#feels like a good day for the shining. it's real cold and spooky outside

[sylveriasarcana]

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[darthfrodophantom]

Ectoberhaunt Day 5: Ouija Board

Summary: To get into the spooky season spirit, Tucker and Sam convince Danny to play a video game late at night, and Danny isn’t pleased about the subject of the video game.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/34303123 

Too Close to Home

“Let me get this straight,” Danny interrupted. “I fight ghosts - real ghosts - on a nightly basis. And now that I actually have a free night you want to take up the time that I should be sleeping to fight fake ghosts?”

He shook his head as he looked at his computer screen, the only light in his entire bedroom aside from the digital clock that showed the hour: 11:45. From the first-person view of the computer game on his screen, he watched the avatars of both of his friends attempt to throw basketballs into a hoop.

“But this is way more fun,” Tucker’s voice said over Danny’s headset. “And it hurts a lot less! Ah! Dang it Sam - you messed up my throw!”

Sam cackled triumphantly. “Better pay more attention to your timing then.”

Tucker groaned as his avatar abandoned the basketball for spray paint cans, which he chucked at Sam. “Besides Danny, we’re not fighting ghosts: we’re hunting them.”

“Fine, fight, hunt, whatever. I still do both of them,” Danny argued.

“Not like this you don’t,” Tucker grinned. “God he’s gonna get creamed.”

“You know Danny, maybe we should let you go to bed. You’re gonna ruin my perfect streak,” Sam teased.

Danny rolled his eyes. “Or maybe you’ll actually do better because you have a true ghost hunting professional on the team,” he defended. He had no idea why he was bragging - he’d just been given an out and given the late hour he should take it, but now it felt like he needed to defend his pride as a ghost hunter. …That thought sounded a little too similar to something his parents would say and he quickly dismissed it. “Besides, I played the tutorial, I know what I’m doing. I’m just trying to figure out why we’re doing this.”

“Because it’s spooky season,” Tucker replied with a hint of sarcasm.

“We are only five days into October, Tucker, and if you’re gonna keep doing this all month I am going to hit you with the Fenton Anti-Creep Stick,” Sam threatened.

“I dunno, it might be worth it,” Tucker teased. “What do you think Danny?”

Danny shook his head, even though none of them could see it. “As the only person in this group who has actually been hit by the Fenton Anti-Creep Stick, I would back off,” he advised.

“Listen to Danny Tucker,” Sam chuckled as her avatar walked over to the white board to set up the hunt. “He’s actually speaking wisdom for once. Now come over here and pick out your gear.”

The playful teasing between best friends stopped as they actually got serious and picked out the gear they would need for their mission. Since Danny had no money, he couldn’t really participate in the conversation, but it seemed like Tucker and Sam had played this enough to know what they needed to bring. Sam started the mission, and their avatars found themselves inside the trailer looking at another whiteboard.

“Alright, looks like our ghost is named Thomas Clark and he responds to all of us,” Sam informed the group while Tucker’s avatar walked over to the shelves to equip supplies.

“Well that’s a dumb name for a ghost,” Danny complained as he looked at the bulletin board next to the computer. He had to squint at his screen to read them, but the articles were fairly legible and contained ghost stories he remembered hearing his parents talk about. It also had a recent article that he actually remembered running in USA Today proclaiming Amity Park as the most haunted city in the world - he didn’t know whether to feel proud or annoyed.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Sam agreed, though her voice was laced with sarcasm. “He should have gone with Thomas Phantom instead.”

Danny rolled his eyes as Tucker burst out laughing. “Oh yeah, now that sounds like a proper ghost,” Tucker added between laughs.

“I knew I was going to hate this,” Danny groaned under his breath. “Can we just get this over with?”

Sam’s avatar turned to face the new whiteboard. “Alright, fine. Objective one: find out what kind of ghost we’re dealing with - standard. Objective two: witness a ghost event.”

“I am a ghost event,” Danny smirked, causing Tucker to burst out laughing again.

“Objective three,” Sam snapped, “capture a photo of the ghost.”

Tucker’s avatar grabbed a camera and snapped a picture of Danny’s avatar. “Got one!” he proclaimed, which drove both boys into laughter.

“Objective four,” Sam said louder, “get a ghost to walk through salt.”

“What? That’s dumb. Everyone knows that’s an old wive’s tale,” Danny complained as he shook his head. Did the creators of this game actually do any real research before they made this game?

“Are you regretting this yet Sam?” Tucker asked as he finally stopped laughing.

“Let’s just get in the house,” she groaned. Danny smirked in triumph, and he could tell Tucker was sharing a similar smirk on his end.

They divided up equipment between the three of them, but not before Danny could comment on the inaccuracies of each of the pieces of equipment and how useless they’d be in an actual ghost fight. From faulty science to just being plain incorrect, Danny made sure to have pithy comments about all the equipment. He didn’t know why it bothered him so much that it had to be accurate - he was not his parents - but as a ghost and a ghost hunter, it just felt a little more personal than he wanted to admit.

Because he was the newest one, Danny got stuck with the Spirit Book (“What? Are they trying to imply all ghosts can’t write? That’s alivist!”) and the EMF Reader (“...Okay that one’s actually accurate”) because they were apparently the easiest to use. Laden down with their gear they walked up to the small house. Sam’s avatar unlocked the door and they headed inside. Danny noticed the tonal shift immediately. Outside he could hear wind and crickets chirping, but once he stepped inside the doorway, an oppressive silence covered his headphones. It reminded him of the sensation on a pressurised airplane and it unnerved and unsettled him...a lot more than he planned to admit to his friends.

“Alright, spread out,” Sam instructed. “See if you can find the ghost room.”

Ghost room, right. He remembered that from the tutorial. It had been the garage in the tutorial, so he figured he should start there. He walked back through the dark house, turning lights on as he went. It wasn’t because he was scared - absolutely not, he was a real ghost hunter! - it was just much easier to see. He pulled out the EMF reader and walked into the garage. It had an eerie quality to it, and he couldn’t tell if it was because he remembered seeing the ghost there last time (a mean looking (and inaccurate) ghost covered in blood and holding an axe) or if it was because he was alone and the room was so large, but he did not like being in here.

“You know, in the tutorial, the ghost was a bloody axe-man,” Danny remarked over the walkie talkie.

“Yeah, I think he’s standard in the tutorial,” Sam remarked offhand. He did not want to admit how good it felt to hear her voice in the oppressive silence of the house. They were clearly focused on their tasks, and that was a good thing, but it felt a lot better hearing their voices.

“Red blood,” he continued, simply to trigger more conversation. He didn’t get any EMF readings, so he gratefully left the garage. “Not ectoplasm. It’s like they didn’t even try.”

“Ugh, Danny, they’re going for a horror aesthetic, not something real,” Sam sighed.

“What? Ectoplasm-stains are horrifying,” he countered as he walked through the rest of the first story. Still no EMF readings.

“Only when it’s yours,” Sam said, and the weight of those words echoed in the silence of the house that made him stop moving for a moment. “No cold spots upstairs,” Sam informed them to break the silence.

“Yeah, no EMF downstairs,” Danny added. “I’m gonna check out the basement.” That’s where they loved to hang out in the real world, so it seemed the next best choice.

“Oh hang on, if you’re going down there I’ll go with you,” Tucker spoke up.

Danny stopped halfway down the stairs. “It’s fine, I’m pretty used to basements,” he joked weaky.

