I am aware that this is LOOOONG overdue but I hit a funk and I was afraid to post it. Sorry if it sucks lol.

 It was nearly noon on the Friday before the Easter Break, and Alison still hadn’t gotten out of bed. There was no point after all, she had nothing planned for the day except her workout. Her blue eyes wandered around her room, taking in the familiar beige walls, the digital clock on her nightstand, and her cluttered desk with a blank expression.

 A part of her was screaming at her to get up, insisting that she wasting precious daylight and losing opportunities to be productive. However, another part of her just wanted to lay down and daydream, her body feeling perfectly comfortable under her blankets.

 With a long contemplative sigh, she lifted herself up and out of her bed. She hadn’t had a lot of time that week to write anything or finish up any of those science projects that had been due for a month. So, she figured she might as well do them. First, she needed a cup of coffee.

 Stepping out of her dark bedroom while tossing her robe over her shoulders, Alison released a majestic yawn, stretched, then made her way to the kitchen. After her coffee had been brewed to perfection and her toast was coated in peanut butter, she took a seat at her table and listened to the silence of her home.

 Her sister and parents would be gone all weekend, since they were visiting a university in Quebec. Alison sighed, taking a bite of her toast. She couldn’t believe her sister was going to university, and she’d be stuck alone in that Hell of a high school. They didn’t get along too much, but when they did, they had tons of fun together.

 She didn’t want her to go, because she knew her sister would forget about her, she was forgetful like that. She didn’t want to be left in the dust, she didn’t want to lose her sister, and she certainly didn’t want to be lonely. Not again. Not ever again.

 As if her deep thoughts were a summoning spell, the doorbell rang, quickly followed by her dog’s unceasing and loud barking, scaring the crap out of Alison. She sprinted to the bathroom and glanced at her appearance in the mirror, cringing immediately.

 Her long curly hair resembled a hornets nest, she was dressed in her batman pajama pants with a random hockey t-shirt and her robe. It also seemed like the sandman had dumped all the contents of his bucket onto her eyes. She would have at least thrown her hair into a ponytail, but the person on the other side of her door was excessively ringing her doorbell and her dog was barking like mad, not relaxing her nerves whatsoever.

 “I’m coming, God dammit! Shadow! Chill out!” she shouted, making her way to the door all the while rubbing her eyes in a ditch effort to get rid of some of the crust around her eyes. 

 When she reached the door, she grabbed Shadow by the scruff and shoved her into the office, the barking continuing. When she opened the door, she was ready to bite her visitor’s head off, but stopped herself when her eyes met Sam Winchester’s puppy dog eyes. Next to him stood his older but shorter brother, Dean.

 “Alison, thank God you’re home. We need you.” Sam breathed, clearly relieved to see her. Alison on the other hand, was too busy gaping at them, eyes wide, and her mind running a million miles a second. She hadn’t even comprehended Sam’s words in her head.

 ‘Why are they here? Why did they drive all the way to Ottawa? Wait, how’d they find out where I lived? You know, what? I’m not going to ask that; I’m not sure I want to know. Again, WHY ARE THEY HERE?!’

 She was shaken from her thoughts when Dean began to laugh, “Did you just get up? It’s, like, twelve-thirty in the afternoon!”

 Instantly, her demeanor changed and her cheeks flared red in embarrassment. “Shut up.” she grumbled, inviting both brothers in with a wave of her hand.

 When they stepped in, admiring her home, they both jumped when Shadow slammed herself against the office door, still barking like a lunatic. “Guys, this is Shadow. If you plan on staying here to talk then I think you should meet her, otherwise she’ll bark us to insanity.” Sam and Dean were both visibly terrified of the coal black German Shepherd, but they agreed nonetheless.

 After Alison had released Shadow and she had gotten acquainted to the brothers, the younger girl led the boys to the living room, grabbing her coffee on the way to her seat in the love chair. As Dean and Sam sat on the sofa, Alison thought back to how she’d met them.

 Alison had met the Winchesters two years prior when she’d been visiting Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The boys were attempting to get a vacation for a week, but ran into a hunt instead. A World War Two soldier had been haunting the area and killing Japanese people left and right. Alison had been studying American history at the time since history was one of her biggest passions besides Hockey, and was visiting for both vacation with her family and for hands-on studying.

 The Winchesters were questioning a tour guide about the bombing, but she surprisingly didn’t seem to have the answers they were looking for. Alison had noticed, and stepped in, having done extensive research on it for an essay. Long story short, she became friends with them, learned about the existence of monsters, and had become their go to gal for any case that involved history. But she only ever talked with them over the phone, since she lived in Canada. This was the first time she’d seen them since Pearl Harbor.

 “So what in the Hell are you doing in Canada? You know I’m only a call away if you ever need me.” The brunette asked, Shadow trotting up to her and shoving a slimy toy onto her lap.

“Well, we have a case here in Ottawa that involves your ‘expertise’ at the Canadian War Museum, and we figured we might as well pick you up since your house was on the way. If, you were available, that is. We could really use your help, it would spare us having to get a tour guide and going through hours of research.” Sam explained, resting his elbows on his knees and leaning forward.

Alison nodded, accepting his answer, but still having questions. “Sure, I’d love to help! Especially since it involves the War Museum. But again, why are you taking a case in Canada?” she questioned.

This time, it was Dean that spoke, “We were in New York when we caught wind of a case up here, so we figured it wouldn’t really affect us too much if we checked it out.”

Alison slowly took in his words, taking a deep, contemplative, and loud sip of her coffee. ‘The Winchesters need me, sad, little, pathetic Alison. Woah. Sad, little, pathetic Alison is needed! My calling has come!’ 

“Alrighty then.”

~(OuO)~

   Later that day, when Alison looked much more presentable, Dean drove the Impala into the parking lot of the War Museum. She was practically bouncing in her seat, excited to go inside again. It’d been a year since she’d last visited, and she was excited to see if they had added anything new to the exhibit. Even if they didn’t, she was still excited to see what her country had contributed to history.