“Yeah, well the last time you went into a basement alone with untested ghost equipment you died.” Tucker said it light-heartedly as a joke, and it was one they’d said a bunch of times before, but somehow it just didn’t feel the same in this tense environment. It felt too...personal.

He waited for Tucker’s avatar to appear before they walked down the stairs together into the basement. Unlike Sam’s basement or his own, this basement had a much creepier feel to it, with the foreboding worn brick walls and discolored cement flooring. Honestly he was glad Tucker went down there with him because it just felt better having another person there.

“Sam, maybe you should get down here with the thermometer,” Tucker mentioned as they both walked through the basement. “Because we’re not--”

Danny whirled around as he heard something thud hard against the ground behind him while he jumped in his chair. The EMF reader in his hand jumped up to three dots and blared at them while he stared at a box of tools now on the ground. The ghost was clearly in the room. Danny half-expected his ghost sense to go off, but he had to remind himself it was just a video game. There wasn’t actually a ghost here.

“What happened?” Sam’s urgent voice said over the walkies.

“Ghost knocked something off the shelf down here,” Tucker said as his avatar walked over to the toolbox. “Ooh! We’ve got fingerprints!” he cheered as his avatar shined a light on a glowing handprint.

“Oh that’s so not how that works,” Danny complained, just to help lighten the mood. Honestly he felt a bit jumpy knowing that the ghost was in the room...and he couldn’t sense him. He’d dealt with invisible ghosts before, but his ghost sense always gave him a vague idea of where they were...except for now. He turned in his chair to check the room behind him. No ghosts, no ghost sense. It’s just in the computer game.

“Figures that the ghost would be in the basement,” Sam remarked as her avatar walked down the stairs and opened her journal. Right! Journal. Danny opened his and placed their one piece of evidence inside. The sooner they got all of those the sooner they could leave, and he really liked that idea.

“I’m not seeing freezing temperatures, but it is a little cooler than the rest of the house,” she continued. “So let’s start setting stuff up in here. Tucker get the DOTS up and I’ll place the camera. Danny place the spirit book.”

Okay, this wasn’t so bad with the three of them in the room. He could hear them moving around and he could see them, so it made him feel a bit better. And there was still no sign of the ghost. He put the spirit book down near the toolbox and looked away from it. Maybe the ghost wouldn’t write in it while he was watching? He didn’t know.

“Ooh!” Tucker cried excitedly.

“Did you see it in the DOTS?” Sam asked.

“No - Ouija board! Oh yeah!” Tucker cheered. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“Oh I love these,” Sam agreed. Danny’s brow furrowed as he looked at the screen. Why were they acting so happy - didn’t they forget there was a ghost in this room with them?

“Hang on, let Danny try the Ouija board,” Tucker suggested. “You know, because he’s never seen it before.”

“Ooh good idea,” Sam agreed. Danny walked over to where they were and saw Sam’s avatar set down a light brown board.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sus about your motives right now,” Danny said. He had a bad feeling about this...

“No Danny, it’s fine. These are actually pretty cool in this game,” Sam assured him. She quickly explained how the Ouija boards worked in the game and what questions to ask, and against his better judgment, he walked over and activated the board. The numbers and letters glowed orange against the light color of the wood.

He decided to start with something easy, so he swallowed and forced his voice to come out clear. “How old are you?” He jumped in his chair and his avatar backed up quickly as the planchette moved across the letters.

“Y - O - U - N - G,” Tucker read. “A young ghost.”

“Oh God, I hope that doesn’t mean it’s the crawling baby ghost,” Sam sighed. “I really hate that one.”

“Ask it something else,” Tucker encouraged.

“I don’t know,” Danny hedged. For some reason the Ouija board set him on edge. Something deep in his gut did not like this. Even if it wasn’t real and he kept telling himself it wasn’t real, he didn’t like it.

“No dude, it’s okay,” he assured him. “You can ask two questions before a significant sanity drop. Just ask it one more and you can go back to the truck.”

He very much wanted to go back to the truck. He just needed a chance to regroup. He was a ghost and fought ghosts for a living and he could not understand why this game unnerved him so much. But Danny Phantom wasn’t scared of ghosts, any kind of ghosts, and he wasn’t about to show it on a video game. “Fine,” he groaned as he picked up the board again. “Who died?”

This time he knew what to expect, and didn’t jump as much as the planchette started moving. First to the D, then to the A. Over to the N, then looping back to the N. It ended on a Y.

All three of them stopped moving. The silence became even more deafening around them. Danny dropped the Ouija board and backed up as far as the game would let him. He felt a cold sweat drip down his back. Danny. It spelled Danny. How did it know his name?

“...That has got to be a coincidence,” Sam finally said after the silence that seemed to stretch on forever.

“The ghost’s name must be Danny,” Tucker suggested, voice full of forced bravado.

“...No it’s Thomas,” Sam said slowly. “It must just be reading your username to scare you,” she decided.

“No my...my username is GhostBoy,” Danny reminded them, finally feeling like he could speak.

“Is this game actually haunted? Danny, what did you do?” Tucker accused, voice bordering on hysterics.

“What? I didn’t do anything!” Danny yelled back. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest. He put a hand up to feel his breath - still normal temperature. He looked around his room. There wasn’t a ghost here. But how did it know his name? And that he did almost die in a basement? “You’re the one that told me to use it!”

“Okay, let’s just calm down,” Sam interrupted. “It’s gotta be a coincidence. Let me try it and see if it says the same thing or gives me my name. It could be a new update that checks the name on the Steam account or something.”

Sam moved closer to the board, but before she could touch it all their flashlights flickered.

“Shit!” Tucker yelled.

“Run!” Sam cried in a panic.

Danny followed them up the stairs to the main level. The idea of running from a ghost, not fighting it, was so foreign to him, but he had no choice. He was powerless here. No ghost powers, no weapons, no thermos. He was completely helpless against this ghost.

He bolted for the garage, the one other room he knew how to get to. Sam’s avatar was running next to him. He could hear footsteps behind him and he swore as he ran towards the garage. Sam diverted into another room, but he continued into the garage. He found a locker he’d opened before and rushed into it. He barely remembered to turn off his flashlight and he waited. Seconds passed and he realized he was holding his breath. No...not holding his breath. Not breathing. He looked down at his hands and saw the glowing white gloves. When...when did he change into his ghost form?

Sam’s voice over the walkie startled him. “What the--? Oh my G--” The walkie feed cut to static and then nothing.

“I...I think it got Sam,” Tucker’s voice said over the walkie. Danny turned on his flashlight and saw that it was no longer blinking. He threw his head back in relief. The hunt was over. He climbed back out of his locker, keeping the door open again just in case.

“Dude, she was running right next to me. It must have followed her instead of me,” Danny told him. “Ugh, well what are we going to do now? She’s the only one who knew what she was doing!”

“Wait, I thought you would be a pro because you’re a ‘professional ghost hunter’ - isn’t that what you kept saying?” Tucker teased.

“Yeah, well I lied! This is nothing like ghost hunting!” he argued as he walked out of the garage. He was going back to the trailer. “Real ghost hunters would bring some kind of weapon and wouldn’t just run around helpless! We should just call it.”

“What? No! We’ve got two more pieces of evidence to collect. And we haven’t done any of the objectives! Tucker retorted.