 As soon as Dean cut the engine, Alison sprung from the back seat, no longer being able to contain her eagerness. “I can’t believe you’re so excited about history. History of all subjects!” Dean exclaimed, making the brunette gasp in mock offense.

 “History is the most interesting subject! We get to talk about machine guns, tanks, sacrifices, and heroes! Now, enough chat! Let’s go see old stuff!” She didn’t give Dean any time to argue before she’d spun on her heel and was speed walking towards the front doors.

 Behind her, Dean turned to Sam, who merely chuckled and shrugged, lengthening his strides to catch up. “She’s almost as nerdy as you.” he commented when they reached the doors.

 After they’d paid to enter and gotten their stamps, Alison pulled a notebook and pencil from her bag, preparing to take notes and add notes she already had written down. “Never mind, she is nerdier than you.” Dean laughed, receiving a sharp poke in the abdomen from her pencil.

 “So what exactly are we hunting?” she inquired once they arrived at the First World War section of the museum.

 “Sam and I are hunting a monster, Alison. You are only helping us with research.” Dean said, voice hard.

 The girl with the blue eyes turned to Dean with creased brows. “Oh, come on, I know you guys hunt demons and wendigos n’ stuff already. At least tell me what it is.” she pleaded, though she could tell he wouldn’t be that easy to break.

 “Dean’s right, Alison. It’s bad enough that we’re even standing next to you. It’d be safer if you stayed in the dark for this one.” Sam said, making her sigh in defeat. What Sam says, goes.

 “Fine, don’t tell me. I’ll just guess then!” she shrugged, wracking her brain as she looked at the exhibits. “It could be a ghost, revenant, or demon.” she thought aloud, back facing the Winchesters.

 “Alison, stop. We’re being serious here.” Dean demanded, voice a lot more firm than the girl expected to hear. She turned to him, and one look at him told her that she was treading on thin ice. This was indeed serious, maybe she was in way over her head.

 “That bad, huh? Alright, fine. I won’t bug you. Now, what are we looking for here? Information wise, not monster wise.” she spoke quickly, changing the subject.

 Sam and Dean were both visibly relieved when she stopped talking about what they were hunting, and asked her to show them around the WWI section, to which she did to the best of her abilities; explaining things they didn’t understand and giving them a brief summary on Canada’s involvement in the war, until they asked to be left alone to discuss what Alison assumed would be their monster.

 So, she decided to wander down to the WWII section, eyeing Hitler’s Mercedes Benz for a solid five minutes before moving on to the German torpedo, then the Cold War section. As her eyes scanned the items on display, taking notes as she went, two young girls sped past her, running towards the fake control panel where an activity was set up for the youngsters that visited.

 “I’m sorry about them.” A woman, who Alison could only assume was their mother, apologized, clearly embarrassed.

 The brunette merely shrugged with a smile. “Don’t worry about it.” she said, eyes returning to the sisters. She couldn’t help but think about her own sister, tears slowly building in her eyes as she recalled that soon, her sister would be gone. She’d give anything to be young like that again, even if she was only sixteen.

 Alison took a deep breath, forced herself to look away, and continued throughout the exhibit, not wanting to attract anyone’s attention. Her mood had become damp after seeing the little girls, not even being in the presence of a piece of the Berlin wall could cheer her up.

 ‘Maybe the tanks will cheer me up.’ she thought, making a beeline to the heavy metal door that led to the LeBreton Gallery. She was surprised when she saw that the room was completely deserted, not a single person in sight. This made her very happy, since she now had this section of the exhibit for herself.

 She went around, running her hand against the cool metal of the old vehicles and reading plaques that stood proudly next to their designated tank or car, finally feeling at ease. That is, until the hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and she could feel a presence in the room with her.

 Alison was very intuitive, just like her mother and her grandmother before her; she could easily tell when the atmosphere in a room changed. She pretended not to be alarmed, walking casually along the rows of tanks, towards the exit. She was almost there, when she felt cold breath blow down her neck, sending her heart rate skyrocketing.

 Using her stellar goalie reflexes, she spun around and instinctively backhanded whoever was behind her, her right hand coming into contact with skin. The man standing behind her was around her height and he seemed to be in his mid-twenties. He held his jaw for a moment, before turning to her with an evil smile on his face.

 “You know, that actually hurt.” he stated, blinking once to reveal his onyx eyes. 

 “Oh shit.” Alison mumbled, taking two steps back, then booking it down an aisle. ‘Demon would be the correct guess.’ she thought as she squeezed herself between two cars to try and shake the demon.

 “Listen, since I feel bad that you’re young and I’m about to kill you, I’ll let you hide and come find you when I count to fifteen. If you try to run to either of the exits, I’ll kill you immediately. Got it? Good. One…” he began to count from wherever he was, his voice echoing throughout the gallery.

 Alison wasn’t sure whether or not to feel relieved that he was giving her a chance to live, albeit a small one. She’d be damned if she didn’t use it to her advantage. ‘Good thing I’m really fucking good at hiding.’ she thought, running up to a random vehicle. This vehicle happened to be a truck that was once used to transport injured soldiers, and the back doors were wide open for visitors to see inside.

 She jumped into the back and closed the doors behind her, wincing whenever the hinges squeaked. “Ten...  Eleven…” his voice was muffled now that she was hidden, but her heart still pounded in fear for her life. Alison knew she was cornering herself by hiding here, but that was a risk she needed to take; she needed to call Sam and Dean. She opened her phone and scrolled down the list in her contacts, reaching Dean’s contact first, and pressing it.

 “Fifteen!” The demon shouted as she pressed her phone to her ear.

 “Alison? Why are you-” the brunette cut him off, “There’s a demon trying to kill me in the LeBreton Gallery. Hurry your ass over here before he finds me.” she whisper-yelled, her senses on high alert for any indication that the demon was near.

  “We’re on our way. Stay on the phone. You got that tattoo, right? The one that protects you from possession?” Dean inquired. Alison also heard the faint sound of Sam asking what was going on in the background. “No. I didn’t, and that’s because if I did, my parents would probably call me a disgrace again.” she added quickly.