“Fine!” he snapped as he walked down the main hallway. “if you want to keep looking for clues you can, but I’m going back to the trailer to check--”

The front door slammed shut. His flashlight blinked again.

“Shit!” Tucker cried.

Danny could hear the footsteps behind him. He could feel a heart thumping in his headset. He started running off to a room but stopped. No, he was not running again. He was going to stare this ghost down and prove that Danny Phantom was not scared of some ghost. His image struck fear in the hearts of ghosts and his name carried respect in the Ghost Zone. He was not going to let some video game ghost get the better of him and spook him with some Ouija board trick.

He turned around to face it, camera at the ready. If he was going down, he was getting a picture of it. The ghost blinked in the hallway and Danny saw the cause of his anxiety for the first time. The ghost floated down the hallway, with white hair and a black and white jumpsuit. It...it was him. The ghost was Phantom.

He completely forgot to take a picture as his own image rushed at him. He saw two gloved hands cover over the screen and then everything went dark. He heard the crash of breaking glass, saw a strange underground cavern for a second, and then he was back in a foggy blue version of the house.

The ghost of Sam’s avatar approached him, and he heard her laughing over the headset. It sounded like she’d been laughing for awhile. “Oh my god Danny, did you see the ghost?” she asked between laughs.

“It...that was...oh my God,” he groaned. It all made sense. Spelling Danny was likely an Easter egg, a cute nod to his name of Danny Phantom. The fact that it happened in the basement was just a coincidence, because it’s a creepy spot and a commonly haunted area. He hadn’t summoned anything. He wasn’t being targeted by some ghost in the computer. It was just an Easter egg paying homage to him.

Suddenly all the stress left him and he laughed. God, it felt so good to laugh after all that panic. This game had gotten him so worked up and over what? Over a ghost that looked like himself? Suddenly it all seemed so silly that it scared him that much. He had felt actual dread and fear, enough to trigger an unconscious transformation out of a need to protect himself, but there weren’t actually any real consequences. Now he just got to walk around unhindered in this ghostly version of the house, but nothing else actually happened.

Sam laughed along with Danny. “So you did see it then?”

“It was...oh my god Sam it was me! It looked just like me!”

“I know!” she exclaimed. “As soon as I saw it I forgot to keep running and stared. So of course it killed me. I did get a picture though,” she bragged.

“Oh man. I meant to, but I was just too stunned.” Now that he felt much better, he decided to wander around the house following Tucker who, for some reason, was still trying to finish the level on his own.

Sam suspiciously stopped her laughing. “Wait...Danny, your voice sounds weird. Are you...are you in your ghost form?”

Danny bit his lip as a slight blush graced his cheeks. “I don’t want to hear it.” But the telltale whoosh of the glowing rings turning him back to his human form seemed to be all the confirmation she needed. Except, he didn’t hear her laugh.

“...Danny, I wanted to apologize,” she said, and that made Danny stop moving and look quizzically at the screen.

“What? Apologize for what?” he asked.

“For goading you into playing this game,” she clarified, her voice surprisingly serious. “While I’ve been hanging out here in the spirit world, I realized why this game set you off so much.”

“What do you mean? I never said it set me off,” Danny defended. How could she possibly know that? He thought he was playing it pretty cool.

“Oh please,” she scoffed. “You’re in your ghost form and you were panicking after the Ouija board thing.”

“Hey you would panic too if--”

“Danny I’m trying to say that I get it,” she interrupted. “Being near a ghost without your powers? Without any weapons? Being powerless? It’s one of your biggest nightmares, that your powers will fail when you need them. And this game, it’s too close to home.”

Danny stopped moving and stared at the screen, because she was absolutely right. This was too close to home. How many times did he have to check to make sure his ghost sense wasn’t actually going off? How many times did he keep thinking about how similar everything felt to his own experiences? How unnerved he was about a ghost in the basement? It was too similar to his real life...except he had the tools he needed in his real life. Not a flashlight and some dumb spirit book, but actual real tools and powers and weapons, but here they were all taken away from him. Everything he relied on to fight ghosts had been stripped from him in the game and trapped him helpless in a house with his friends. Of course that bothered him. It was, as Sam said, one of his more recurring nightmares.

“...Yeah I think I’m good never playing this game again,” Danny admitted, the closest he planned to get to acknowledging everything she said was true.

“Honestly? I don’t blame you,” Sam agreed softly. “I think it’s easier for us because we’re used to this role: when there’s a ghost in the area, we help figure out what’s going on and support you. It’s not all that different from this game,” she explained. Her ghostly avatar followed Tucker out of the house and he followed after them. “But when you’re used to doing the fighting and defending and can’t...I guess it’s probably harder to separate yourself from the game.”

He reached behind him and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah,” he sighed. As much as he hated to admit it, she was right. It was too similar to his daily life, and as he tried to argue at the beginning, he didn’t need to hunt fake ghosts poorly when he knew how to fight real ghosts well. “You know you sound like Jazz,” he pointed out, trying to lighten the mood and change the subject.

“Wow, you’re going to insult me after I tried to help you?” Sam scoffed. “See if I ever help you again!”

Danny smiled at the screen, glad to be back to the teasing. He definitely felt more relaxed and more like himself. “Oh look, Tucker’s finally calling it quits,” Danny observed as Tucker closed the door to the trailer.

“God, I can’t wait to find out if he saw you.” He could hear her grinning through the headset and honestly he felt the same. Out of all of them, Tucker would be the most excited about this addition.

The screen changed over to the menu screen, showing all their accomplished objectives. It also meant that all three party members could talk to each other again. “I can’t believe you left me!” Tucker complained. “It’s even worse when you’re in there on your own! Do you know how much more evidence we needed to collect? Um, a ton!”

Sam laughed, and Danny had to join in. “Okay so we are sorry about that, but Tucker did you ever see the ghost?”

“No, which is probably why I’m the only one that survived!” he complained.

“Oh my god Sam, he didn’t see it,” Danny groaned.

“Oh my god.”

“No wait, didn’t see what?” Tucker asked. His voice had calmed down a bit and was colored with curiosity.

“Tucker...the ghost was Danny,” Sam told him.

“Uh no, we clarified his name was Thomas,” Tucker corrected.

Sam and Danny both groaned. “No Tucker, the ghost was Danny Phantom. It was skinned to look like Phantom,” she clarified.

Tucker’s line sat silent for a long time before he finally exploded in a shower of shock, excitement, and regret. “NO WAY! No! That is so cool! I mean I knew the developers were fans, but this is so cool! Like literally the best tribute ever. Oh my god I can’t believe I missed it! No!” he cried. He was so loud into the microphone that Danny had a hard time believing Tucker didn’t wake his parents.

“It’s why both of us died,” Danny explained. “We were just too shocked seeing it.”

“We’re going back in. I need to see this,” Tucker demanded.

Danny bit his lip. He was not going back in. He meant it when he said he was done. He almost had his explanation on his lips before Sam spoke up first. “I doubt it’ll show up two times in a row. I Googled it and the skin will be here for the whole month of Halloween as a random draw, so you’ve got time to see it. But if you want to try again tonight, I’ll keep playing if you want. Danny...he needs to get some sleep.”

“What? No, it's so much easier with three people. Come on Danny,” Tucker pleaded.

“Nah, Sam’s right, I should go to bed. Gotta be rested for those real ghosts tomorrow,” Danny chuckled. “Besides, being killed by my own image was a little weird.” And also a little too close to home, considering some of his memories of Dan.

“Yeah, this game isn’t Danny’s jam,” Sam explained simply. He had a feeling Sam would talk to Tucker more about what they discussed while their avatars were dead, and honestly he didn’t mind. He didn’t want to keep secrets from Tucker, he just really didn’t want to talk about it any more tonight.

Tucker sighed. “Alright, fine, you’re off the hook. At least you gave it a try though.”

“I did, and you’re both gonna owe me one for doing it too,” Danny reminded them.

“Dude, pretty sure you’re in the negatives when it comes to IOUs from us,” Tucker pointed out with a good-natured laugh. “Testing out inventions, excuses at school, doing your homework, remembering the thermos when you forget it, distracting your parents…”

“Okay okay, I get it,” Danny groaned as he left the screen and exited out of the game. “Well fine, then I’m less in the negative now. And on that happy subject, I’m going to bed. Good night guys.”

“Good night Danny,” Sam replied. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

Danny almost hung up on their private Discord server when he heard Tucker speak up. “Hey Danny, wait.”

“What?” he asked curiously, his mouse still hovering over the disconnect sign.

“The type of ghost...was a Phantom.”

I’ve never cross-posted on tumblr before, so this will be a first! I hope you enjoy!

[bvccy]

Friend, if you are still open for request, can you please do Heliotrope with the Winter Soldier? 🥺 please thank you 💛💛💛

My dear 😭 I am so so sorry for how long this took! I just hope you can enjoy the fic. It’s a little bit spooky at the beginning, but WS is soft and so is our reader. And they get their happy-ever-after 💗

Thank you very much for this prompt also! 🌺🌺🌺

— PAIRING: soft!Winter Soldier x female!Reader — PROMPT: Heliotrope - walking in the sun, and losing each other — LINKS: Masterlist • love stones prompt list — WORDCOUNT: 2.1k

They had been living in darkness for months, and the oppressive cold that battered against the walls with fierce winds all day, and hungry howls at night — not that one could tell night from day in the sunless vastness, except by the ticking of the clock.

Hydra had installed that arctic facility at the mouth of a crater, covered by ice over the ages to conceal its dubious treasure. It was clear to the Soldier that the treasure was not made up of precious things, but it was only when the crew finished digging all the way down that he understood why all the scientists were there...

It was difficult for him to tell who the shuttle belonged to. It might have been some advanced technology from America, but then how did it get so deep down, so quickly? Maybe it was an old German prototype from the war, but it didn't look like any he'd seen before. Or maybe Hydra was just recovering their old property from past attempts... It didn't matter, he was just there to guard the scientists while they did the work.

The other soldiers stationed with him stopped taking the job seriously after the first three months, but he kept watch, and paid attention, and didn't miss the odd slimes that seeped across the floor out of those metal shells, nor the odd crunch as the scientists cut into something that looked soft and milky, but held like bone. And the smells, the cold metallic smells like iron dipped in silver... It sometimes felt like home, but he knew better than to let that grip him. And he kept watch.

The one chemist that doubled as the chef didn't make particularly good meals, but they were hearty, and if he was being honest, he was eating better at this isolated station than he did at the Base — felt freer too, almost in charge of his destiny, if one didn't count the frozen wastes he'd have to survive if he ever wanted to run. But the Soldier couldn't imagine why he'd ever wish to run.

Especially when she was here.

Studying the files of all the scientists on the mission, her portrait stood out as particularly sad, morose, with a bit of a death glare toward the cameraman. But when he actually saw her, she seemed sweet like a spring day and even happy to be there. She looked up into his eyes as she walked into the protected area to study their find, blinking up from beneath a mess of furs and protective equipment, but there was a smile crinkling around her gaze. As the months drew on and everyone got more bored with staying there, and loose with themselves, they'd sometimes play some music in the lab, and the Soldier didn't know why he liked it so much or felt the need to dance with someone.

The military staff initially had their own mess hall, a small room with a kitchenette where they could eat together, but then one of the doctors needed it to test the effects of temperature changes on some of the samples, and the place was... contaminated every since. Now, they all ate together. The girl who'd caught his eye tended to eat with her own team, the Geologists, but he could feel her looking at him sometimes, he noticed her lingering when he was around even if she was about to leave, and a few times she even dared approach him — under the excuse of getting the jar of sugar that was on his other side rather than reaching for the one next to her, or leaning down to get some plate she didn't need from right by his knees. It wasn't until she tried to reach a glass above his head, beyond her grasp, that he gave in and acknowledged her.

"Thank you," she said as he handed her the cup — the first time she'd ever said anything to him. Her voice suited her, but beyond its soft tones the Soldier was struck by being thanked at all. When was the last time that happened? What did one say in response?

"You're welcome?"

And he seemed so unsure saying it that he made her giggle.

She was inevitable after that, not because she was trying to be found but because he allowed himself to be around her, to guard her door while she chipped at stones and studied them, to sit near her during lunch — not right beside her, the Soldier still had a lingering shyness about that, but at least on the table opposite, from which they could look at each other if they wanted.

The long night was almost over, four months into their stay at this forsaken place, and the pair had taken to something really dangerous: in the small barn attached to the base, where some dry supplies were kept along with canisters of fuel, they escaped together while everyone else slept. He had led her there first, asking timidly whether she'd...

"Want to see something new?"

"Always," the girl grinned.

And so they found themselves piled on top of one another like firewood, almost not feeling each other beneath the layers of fur that kept them warm, but just being in each other's presence was... something. It was quiet without being quiet, with another real soul there, thinking its own thoughts in harmony with you.

The Asset wouldn't allow himself to fall asleep, though he did close his eyes sometimes and let the girl relax against him, and doze off, and during those times he allowed his arm to come down from where it propped his head up and wrap itself around her, holding her still — as if she were in danger of falling off some imaginary bed.

Nobody ever seemed to wonder where they both disappeared to, nobody noticed, which was why he was all the more surprised to hear shouting on that day. The Soldier didn't move, just tightened his arm around his little partner more. But when a bloodcurdling cry echoed through the vastness, he shook her awake.

"Wha—"

"Get up. The base is under attack," he muttered, reaching for the rifle laid beside him.

"That's crazy, who would attack us all the way out here?"

He didn't want to tell her what he thought, but only made her hide out in the shed while he went out to scout the area. Turning his radio on, nothing came through. There were no helicopters around, no trucks, no marks in the snow that anyone had attacked — at least, not from the outside. On the horizon, just the rays of a reluctant dawn were shining.

There was silence for a while, and then another symphony of screams rang out, muffled by the walls and the desperate shots of whoever was left inside, glass and metal knocked over, broken, and silence once again. Stepping away slowly, then more hurriedly, the Soldier returned to where he'd left the girl and picked her up by the elbow.

"Come on, we're leaving."

"Leaving where?" she cried out, confused and even slightly angry. "What's going on?"

"We're under attack."

"But our research..."

The Soldier dragged her to where the trucks were parked, and after the first flush of confusion she went along quietly. He gave her the rifle to hold while he looked in the back, making sure they had enough supplies for whatever drive awaited them — gas was there, some blankets too, and more ammunition. It would have to do. And without sparing another moment, he got in beside her and drove off. Against the rumbling of the engine as it drifted on the ice, a shrill scream cut through the frozen air and reached them, not sounding human nor animal nor like anything in the world, except perhaps a demon. The girl didn't look back, she wouldn't dare, she just looked quietly at the Soldier as she slowly understood. They drove into the sunrise as its rays burned away everything behind, and the snowdrifts buried it.