 Silence filled the other end of the line for a moment, before Dean spoke again. “Again? What did you do last time?”

 She rolled her eyes so hard, she thought she saw Castiel in the Heavens. “I stole from a vending machine.” Immediately, he began to laugh. “Shut the fuck up and save me!” she snapped, cheeks flaring in embarrassment as she clutched her phone tightly in her hand.

 “You know I can hear you, right?” she heard the demon say from right outside her hiding spot.

 “And I could give two fucks!” she cussed loudly, just as the doors swung open.

  “That’s not nice-”

 “FUS RO DAH!” Alison flung herself at the demon, trying to surprise him by being aggressive. She was successful, and ended up sending them both rolling across the floor.

 “Dean!” she snapped into her phone, getting up and taking off down the aisle again, only with a demon on her heels. Just then, Alison heard the heavy doors to the gallery fly open, relief washing over her for a moment before she remembered she still needed to run like a mofo.

 “Eat shit, satanic fuck!” she shouted as she grabbed a military helmet from one of the displays and chucking it at him. She would have laughed when it bounced off his face if she wasn’t in danger.

 When she turned the corner, she ran smack dab into Sam, sending them both flying to the ground while Dean ran past them armed with Ruby’s knife. When Sam and Alison got to their feet, Dean had already dealt with the demon, having stabbed it. 

 “That went well.” she commented, receiving Sam’s signature bitch face.

 “Ah! Well done, Squirrel!” An accented voice exclaimed from behind her. The brunette whipped around to see a stout man with a black suit walk forward, having seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

 His eyes met hers before he looked back at Sam and Dean. “Who’s this young lady?” he asked, cocking his head slightly in curiosity.

 “None of your business.” Dean answered, his jaw clenched. Alison was instantly suspicious. She had already noticed the bad vibe rolling off of him in waves, but something was telling her that this... little Irishman was more than he seemed.

 He narrowed his eyes at her for a moment before shrugging. “Alright, I’ll just call her Poodle then.” She gaped at his words, taken completely aback by the new nickname. She wasn’t stupid, she knew he was referencing her majestic curly locks, but she absolutely refused to be nicknamed after her least favourite dog in existence.

 “EXCUSE the FUCK outta you!” she shouted, taking two heavy steps in his direction before Sam grabbed her and practically lifted her away. The little man’s eyebrows rose in surprise, clearly taken aback by her aggressiveness.

 “We’ll be outside. Just deal with this, would you Dean?” Sam requested, dragging a fuming Alison out of the gallery.

 “This isn’t over, you bug-eyed dwarfish mongoose!” she roared as Sam dragged her away. She wanted to slap that shit eating grin off of Dean’s face so badly.

 /(OnO)/

 “Thanks a lot, Alison. We really appreciate you helping us today.” Sam said when they’d returned her to her home and they were standing on her front porch.

 “It was no problem, I had fun… I think?” she replied, thinking about the war helmet bouncing off the demon’s face. “I just have two questions for you before you two drive off into the sunset together. One, what did the war museum have to do with the demon you guys were hunting down? And two, who was that little shit that showed up after the demon had been dealt with?” she questioned, eyebrow raised.

 “Well, the demon we were hunting was actually a famous Canadian soldier that had been hopping from one war museum to the next. We lost track of him for a while until Cas identified him for us. We figured he was hiding out there, and were hoping to either catch him there, or find information on where is bones were buried. As for ‘that little shit’, I think it’s best you don’t know. He sent us after that demon because he was causing trouble.” Sam answered for her with a smile, clearly amused with her colourful name calling.

 “Oh, okay. That’s all I guess. Call me if you need anything. Promise to come save me from my boring life again sometime?” she pleaded, giving both brothers and individual hug.

 “We’ll see.” Dean answered, both of them beginning to head down her porch steps.

 They were halfway to the Impala, when Alison suddenly had a thought. “Hey, Dean!” she called, running to catch the eldest Winchester. They both turned to her. “Can I talk to you for a second?” she asked, giving Dean the best puppy eyes she could muster.

 “Okay, uh, sure.” he shrugged awkwardly. Sam took that as his queue to leave them and got into the passenger side of the Impala.

 Alison bit her lip, mulling her question over in her head and hesitating to speak. “Okay. Uhm. I know that Sam left for Stanford at some point and I was just wondering… what did it feel like? Did Sam forget about you?” she inquired, stumbling over her words a bit.

 When Dean gave her a confused frown, Alison sighed and continued. “My sister is leaving for university after the summer.” she clarified, willing tears not to cloud her vision. Dean seemed to understand immediately, and he gave her a sad smile.

“Listen, I’m not the best at this... touchy-feely stuff.” he began, making the young girl instantly wish she hadn’t asked. “But,” he continued, not giving her any time to speak, “I’ll give it a whirl just this once.”

 “I’m not going to lie, it sucked. Especially since I practically raised that bitch.” Alison couldn’t help but chuckle lightly at his words, a single tear rolling down her cheek. She was quick to wipe it away, not really wanting to come off as weak.

 “I understand what you’re feeling. I didn’t want Sam to leave, just like I’m sure you don’t want your sister to leave.” he continued, putting a comforting, albeit awkward, hand on her shoulder. “But I guess... that’s just how life goes? Sure, you’ll still be able to contact her, but you’ve got to let her go do her own thing. Even if that means that you aren’t a part of that.”

 It wasn’t the answer Alison wanted, but she understood. She didn’t want Dean to be right, but at the same time, she knew he was. Dean seemed to notice her distress, so he pulled her into a hug, a few tears falling down Alison’s face again.

 “You’re tough, Alison. I know it’ll be hard, but if ever you need to talk to someone, we’re behind you, alright? We’re just a phone call away.” Alison pulled away from Dean and smiled up at him.

 “Okay. Thanks, Dean. I really appreciate this, and I mean it.” she breathed, Dean smiling back at her.

 “See you later, kiddo.” he said, patting her on the shoulder twice, before turning to join Sam in the Impala. As Alison watched them drive away, she couldn’t help but smile, thinking back on the events of the day with her heart feeling less burdened.