They didn't stop until the sky was bright as a midday, many hours later.

"Are we slowing down?" the girl mumbled sleepily.

"We're nearing a town," he said, eyes on the GPS. "Need to check that the road is clear. And that we are, too."

She stretched the shivers from her bones, but deep down she trusted the Soldier to keep them safe.

Getting out in what-felt-like days, frozen stiff, muscles aching from the shot of fear that penetrated down to her bones, the girl got out and reached for the sky with all she had. The air felt freer and fresher than ever before, even though it still hurt her lungs when it reached to their very bottom, but she loved such a pain — it felt like life.

The Asset walked slowly to her, just watching silently and smiling a half-smile at the sight of her all ruffled and soft, and safe.

"What do you think happened to the base?"

"Guess it's a mess by now," he hummed, bringing one gloved hand to feel around her head, her shoulders, down her arms, but always gently.

"We woke that thing up, didn't we?"

"You're the smart one, you tell me."

Her lips pursed — she never liked it when he teased her, but she tried never to reproach him for it, loving this sign of his personality shining through. "Are we far enough away now?"

"I don't know," he sighed, finally looking back into her eyes. "Are we?"

"The sun would kill it."

"How do you know that?"

She didn't answer but wouldn't look away either, and her determined gaze was enough for him. She did know more than he did, she'd spent months studying whatever that was, and that was fine by him. So long as none of it had managed to sneak on board.

"Stay close to me."

They walked around the car together and he checked the back, the wheels, then climbed on top and checked there too. Through the clearness of the day, he could even see the edges of a road that must've lead to that town. The car seemed clean, but they were close enough to a rescue that he'd rather not take any risks, and so picking up just a few useful things and one backpack, they started walking.

The snow got less deep and crunched beneath their boots, the wind was gentler downhill and even moved through the tendrils loosened from their hoods, shaking off the frost. In the distance, one tree stood tall, thin and dark and barren but alive, and over all of them the sun kept shining.

"We're almost at the road," said the Soldier, spotting a black snaking line a few meters ahead. He turned his head when he didn't hear anything back, but there was only the glint of sunlight on the snow.

Amorphous fog covered the horizons, and hills and dales of white, and suddenly the light felt very hot and burned his body as he turned frantically around and called for her. With mad fear, he traced back their steps up the snowy hill, nearly swimming through it as he called for her, terrified of the unthinkable.

Then, as if from the sea, a lone hand reached up and waved at him. Within one breath, he'd reached her, sitting in the snow just a few feet away.

"I'm so tired..." she huffed, burrowing like a rabbit. "Can't we rest a while?"

"You didn't rest enough in the car? Get up," he grumbled, pulling her up to her feet. He regretted snapping as soon as he saw her sad little face, and sighed. "I'm sorry. I was worried."

"I'm sorry too, for being so weak..."

Before thinking, he pulled her in and kissed the snow off her mouth. "None of that," he smiled as their lips parted. "Come on, we're so close. I'll carry you a bit if you want."

The girl shook her head mutely, face already flushed from frost but now truly heated. To be cared for, and worried about, and searched like that, and kissed... It put the life right back into her.

He kept his word and carried her in his arms at one point, but they both walked in the town together. Nobody knew who they were or where they came from and some had a few murmured questions, but by the time Hydra sent an extraction team for them, it didn't matter — they were gone, lost in the wind like two rays of sunshine.

[loquaciousquark]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E113 (Oct. 27, 2020)

Good evening and good night, lovely people of the world! We’re on the internet and ready to go. Tonight’s guests are Travis Willingham and Sam Riegel. This will be calm, controlled, and sane, I can feel it. Brian points out it’s been seven months since either of them were on Talks. Oof. (Sam asks if it’s been going the whole time without him. Bigger oof.) Travis keeps sneaking bites out of an acai bowl or something and tries to look sneaky about it, and I laugh every time because he’s just...so big. He’s such a big person.

(Brian is wearing a lobstrosity shirt. He and Travis talk about Dark Tower for a bit; then Sam tries to get into the conversation: “Is that the thing from It?” Brian: “Is what the thing from It?” Sam: “Is that lobster the clown from It? I’m not very literate. Is that a Langolier? Is that a Shawshank?”)

Announcements: none! Maybe they just forgot. We’ve been talking about Sam’s spooky skeleton decorations for like five minutes. Brian suggests taking them to Travis’s house. Travis: “That’s the fastest way to get to the smell of burning plastic.” Brian: “Speaking of your girlfriend...”

On Avantika: Fjord wouldn’t call it a relationship as much as a casual sexual interaction. Not official! Super not official!!

The first sea voyage wasn’t great for Fjord, but he tried to be thoughtful about preparing for this one before they left: praying, kneeling at the bow of the ship, etc. He’s a little disappointed the Wildmother didn’t even throw him a “yo, fam” heads up.

They weren’t sure how to resolve the conflict at first, since Avantika went for Fjord rather than the crystal. No one expected it to get exposed in that way. Travis thought the necklace was a pocket dimension and was alarmed to learn it wasn’t. Travis wants it destroyed along with the third gateway, so until they are he won’t rest easy.

Everyone enjoyed watching them all fail on the battlefield again. (Sam: “You used [Counterspell] so effectively!”) Travis thought he’d said Thunder Step, which would imply Avantika was running, rather than Thunder Wave. Sam says it’s fine since none of them have that spell and he wouldn’t know it anyway.

It’s very difficult for Veth to find reasons to stay with the M9. She loves the adventures and making a difference, but she also wants to come home and have weekends and have a husband and life. “She’s a career girl!” He’s very excited about the possibilities of Caleb’s transportation effectively creating an easy commute for her. He also, as a player, doesn’t want to be the person who’s always leaving the party. “My characters wanna roam!”

Travis was fully tilted that Avantika might have gotten away right before the break. He doesn’t think he could have focused on Vess DeRogna’s task knowing Avantika had gotten away; he was seriously working out how Fjord would leave the party to go make a last stand at the third gate if she’d escaped.

Sam looooves how Matt plays Yeza, but it honestly makes him feel a little worse at how encouraging he is for Veth to chase her dreams. “He’s always like - go shine! Go blossom!” He wants to have the conversation about Yeza feeling a little ignored. It’s fun to share the tales of adventures with Luc & Yeza. 

Travis says there’s no way it’s Molly--it’s all Lucien. They don’t know if it was a resurrection, if he’s undead, possessed, etc. Everyone--everyone--rags on Taliesin’s accent work. Brian surreptitiously claims Ashly was brought on to relieve him of the burden of the accent. Poor Ashly, ha!

Initially, Travis landed on the Oath of the Ancients, but it had more nature & pacifism in it than he felt fit Fjord very well. Many of them also had a focus on good & lawfulness, which also didn’t feel quite right; he also wasn’t that vengeful for some of the others. He & Matt got together and discussed options. Matt asked what Travis liked about Fjord; Fjord’s love for the ocean was a huge part of it, since Travis himself also loves the ocean & scuba diving, and so Matt created a custom oath for him. Travis does not plan to post its details, but he thinks Matt will at some point.

Cosplay of the Week! a lovely Scanlan by Air Bubbles Cosplay! Sam tells us the “canon” Scanlan cosplay was actually borrowed hodgepodge, and the boots were falling off all day.