 Then, Shadow began to bark like crazy inside, making the brunette roll her eyes and step up onto her front porch again. “You ruined the fucking moment, Shadow!”

// Laura, if u r reading this, stfu <3

Tags: @mrswhozeewhatsis

[promisedangel]

Fresh Meat- Chapter 37

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Remember to vote for my next project! Yes, I will keep reminding people. So far, it looks like Predatorshift will be my next project. But this poll flipped before.

Chapter 37- Resolve

Chara tossed and turned in their bed, sweat heavy on their brow and their eyes shut tight as a new dream haunted their sleep. The colors coalesced into a wavering darkness. Dark colors of black, navy, and violet danced around Chara. Chara stood but saw there was no ground to stand on. Confused, they turned their gaze around them. Strange noises emanated from the darkness surrounding them. Familiar, but unable to place them. They then gasped, a figure appeared in the near-distance. Gaster. His eyes were closed, the scar Chara inflicted was missing, and his hands were in a steeple in front of him. He was silent, unmoving. Chara frowned as they drew their knife towards Gaster, ready to fight. Gaster did not react, but the noises in the darkness grew louder. Hands and claws congealed from the darkness around them, reaching for them. Groans, gnashes, and growls accompanied them. Chara gasped as a large one reached for them, but they dodged it just in time. They heard the familiar roar of the monster in Home, despite a strange distortion in the voice, “WHERE ARE YOU?! GET BACK HERE, HUMAN!” Chara pointed their knife towards the arm as it swung wildly in search of Chara. They stepped back cautiously until they heard liquid slosh at their feet. They had no time to react when the puddle transformed into a moldbygg. Chara was consumed by the monster, but only for a few moments. A large, muscular hand reached into the moldbygg and pulled Chara out. They saw an aaron had grabbed them but left one hand free. They stabbed the arm that held them, a crack sounded in the distance as the aaron dissipated into dust. Chara whipped their gaze around them until they heard another familiar voice sound, Muffet’s, “Just stand still, dearie!” Chara turned in time to slash Muffet’s enlarged hand. The crack sounded once more as Muffet disappeared into dust. Chara then felt their leg wrapped before they fell over with a yelp. They landed on an invisible floor. They turned to see a red tentacle hold their left leg firmly. It dragged them closer to the unmoving form of Gaster. Chara then noticed a crack formed above Gaster’s right eye. They turned their attention to the tentacle and stabbed it. The crack sounded once more. The tentacle dispersed into dust. Chara stood; mere feet from Gaster, his new scar completed. They heard the growls of various monsters surround them. Shadows of hands lunged around the two of them. They were trapped, with him.

A husk, low chuckle emanated. The clearest voice in the darkness. Chara shivered before their gaze turned towards Gaster, the source of the chuckle. His eyes remained closed as he spoke, “Do you honestly believe you could defeat me?” Chara roared, “I will never be your tool!” Gaster smirked, “Very well, I will indulge your fantasy.”

The shadows around them became more restless, further clawing towards Chara. Chara then saw Gaster’s eyes open, his eyes both equal in their glow. They felt unable to move, they began to panic as the arms clawed their way closer to Chara. Their eyes focused on Gaster as he spoke, “This was a game you could never win.” The hands reached Chara, many of them took hold of Chara and began to drag them into the darkness. Chara screamed out, but still unable to move. Gaster kept his gaze on them, giving a satisfied smirk all the while. It was then that Chara felt claws and teeth begin to tear at them. They screamed out once more, not able to see or escape from the pain. The darkness took hold, Gaster faded from sight. The pain encompassed their being before they finally felt their neck snap. Numbness. Darkness. Nothingness.

—————————————————————————————–

Chara shot awake with a panicked gasp; they continued to shake even as they examined themselves. Nothing but the scars they already knew of. Their breaths slowly evened out before they calmed themselves and took in their surroundings. They sat in their bed, in the Dreemurr’s home. They noticed Asriel was not in the room with them. His bed disheveled, the blankets tossed to the side in a rush. Chara’s eyes widened before they rushed out of bed to the door, their bedsheets nearly mirroring Asriel’s. They pressed an ear to the door and heard more sounds of fighting. They kept a hand on their new knife before they opened the door. The front door was still off its hinges. None of the Dreemurrs were in sight. They heard clashes from beyond the door, clangs of steel and claws. They dashed to the front door and peeked out. They saw their family fight two monsters, and many piles of dust. Three dust piles had armor peeking from them. Asgore held his trident before he stabbed an oncoming monster with it, running it through. The monster gasped before they limped and dispersed into dust before Asgore. One of the monsters panicked, “Fuck this!” They began to run away, “They were right to trap you here!” Toriel threw a large fireball at the monster, which hit it square in the back. It screamed and fell to the ground before it soon turned to dust. Asgore gave a heavy sigh as he relaxed, “Is everyone alright?” Toriel nodded, “I am fine. Asriel?” Asriel approached Toriel from a corner near the door, “I’m okay.” Asgore turned, “Then let us head- Chara!” Their eyes focused on Chara, Toriel frowned as the three began to approach, “Chara. I asked you to stay in your room!” Chara sheathed their knife, “I saw the disheveled bed. I thought…” They lightly hugged one of their arms with a frown. Toriel sighed before she kneeled and tussled Chara’s hair, “Please, my child, it will only be for a couple days. Today we will start packing for our trip to Home. We will be safe there.” Asriel frowned, “Um… mom? Dad?” Asgore raised a brow, “Yes, Asriel?” Asriel mused, “What did that last monster mean?” Asgore narrowed his eyes and stroked his beard, “I am not sure… but it does sound concerning.” He began to walk inside the house, “I will check how the guards in the castle are holding up. Perhaps they will have some answers.” Toriel stood with a disheartened gaze, “Do not forget to mention… their loss…” Asgore and Toriel focused their gaze on the three piles of dust with armor on them. Asgore nodded, “I would not dare.”