It was really cool to see how Yeza & Luc have made a home in Nicodranas. Felderwin was okay, but kind of your basic D&D fishing village, and she likes the Nicodranas is much better. She’s confident & comfortable knowing her family is safe and sound.

Why is Fjord so interested in finding Sabian? To him, post-orphanage, his time with Vandren was the best of his life & the most love he’d ever received, because he mattered & had worth. It was taken by someone he’d known basically his whole life, so Fjord is not going to let that go. “That fuckin’ bill needs to be paid, my friend.”

Sam acknowledges that he should NOT have looked at his phone in re: the Vilya reveal, but it was pretty surprising! He can’t believe none of them recognized it! Travis points out the M9 had never met, heard of, or known anything about Vilya, so it’s not that surprising. Brian points out Matt has also done a really good job keeping the two campaigns separate, so any references were tasteful. Sam marvels that it was so well done: it was tasteful, had emotional and story impact... “That Matt. He’s getting better!”

Liam texted Sam back something like “oh SHIT.”

Knowing Veth had a chance to help someone else return to her child made Veth feel almost karmically forgiven for being away from her kid, but it also made Veth a little guilty--”this lady wants to desperately return home, shouldn’t I want to go home too?” Caleb’s teleportation spell couldn’t have come a better time.

Sam wants Caleb & Astrid to get back together (well, he says “hump each other”), and Dani’s eyebrows climb off her forehead. Veth/Nott really thinks Caleb needs to have a roll in ze hay, and feels like after meeting her that there is a kindness or vulnerability to her that could be worthwhile. Travis thinks she feels like someone tethered, that it feels like she has a bomb or something in her chest that’ll explode if she tries to leave. Sam thinks Eadwulf is super cool. None of these names are spelled like I think.

Travis found the dinner super frustrating, because he felt Caleb was trying to walk a diplomatic line and he just wanted to backhand Trent. 

Fjord is still coming to terms with his feelings for Jester, and the feelings are definitely real, but there’s a lot of timing that he’s considering and he also wants to figure out what the relationship is like outside of constant tension and battle. Fjord is also having trouble figuring out how to exercise the ability to display affection as well since he’s never received them, and is feeling out how to give and receive them. “It’s fine now, because he’s feeling it, but once you say it out loud, or once you come to a point where you make it known to the other side, then what happens? It might be ruined. It might be broken. Or it might not be!” The moment with the porcelain unicorn was too good not to try. Travis also sighs that he’s not a romance D&D guy, “but now I am! Fuckin’ Laura Bailey!” He’s definitely feeling it out and will see how it unfolds in the game.

If Jester hadn’t let go of the Traveler, Fjord would have either attacked the Traveler or the Moonweaver and tried to kick them both off.

Sam doesn’t think the Traveler’s realized yet what a dick he is. Brian thinks it may not happen in this campaign, but agrees the full weight of what he deserves hasn’t been felt yet. Travis: “Yeah, he came to the edge, but it didn’t cost him anything.” Brian: “Yeah, he’s a real edgelord.”

Fanart of the Week! a beautiful portrait of Molly in the snow by @claygryphon on twitter.

Veth acknowledges that they work for shady people with shady pasts, so Vess DeRogna isn’t her first rodeo, but this time it’s personal. It’s Jaws 2: Electric Boogaloo. Sam can’t commit to actual actions, since Vess is like level 20 or something, but “I will get some kinda revenge. Be it petty or significant, I will get revenge.”

How are they feeling about being in Eiselcross? They’ve only just landed, so not sure yet. The cold is intimidating. They’re excited to explore a new island that’s part of Wildemount, especially with the river of lava running through it. “It’s icy with lava? Sounds like a Dairy Queen.”

There’s still a ton of unknowns regarding the Tombtakers, Vess, the nature of their job, and who’s here on whose orders. They’re excited to see how it’s all going to play out. Travis laughs that he doesn’t take notes, he’s just here to fight things. It just washes over him when Matt starts talking about names and places. “It’ll reveal itself in time. [...] I don’t write those notes down. I don’t even know how to spell it off the bat.” I have never identified more with Travis. Sam actually does pay attention and take notes and was really impressed by Marisha’s dive.

Veth became interested in branding her own spellcraft as soon as she saw Caleb doing it. “That’s what the influencer agents are gonna be looking at. It would be nice to leave the world better than we found it, but also with some branded spells.”

What were Fjord’s thoughts on dropping so much money on the ring & the Ioun stone? It wasn’t about money for Fjord, it was about a cool thing to acquire. It’s why he saves money in his campaign. Caleb needs “as much of a flak jacket as he can get.” He also REJECTS the idea of buyer’s remorse on the ring and touts the effectiveness it’ll have on the lava river.

Travis talks about his old coins - a 340AD coin he bought at a ren faire and a 120BC coin that was a gift from a friend.

Sam marvels at the love and thought that Caleb put into the tower. Sam points out they forgot to go to the top two floors altogether. Travis: “Did the mansion get as much careful planning from Scanlan as the tower did from Caleb?” Sam: Absolutely not. But they were still thinking small in C1, figuring out how things went, and they didn’t have as much detail in their heads yet.

And that’s all the time we have for tonight! We end on everyone whispering way too close into their mics and tapping fingernails on mason jars. A fitting end to this crazy episode, I think.

Is it Thursday yet?

[themurphyzone]

PatB/BatB AU: Imprisoned

Summary: Pinky tries to rescue his father from a spooky, mysterious castle, only to wind up the prisoner of a terrifying monster. Also the terrifying monster has no fucking idea what he's doing, but Pinky doesn't know that.

AN: Because I desperately want to write a BatB/PatB fic but I don’t want to tackle the entire movie cause this movie is more slow burn than most other Disney Princess stories. I decided to try the scene where Belle first meets the Beast just for curiosity’s sake.  

AO3 Link

Pharfignewton’s hooves nervously stirred up dead leaves and twigs as she halted in front of an eerie black gate, its bars crisscrossing over each other as if to prevent anyone from entering…or leaving.

An unfamiliar sense of dread swept over Pinky. The enormous castle beyond the gate loomed, the highest towers piercing the thick, gray clouds above. Still, Pharfignewton’s instincts were never wrong. If she said Papa was somewhere in that large, gloomy castle, then he was going to be in that large, gloomy castle.

Pinky gently flicked the reins, but Pharfignewton didn’t move. A tremble ran down her back.

“It’s okay, Fig,” Pinky whispered. He stroked her mane, and Pharfignewton whinnied softly. “Just think of your favorite things. Like apples, carrots, grassy meadows…”

A gust of wind blew the gate open. It crashed against the unforgiving stone wall.

Pharfignewton leapt back, the sudden move nearly pitching Pinky to the ground, but he clung to several strands of her mane and quickly scrambled into his usual position at the base of her neck.

She trotted across the stone bridge, ears swiveling in every direction.

“P-poit. They oughta change the lock on that thing,” Pinky murmured as the gate slammed shut.

Pharfignewton stumbled against a crack in the stone pathway leading up to the castle’s front door. She couldn’t go any further. The stone would damage her hooves, and they’d need to be in tip-top shape for the ride home.

“Fig, you’ll have to wait here.” Pinky climbed up her mane and onto her long muzzle, petting the soft fur between her eyes. Her head rose indignantly, stamping a hoof against the stone. “You shouldn’t go onto the stone without horseshoes. It’ll ruin your lovely hooves. And don’t worry, Papa and I will be back before you can say sugarcube!”

They couldn’t afford horseshoes for Pharfignewton, which prevented Pinky from riding her as often as he would’ve liked. Pinky’s chest ached from the reminder. Pharfignewton deserved pretty shoes.

She let out a gentle puff of air as she lowered him to the ground, giving him an encouraging nudge.

Pinky slowly approached the heavy doors, a brass gargoyle with bulging eyes serving as a doorknob. But the knob was at human height, not mouse height, so even with a running start and flying leap, he couldn’t reach it.

Then he remembered his manners. Breaking into a haunted, abandoned castle was awfully rude. What if he disturbed some ghosts in whatever ghostly things they did?

“Hello?” Pinky called, pressing an ear to the door as he knocked. “Anyone home?”

Nobody answered, but the door creaked slightly, allowing Pinky enough room to squeeze inside. Pinky bundled Mama’s well-worn traveling cloak around himself, trying not to think of the scolding he might’ve received as a young mouse about breaking and entering into strange places.

But he wasn’t stealing anything. He was just going to find Papa and bring him home. If Mama were alive, she’d understand.  

Somehow the castle interior was even colder and draftier than outside. Gargoyles lined the walls, crouching with their wings outstretched, and each one seemed to have their eyes trained on him. The inside was mostly stone, with a wine-red carpet leading from the doorway and splitting into two paths along an enormous staircase.

Torches and lanterns hung along the walls, but they were dim and barely provided light to see by.

Whoever built the castle must’ve had a great love for the Gothic style. Pinky could appreciate dedication to the theme, but he shied away from an eagle-like gargoyle all the same. There were eyes boring into him. He just knew it.

“Hello?” Pinky shouted.

“Hello!”

Pinky grinned. The echo made up for the dreary décor.

“Narf!”

“Narf!”

This time, he cupped his hands to his mouth, took a deep breath, and yelled from the top of his lungs.

“FJORD!”

“FJORD!”

Feeling slightly bolder, Pinky played a quick game of eenie-meenie-miney-mo for the path he’d take, since there were so many of them and he couldn’t choose just one. There were so many rooms. It would take a while to go through them all, so he’d have to chance it.

On the last count of ‘mo’, Pinky’s finger pointed at the rightmost staircase, so he climbed the long flight, his bare feet sinking into the carpet. He hoped the ghosts would forgive him for tracking dirt inside.

Clink clink clink.

Funny. Feet didn’t usually make that kind of noise on carpet.

Probably just the creaking of old metal. This castle had definitely seen better days, judging from the cobwebs that spanned entire corners far above his head.

He reached the top of the staircase. More doors and rooms awaited him down the dark hallway.

Pinky knocked on the nearest door. He heard a splash of water and the sweep of a mop coming from within. A maid, maybe?

They could point him in the right direction!

“Hello? Are you a castle maid? I’m sorry for interrupting your work, but I’m looking for my Papa!” Pinky shouted, pressing an ear against the door. Someone whispered urgently, the exact words too muffled to make out, and the splashing and sweeping noises stopped. “His name is Jack, he’s a little shorter than me, and…oh, he has a big bushy mustache too! He tends to get vegetable bits stuck in it when he eats. Have you seen him?”

No reply.

Pinky’s tail twitched nervously. Maybe the maids really didn’t like having their work interrupted.

“I’m sorry, I’ll…I’ll let you get back to work,” Pinky said. He backed away from the door, the hood of his cloak falling into his eyes.

Clink clink clink.

That noise again. Pinky lifted the hood away from his eyes, and he came face-to-face with a teacup, and he was pretty sure he hadn’t seen any teacups yet. Mostly gargoyles and spooky stuff, really.

The teacup was about his height, with a polished white surface and golden trim around its rim and base. Its handle was a shining red, and its pink base looked almost skirt-like, with a single yellow flower painted on the front.

“Aww, what a cute teacup!” Pinky exclaimed. He’d never seen any teacup like this before. Not even Snowball had something this ornate and pretty. “Wonder who painted you? Whoever it was, they’ve really got a great eye for color!”

He could’ve sworn the teacup’s handle lifted out of pride, but maybe the dim lighting was just playing tricks on him.

“Well, I don’t know how you got here, but I can’t just leave you alone either. What if somebody stepped on you?” Pinky lifted the teacup by the handle and carried it further down the hall. The teacup’s base seemed to twitch every few seconds.

He didn’t know where the kitchen was, but surely there had to be a cabinet or cupboard somewhere around here. He turned left when the path split again, and counted his lucky stars once he spotted a small table up ahead. The higher surface was several feet above his head, but the lower platform was at his shoulder level.  

Odd. There was a candelabra and a mantle clock here too. Strange place to store one’s knickknacks, but then again, Pinky kept his rock collection in a tea kettle, so he couldn’t be too judgy.  

Pinky set the teacup on the lower platform, sliding it over until it touched the candelabra and clock. The two objects were oddly painted, with black and white markings running throughout their brass bodies. The candelabra’s lower half was painted brown, and the clock’s topmost carvings looked almost like a cap.

Though none of them were similar objects, Pinky thought they fit together quite well.

Curiously, Pinky ran his finger over the decorative carvings on the legs. “Egad, this must be real mahogany!” he said. His fingertips were covered in a thick layer of dust when he pulled away, and he shook it off, sneezing at the small cloud that formed. “Whew, really dusty though.”

“Gesundheit!” a Scouse-accented voice said.

“Narf! Thanks a bunch!” Pinky wiped the remaining dust against the inside lining of his apron. It was going in the wash later, so it didn’t bother him too much.

Only as he climbed another flight of stairs did he realize he hadn’t seen any living being yet. Maybe the castle was just full of polite ghosts.

The carpet beneath his feet was ragged with little holes revealing cold stone underneath, the ceiling arching far above him. The pillars had rough seals over their creeping, winding cracks. There were no gargoyles, no furniture, no rooms at all.

Nothing but dust, cracks, and cobwebs.

It seemed that not even the ghosts used this area much.

“Papa?” Pinky shouted. His echoes answered back, yet there was no sign of Papa.

Wind battered the stone walls, and Pinky’s heart leapt from his chest. He wrapped his cloak around himself, willing his heart to stay where it belonged. For goodness sake, he’d grown up in Paris. If streets full of reeking garbage didn’t scare him, then this shouldn’t either.

Pinky reached a dead end, the path blocked by a barren mass of stone. With a sigh, he turned around. There wasn’t anything here. Maybe he should try the second floor again? There were a lot of rooms he hadn’t checked.

A light flickered around the corner, a bright circle of hope illuminating the unfeeling stone. Pinky hadn’t gone in that direction yet. He hadn’t planned to, but the light skipped and waved, beckoning him closer. And if there was light, that meant somebody was in the castle after all!

“Narf! Excuse me!” Pinky cried, rushing over to the ray of light. “I don’t mean to interrupt your work, but if you could please tell me-“

The light vanished. Pinky pressed his hand to the wall. It was dark and scary in here. That light had been the first sign of life he’d seen in this castle.

A shrill creak startled a ‘troz’ out of him. But it meant someone was moving around, so he followed it until he came to a doorway in the middle of the corridor.

The door was open, so Pinky peered inside.

A winding, narrow staircase led upwards. There was no carpet, only coarse and rough stone. Then the light returned, a shining beacon in the dark.