Asgore made his way down the stairs and walked to the castle, a heavy frown upon his face. The walk gave him time to muse over the recent events and regret all of the death that has transpired. Guilt seeped into his expression as he thought about those monsters he had personally slain, and those who had stood by his side turned to dust. His thoughts then turned to those he was not personally responsible for, but by his decision to protect Chara, they were dust. Was all of this worth it, just to protect a single child? He feared the answer was against him, but he knew he would have to live with his decision. No matter what happened, he knew he would regret it. “King Asgore!” A voice called him away from his thoughts. His gaze turned to his remaining Royal Guard, now a mere seven monsters, including the latest recruit who had approached him. Asgore composed himself; his expression waned to a calm one before he spoke, “What is the status, Undyne?” The new recruit answered nervously, “They’ve… stopped attacking, and it seemed they’re stopping anyone from entering the castle.” Asgore raised a brow, “Strange… Are they saying anything?” Undyne’s fins drooped, “Yeah, a lot of things.” She hesitated,  “Sir… Why are we doing this?” Asgore hesitated in his response, “To ensure Ch-…the… human is not… wasted.” Undyne growled, “Then why aren’t you giving the human to Dr. Gaster?!”

Asgore stepped back in slight shock. He noticed his guards were fatigued and standing by Undyne’s words. He didn’t know how to respond, he fumbled over his words, “I… I just- well…” Undyne’s expression grew to disbelief and a slight sorrow, “Please… tell us the truth.” Asgore turned his expression downwards as he frowned, silent for a few moments before he responded, “I only wanted to protect my family.” The guards’ eyes all lit up with shock, a tear fell from Undyne’s left eye. She gritted her teeth before she spoke, sorrow and anger slowly seeped into her voice, “So, it’s true, then? You won’t give up the human because you’ve… adopted it?!” Anguish seeped into the guards’ expression, wounded by betrayal. Asgore spoke, disappointment in his tone, “You don’t understand…” Undyne roared, “Then explain it! Explain why you’d keep some food alive and hoarded while the entire kingdom you’re in charge of starves!” One of the guards brandished their claws, “There’s no use talking to monsters like him.” The rest followed, each brandished their weapon in Asgore’s direction, only Undyne had not. Asgore stepped back a few more paces, “Please. I do not wish to fight you.” More tears fell from Undyne’s eyes as she summoned a spear of magic. She frowned at Asgore and spoke in command through her tears, “By the power vested to Dr. Gaster by all of monsterkind; Asgore Dreemurr, you and your family are under house arrest until you give us the human child.” She brandished her spear, “Go back home, Asgore Dreemurr.” Another spoke, “We’ll allow you use of the castle, so long as you don’t escape.” Asgore stood for a few moments before he hung his head, “I’m sorry.” He turned before he slowly walked back home; tears began to stain his fur. Once out of sight, Undyne collapsed to the ground in sobs, “I trusted him…” Another guard kneeled to comfort her, “We all did.”

—————————————————————————————–

“House arrest!?” Toriel cried out in worry. Asgore had come home with puffy eyes and stains of tears upon his face. When confronted, he spoke of a house arrest. Everyone held shock in their gaze, Chara only a little. Asgore nodded, “Yes…” Asriel curled in on himself, “Does that mean… we’re trapped here?” Toriel shook her here, “No. I will check the elevator. Surely there is still a way through there!” Toriel rushed out the door. She did not give one glance to the area around her until she reached the elevator. She opened a panel nearby the elevator and quickly plugged a few loose wires together. She gave a sigh of relief when she heard the elevator whir to life once more. She pressed the button and the elevator door opened instantly. She stepped into the elevator and waited for the doors to open once more. She kept calm, holding onto hope her plan was still viable. She could tell her children’s spirits were breaking, even Chara’s. Behind that stone gaze they hid behind, she could tell when they were in pain. She concentrated her thoughts on the plan; soon, that pain would all be over.

The doors of the elevator opened to reveal five guards with their weapons brandished. Toriel stood firm with a frown. One of the guards threatened, “Go back home, Toriel Dreemurr.” Another spoke up, “We won’t give a second warning. Don’t ever try to use this elevator unless the human is here alone.” Toriel sighed before she pressed the button without another word. She quickly returned home to relay the news, “They are at the elevator as well.” Asgore frowned, “We are trapped.” Asriel shook, “No… there has to be something we can do!” Toriel nodded, “Give us some time… we will keep packing. We will figure something out.” Chara, silent this whole time, slowly walked towards their room with a numb expression. Toriel noticed, “Chara?!” Chara entered their room and closed the door behind them. Asriel rushed in after them, “I’ll take care of this.” Toriel nodded, “Take all the time you will need. We will leave you two alone.”

Asriel closed the door behind them. He turned his gaze to Chara’s bed, where they sat with their legs tucked into their chest. They stared straight at a wall with a thoughtful gaze. Asriel nervously approached, “Um… Chara?” Chara said nothing. Asriel nervously looked around the room for something to help, “Um…” He opened the toy chest, where he found the crayons and a few drawings, “Hey! Wanna color some more? Maybe you can finish coloring in this golden flower drawing you did!” Chara said nothing. Asriel whined as he continued to look around the room. He gasped as he found the camcorder. He giggled as he turned it on, the lens cap still on, “Howdy, Chara! Smile for the camera!” Chara turned their gaze towards Asriel, but did not smile. Asriel huffed, “Come on! You’re supposed to smile or do your creepy face!” Chara sighed, “Asriel, turn off the camera.” Asriel blinked in confusion and worry, “Turn off the camera…? Okay…”

Asriel set the camera on Chara’s bed. Chara turned towards him, their legs hung off the side of the bed and their arms held them up at their side. Chara kept their serious gaze, their tone downcast, “Asriel… do you trust me?” Asriel sat next to them, “Of course I trust you, Chara! You’re my best friend! Why wouldn’t I?” Chara held their locket tightly; they hesitated to speak. Asriel raised a brow, “Chara?” Chara sighed, “Do you remember the pie we made for Father?” Asriel gave a small smile, “Yeah, I remember. The recipe asked for cups of butter… but we accidentally put in buttercups instead.” His smile faded, “Those flowers got him really sick. I felt so bad… We made mom worry so much. I should have laughed it off… like you did…” Chara bit their lip before Asriel turned his gaze towards them, “Um… anyway… where are you going with this?” Chara spoke firmly, “Please… listen to me. All of it, okay?” Asriel nodded, worry bled into his expression and voice, “Okay…”

Chara continued, “We will not get out of here. I can see that now. Mother and Father may try to deny it, but I clearly see us not escaping this situation. At least… not alive.” Asriel whined but allowed Chara to continue, “Mother said the buttercups made Father sick, but… what if they could do more? What if Father had more than one bite?” Chara balled up their fists, they began to shake slightly, “Asriel, I… I need you to help me with this. I need you to go get the rest of the buttercups and… help force me to eat all of them.” Asriel interjected, “But… won’t you… get sick like dad?” Chara nodded, “If I am correct, it would do much more than that.” Tears budded from Asriel’s eyes, his voice quiet, “But… why?” Chara relaxed their hands, “Remember when we were in Waterfall with Mother? She said that if a monster absorbs a human soul, they might be able to cross the barrier? And that seven human souls could shatter it?” Asriel sniffled, “Y-yeah?” Chara looked Asriel in the eye, “I need you to absorb my soul. We will then cross the barrier together, get the other six human souls and shatter the barrier.” Asriel whimpered, “But… that would mean…” “I need you to help me kill myself. And I need you to help me kill six humans.”

Asriel stood, knocking the camcorder over onto the floor, tears began to fall from his eyes, his voice cracked slightly “I… I don’t like this idea, Chara.” Chara placed a hand on Asriel’s shoulder, “Asriel, please. You are the only one I can trust with this.” Asriel went to interject but saw Chara shed a tear before they spoke, “I am scared, and I don’t want you to suffer because you have to protect me. If we do this, we’ll be free.” Asriel paused for a moment. He sniffled and whipped the tears from his face, “Okay… We’ll free ourselves…. I’ll go get the flowers.” Chara whipped the tear from their eye, “Do not let Mother and Father see them. Wait until they are distracted,”

——————————————————————————————

Asriel closed the door behind him, a basket full of buttercups in his arms. He approached Chara, “I… got them. Mom’s making lunch and Dad’s packing up his room… so I…” Asriel’s words trailed off. Chara went to grab a flower but hesitated, “This will not work. The flowers make my hands itch. Mother will suspect something.” Asriel whined, “What do we do?” Chara mused, “What is Mother making for lunch?” “Stew… I think.” Chara smiled, “Perfect. Tell her I want to eat in my room.” Asriel nodded, “I’ll… eat in here too… I don’t want you to be here alone.” Chara took the basket and shoved it under their bed, “Go, it smells like it is ready.”

Asriel nodded before he exited the room and entered the kitchen. He approached Toriel nervously, “Um… mom?” Toriel noticed Asriel and kneeled in front of him, “What is it, Asriel?” Asriel frowned, “Chara says they want to eat in our room, and I don’t want them to be alone… can we?” Toriel smiled and patted his head, “Of course. Are they… alright? Do they not feel well?” Asriel shrugged and averted his gaze, “I don’t know.” Toriel stood and went to the large pot of stew. She quickly poured two large bowls of the stew and placed them on a tray along with two forks and two cups of water. She lowered the tray to Asriel, “Here, just come out when you need some more.” Asriel nodded silently before he entered his and Chara’s room. He placed the tray on the floor near Chara’s bed. Chara sat next to the bed and pulled out the basket, “Lock the door.” Asriel quickly ran to the door and locked it, “So… how are we going do this?” Chara spoke as Asriel sat nearby them, “Pluck the stems and mix as many flowers as you can into my stew.” Asriel nodded before he moved so that he was next to the basket and the tray was in front of him. He began to rip the stems off of the flowers and toss them into the stew. Chara slowly stirred the stew as Asriel continued to toss more flowers into the one bowl. After a while, Chara picked up the bowl, “That should be enough. We have to save some for tonight. And possibly tomorrow morning.” Asriel pushed the basket under Chara’s bed then kept his eye on Chara with a heavy frown. Chara dug their fork into the stew but hesitated to lift their fork near their mouth. They stared into the steaming bowl for a few seconds before they took a deep sigh and lifted the fork to their mouth. The first bite was what they imagined. The flowers made the stew disgusting. They swallowed and immediately felt resistance. They clenched their mouth closed before they forced themselves to swallow. Asriel turned his gaze as Chara started to continuously force themselves to eat the flower-filled stew. They both knew this was only the beginning.

[pixieungerstories]

Quarantine - 3

Part 1

Part 2

It would have been nice to have something other than the word of a shadow to go on.  I stared at the ceiling.  I wished I had a cat or a dog or - hell - a pet hamster.  Some other living thing in the house.  I had no idea what Nick was but I wasn’t entirely sure he counted as a living thing.

“Humans who don’t sleep start to hallucinate,”  I muttered to myself.  Maybe if I actually got some shut eye, I would wake up and this would all be a dream.  “Fuck it.”  I got undressed and crawled under the covers.  I settled under the covers, then realized I was facing the closet, so I rolled over.  Having the door in my blind spot wasn’t necessarily better.

“Nick?”  I wasn’t really expecting an answer.  “Can you move the bed to another room?”

“I can.  I don’t want to.  I like having you where I can see you.”

I nodded.  “I’ll go sit in the kitchen until dawn.”

“Go! To! Sleep!”

I jumped then started to shake.  “Yelling at me isn’t going to help me sleep,” I muttered.

The bedroom door slammed shut.  Rattling the door knob and pulling as hard as I could didn’t make it budge.  “Please don’t do this,” I whimpered, then I screamed as something brushed my face.

The door opened suddenly enough that I unbalanced and fell on my ass, but a moment later I was running down the stairs and out the front door.  I was at the gate before I knew what I was doing.

The cops were still right there.

“You need to go back inside ma’am!” the closest one called.  After that they were all looking at me.  

I paced for a moment, uncomfortably aware how odd I was behaving.  I needed to get out of here.  I needed a smoke.  I needed to stop acting weird before they decided I had killed my neighbours.

Oh god.  I was trapped in a house with a creature that probably killed the looters.

I didn’t want to face the idea that Nick was a killer.

“Ma’am!  Go inside!”

“I saw what happened on the news,” I explained.  “It’s giving me nightmares and I’ve been stuck in that house for more than a month.  I wasn’t expecting to be quarantined in a construction site.”

“Be that as it may, you need to go back inside,” the patrolman called.

“I’m more than six feet away from you.  Can’t I just stay out here near some other people and the street lights? Please?”

“You aren’t exactly dressed for the weather,” he pointed out.  

I crossed my arms over my chest as I realized I was standing on my lawn in my night dress.  I should go in and at least get my robe.  It was in the room with Nick’s closet.

I thought about just confessing to something so that I could go with them.  Prison wouldn’t have Nick.  Maybe I just needed a hospital.  No.  That was a death sentence these days.

He was driving me off.  He had flat out told me that he was good at that.

“Are you alright, ma’am?”

“No!” I snapped.  “I’m scared.”

He gave me a pitying look but still insisted, “You need to go inside now.  You will be safe in your house.”

I snorted, and swatted at the bugs that had found me.

“Go inside,” he said gently.  “The last thing you need is to catch something from the mosquitos.”

I nodded slowly and headed back in to sit in the kitchen.  Maybe he would let me make a pot of coffee.  When I got inside the lights in the kitchen was on and the bed was set up on the main floor.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“You’re welcome.  This is temporary.  You will sleep upstairs when the walls are repaired.

The next morning I got a phone call ordering me out into the garden as a forklift delivered a load of drywall.  It was left in the middle of the floor next to my bed.  I looked at it.   Nick’s voice was too close to my ear, “Someone will come hang in tomorrow.”

“How did you pay for this?”

“You have an excellent credit rating and you aren’t spending much of your money.”

“Great.  Did they say how long it would take?”

There was no answer to that.

“I guess drywallers wear masks all the time anyway,”  I mused.   “At least there will be some other people around.”

“Yes.”

I didn’t have walls the next day.  In fact things were worse as the last of the lath and plaster was taken down.  They found hundreds of razor blades in the wall in the bathroom.  The construction guys assured me that it was normal to find all kinds of weird things in the walls of old houses, but they still looked uncomfortable that it was razor blades and that some of them were more bloody than you would expect from a mere shaving accident.  I spent the night picking them up with tweezers and dropping them into a jar for safe disposal.  Nick didn’t say a word and the lights stayed on that night.

One half the team turned up the next day.  No one commented on why that was.

I ordered a hammock and a grill for the backyard.  I got the hammock but someone had changed the grill to a chiminea when I wasn’t looking.  It was nice, but I couldn’t cook on it.  My order had also been edited to include a bunch of bug repellant candles and some sunscreen.  I tried to figure out if that was something a shadow creature would actually do or was this another sign that I was losing my mind.

Either way, I worked on the concrete table out back at the very limit of the wifi during the day and concentrated on fixing up the yard after official work hours.

One of the drywallers sold me a patio umbrella.

I also got the lecture that just because the walls were up didn’t mean that it was safe to use the shower.  

“You still have to get a membrane installed and your tiles up and sealed,” the guy explained.

I nodded, “You don’t happen to know a tile guy that is still working?”

He frowned, “I’ll ask around.  Do you have tiles yet?”

“No,” I admitted.

“That might be the hard part.  You can still find a few guys willing to come out, but all the factories are shut down.”

“Shit.”

He gave me a look of sympathy.  “Yeah.  There are stories of people doing penny walls or using their grandma’s china to tile just so they have a working bathroom.”

“I don’t have either of those things,” I said sadly.

He nodded, “I’ll ask around.  It isn’t a big project and people might have some leftovers.”

Given how protective Nick was of the house I should have expected his warning.    I was still unimpressed to see “no ugly tile” written on the drywall in the morning.  Still, he could have used the last of my lipstick and instead had found a pencil somewhere.  I tried to ignore it as I brushed my teeth.  I didn’t even have a mirror over the sink.  Grumbling around the toothbrush I realized, “Fuck.  I’m the only person who could buy a haunted house where the ghost had been watching too much HGTV.”

That earned me a creepy house shaking laugh and proof that he hadn’t just left.

“It’s your fault,” he purred in my ear.  “You are the one who fell asleep all those nights with decorating shows playing on repeat on your computer.”

I sighed. “Yeah, it was,” I agreed sadly.  “If I hadn’t would you be haunting me right now?”

“If you hadn’t, I wouldn’t have seen the value in what you are doing and I wouldn’t have spent a week keeping you alive when you got sick.  Perhaps you would have been haunting me.”

I frowned, “I wasn’t sick for a week!  It was only a couple of days!”

“You should check your calendar.  It was a couple of days of you being sick and a week of me forcing you to breathe.”

“There is no way I lost a week without noticing!”

He didn’t say anything.  When I checked my calendar there were nearly two weeks missing.  I told myself it didn’t mean anything.  Nick used my computer, he could have just deleted the information.  I could just call work or Penny or someone and ask how long I was away for.

I kind of didn’t want to.  What if he was telling the truth?

I took my coffee and toast and ate breakfast outside, once again wishing for a cigarette.  Nick had never left the house, as far as I knew, and I didn’t want to talk to him just then.  This was ridiculous!  Shadow monsters didn’t … do that!  They didn’t … exist.  I was just …  this wasn’t happening!

I was out of coffee and the coldness of the concrete bench was soaking through my night shirt and into my ass.  I had left the folded towel I used as a cushion inside overnight so it wouldn’t get damp.  Now I was cold and damp instead.  Fuck.

When I made it back to the kitchen, my laptop was open and had apparently been searching for bathroom tiles.  ‘Fine.  Whatever.  Pick something nice that I can afford.”

I don’t know what I was expecting him to do, but contacting a local stained glass artist wasn’t it.  I really wasn’t expecting her to check if it was OK if my boyfriend picked out the design since it was my credit card that was paying for it.

I was afraid to ask, but I had to know, “What did he pick?”

Nancy cleared her throat, “Well, originally he wanted a reproduction of a stained glass window from Maison Schott in France.  But when we talked about how complicated it would be for a tiler to install that, he settled on a simpler rose on trellis pattern.”

I set down the phone to close my eyes and scrub my face.  “Do you like what he picked out?”  She seemed a little taken aback by the question.  “Yes?  It’s a little modern for your age of house, but it’s a nice piece and will be easy to install.  It mostly uses different textured white glass, so it would be in keeping with a white bathroom. I can have it ready next week.  I’m not exactly over run with work right now.”  She paused before she added, “I’ll send you some sketches and if there is anything you need changed, just let me know.  I could really use the income, to be honest.”

“Yeah.  I understand that.  I guess I’m just doing my part to keep the economy running.”

“I really appreciate that.   The whole ‘buy local’ movement ended when we weren’t allowed to leave our houses,”  Nancy pointed out.

“Ok.  Send me the sketches and the quote and I’ll get back to you in the next couple of days.”

I lay in bed that night and looked at the newly drywalled dining room ceiling.  “What are you doing, Nick?”

“Making a home for you,” he whispered.

“Can I even afford this?  You don’t have a secret money vault hidden in the walls with the razor blades, do you?”

There was a long moment of silence, then he whispered, “You could sell the wine instead of drinking it.”

I froze.  “Just because it’s old doesn’t mean that it’s valuable,” I pointed out.

Something caressed my calf as he purred his reply, “But it is.”

I closed my eyes and let my body melt into the mattress.   My breath caught in my throat as the touch moved up my leg.  As soon as I made the noise, the contact vanished.  I groaned.

“What are you doing?”

“Breaking the rules,” he grumbled from across the room.

I needed to know, “Why were there razor blades in the walls?”

“There was a slot in the back of the medicine cabinet for used razor blades to be dropped between the wall boards so that they were safe and wouldn’t hurt anyone in the trash.  That was perfectly normal at one point in history,” he explained.

I considered this, “Why were there bloody razor blades in the walls?”

He didn’t answer that one.  “Why haven’t you used your little toy since I cleaned it for you?”

Now it was my turn to be silent.

“You liked that toy,” he prompted.  “I liked watching you enjoy yourself.  Good for everyone.”

“That’s really creepy.  Can’t you just watch porn like a normal person?”

“Porn isn’t as satisfying,” he replied.  Then he added, “For either of us.  And I am not a normal person.”

“I noticed.”

“Would we have fucked by now if I was?”  he just sounded curious.  The vocal leer from a moment ago was gone.

“I would have had you arrested by now if you were.”

The low chuckle rumbled through the house at that.  I closed my eyes and he stroked my face.  “Let me watch,” he purred.  “I can feel how badly you want.”

That made my eyes snap open.  “What?”

“I can taste your fear, but also your pleasure.  I enjoyed watching you cum in a way that humans can not understand.  And I am very aware of your frustration.”

“What happens to my soul if a shadow … creature watches me play with myself?”

“It gets to live in a house with a happier guardian?” he suggested.

“A guardian?  Is that what you are?”

“Guardian sounds better than monster or eldritch god but that’s just semantics.”

“I’m pretty sure there is a difference,” I pointed out.

“Perhaps the difference is what I’m doing at the time.  And right now, I am guarding this house, taking care of you and hoping you will take care of yourself.”

“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” I joked.   “I’m too damn tired!”  I thought for a moment, “I need more rules, Nick.”

“Like what?” he asked in a breathy hissing rasp that sounded pretty much like how I imagined a death rattle would sound.

“Well, there’s that,” I pointed out.  “Now I’m scared and I can’t see you so this is going to be another night of sitting up until I fall down.”

“You need to rest,” he murmured in a more normal voice for him.   It wasn’t human sounding, but it wasn’t deliberately scary.

I had already set up and was fumbling for a light switch. I shrieked when he caught my hand.  “Ugh! Look, either I get to sleep or you get to scare me, but you have to pick one.  And I can’t see when you are going to touch me, so it’s scary every time.  That’s why I asked you not to.  But if you can’t do that, can you at least tell me when it’s coming?”

“Would that really make it better if you knew I was going to lick my way up your back?”

“It would if I knew you would listen when I tell you not to.  This is about trust, Nick.  I don’t trust you.  I am already very aware of how vulnerable I am here.  You could easily lock me in the basement and wait for me to starve to death.  You could smother me with my pillow.  Hell, you could slice open an artery and hide the razor blade in the walls.”  I stopped abruptly, wondering if I was just giving him ideas.  “I can’t stop you and I can’t leave and I can’t trust you not to lock me in the bedroom because you think that will help me sleep.”  He let go of my hand.  I turned on the light and looked around the empty house.  “My head hurts and I don’t want to be afraid any more.”

“I have never done anything to hurt you, but I can see how I have done things that are frightening.”  It sounded like a whisper on the very edge of hearing.  “Turn out the light, lay down and I will rub your back until you can sleep.  I will do my very best not to be scary.”

I turned on my laptop as a source of light and sound before I turned off the light switch.  “I can’t believe I am saying this, but if you want this to be less scary for me, find me a nightlight.  I haven’t needed one since I was ten, but, congratulations, I do now.”

I felt the bed dip.  It didn’t always do that.  “I’m going to rub your back now,” he whispered. “You can tell me to stop.”

“Ok,” I acknowledge.

It wasn’t a massage; it was more like a person petting a cat.  He started at the top of my head and stroked back to my waist, then stopped and started again.  It was vaguely soothing and I was really exhausted by then.  At some point in the night I woke to see a huge black shape hunched over my keyboard.

In the morning I had emails confirming my order of six cartoon animal night lights from IKEA and one from an auction house saying they would be happy to broker the sale of my wine and that they would send an expert to confirm its authenticity.  

I wondered how you forge wine.