“There you are,” Pinky whispered, hauling himself onto the first step. These stairs weren’t as smooth as the rest of the castle’s, but years of routine chores had given him enough upper body strength to manage just fine.

Cold seeped into his fur. His teeth chattered, but he pushed forward. Papa needed him.

A candelabra rested on a nearby platform, its three candles burning brightly. It had the same brown base and markings as the candelabra he’d seen downstairs. Funny. He never knew candelabras came in matching sets. But once again, he was alone.

Not even a ghost in sight.

“I could’ve sworn I heard someone…” Pinky sighed. The room in front of him only contained a dimly lit torch and a row of heavy, barred doors. Fire provided the only colors, and it wasn’t enough to chase the cold, damp shadows away. Neither was the thin, colorless light that peeked from the cracks of the foundation above. “Is anyone here?”  

A hacking cough came from behind the door nearest to the torch.

“Pinky?” a weak voice murmured.

Pinky’s ears perked as he rushed over to the door. There was a barred window close to the ground, Papa’s face peeking out from between the thick steel pieces. His fur was dirty and wet, eyes wide open with fright. He stared straight through Pinky, gripping the hood of Pinky’s cloak with desperate, clammy hands.

Papa was in a cell.

Pinky bit his lip. How? Papa wasn’t a criminal. Sure, his machines blew up a lot, but that was hardly cause for jail!  

“Papa! Are you okay? Did you see any ghosts?” Pinky gently took Papa’s hands in his own, quickly rubbing the pale pink skin to bring some warmth back. “Poit. I guess they weren’t as polite as I thought…”

Papa stammered as Pinky drew him close. The bars were wide enough that Papa could slip through them easily, but as much as Pinky tugged on his arm, Papa refused to budge, heels digging into the cracks underfoot. “He’s…he’s no g-g-ghost, Pinky. Y-you have to go. Save yourself.”

“He? You mean whoever put you in here?” Pinky repeated. Papa’s bushy mustache quivered, the tiny hairs unkempt and matted. He couldn’t speak, his hands freezing in Pinky’s own. They had to get out of here. The sooner Papa warmed up in front of the cottage’s fireplace, the better.

“Food pellets. There are no food pellets here…” Papa murmured. “Your mother made the best food pellets in the world.”

Pinky’s heart clenched at the reminder. “I know. She made the best. We should go now. Please, Papa?”

Later, when they got back to the cottage, he was going to ask exactly why Papa wasn’t at the fair. Why Pharfignewton was unhitched from the wagon and terrified out of her mind. How he’d gotten locked up in the first place.

Papa’s shivers were fiercer than before.

“It’s safe and warm at home. Let’s go…” Pinky whimpered, but Papa’s arms remained glued to the cold, unfeeling bars.

Papa’s mouth opened…

“Run, Pinky!”

A thundering roar shook the entire prison. The floor, walls, and ceiling trembled with a frightened rattle. Pinky clamped his hands against his ears, and Papa tried to do the same, though he was shaking too violently to do it right.

The only light came from above now.

A massive clawed hand clamped painfully around Pinky’s shoulder and yanked him around, the prison briefly becoming nothing more than a dark blur with a swirl of purple.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”

Pinky blinked the stars out of his vision, pressing his back against Papa, wordlessly urging him to dart to the back corner of the cell for his safety. But Papa tightly gripped Pinky’s shoulders, and Pinky winced as Papa’s fingers dug into a sore spot.

An enormous shadow loomed above them, its shape melting into the darkness. The only features Pinky could see were a pair of sharp, white fangs and the trailing end of a purple cape.

Pinky’s ears flattened, his heart pounding out of his chest. “Who are you?” he called out, trying to keep his voice steady. He had to be brave for Papa.

“The master of this castle.”

Every word was accompanied by a low, animalistic snarl. Pinky caught the gleam of long, twisted horns atop the shadow’s head.

“Please, let Papa out,” Pinky begged. Another growl cut him off, and Pinky’s throat tightened in panic, but he continued to plead his case. His words were useless. He was use-no, not now. He couldn’t afford self-doubt. “It’s cold here. Can’t you see he’s sick?”

“THEN HE SHOULDN’T HAVE TRESPASSED ON MY PROPERTY!”

More cruel white fangs were exposed.

“But he could die!” Pinky pleaded. “Please, I’ll do anything!”

“There’s nothing you can do. He’s my prisoner.”

The shadow moved again, always skirting the edge of the light.  

“There must be something…” Pinky murmured. But he had no money or valuables to offer, and trading Pharfignewton when she was a valued member of the family was out of the question. He looked down at his hands…and he had his answer. “Wait!”

Pinky reached for the shadow’s cape, but a bloodshot glare made him stop and think better of it.  

Pinky closed his eyes. And he sealed his fate.

“Take me instead.”

The shadow turned away with a scoff.

“YOU!”

Pinky tried not to flinch. He didn’t have much value. He could keep house, but that was hardly a unique skill in the village. But he had no other material besides his clothes and fur.  

“You would…take his place?” The harsh tone and growl vanished. The shadow’s deep, guttural voice sounded more confused than furious, as if he hadn’t expected such a trade.

And why should he?

Even so, Pinky had to push forward. There was no turning back now. “If I did,” Pinky said, just wanting to make sure before he agreed to anything. “Would you let him go?”

“Pinky, you don’t know what you’re doing!” Papa hissed.

I’m saving you. That’s what I’m doing.

Complete silence. Pinky bit his lip. Finally, the shadow spoke. “Yes,” the shadow drawled the word softly. “But…you must promise to remain here for the rest of your life.”  

Pinky gripped the folds of his dress.

Rest of my life?

Would he ever see Papa again? Pharfignewton? The little cottage in the countryside?

Trade everything to be trapped with this shadow?

A shadow had to belong to somebody…

“I’d like to know who I’m speaking with,” Pinky said. “Would you come into the light, please?”

For a moment, there was nothing but an anxious growl. Then a pink, hairless foot slid into the colorless light.

A human?

Couldn’t be. The feet were tipped with sharp claws, and the heels lifted off the ground. Nor did they look like they belonged to any sort of rodent Pinky had ever met.

A pair of ragged black trousers. A long, crooked tail with many sharp bends. Grayish-brown fur over a large chest and pudgy stomach halfway covered by the purple cape. Arms that were far too thick, long, and coarse for even the largest rat.

The shadow slowly raised his head, curved black horns adding to his already intimidating height. Large, rounded ears. A broad, wide face with sagging cheeks and thick, furrowed brows.

But what struck Pinky the most was the creature’s unreadable expression. Though he was obviously angry, it was impossible to tell if those narrowed pink eyes were glaring at him with disgust or hatred. Despite the light, the eyes were partially hidden by dark patches of fur. He was silent, but a pair of fangs were still exposed.

Placing the species was impossible. He seemed to be many animals at once.

“Narf,” Pinky whispered.

The monster’s brows lifted in surprise, and if Papa weren’t locked away right now, it might’ve been comical.

Pinky turned away, unable to brave through the staredown, but he felt the monster’s gaze boring into his back.

“I won’t let you do this!” Papa cried out.

But he had to. For Papa’s freedom.

Pinky lifted his head. He stood up, gently sliding Papa’s hand off his shoulder. He let the touch linger for as long as possible and gave his Papa one last smile before turning around.

The monster was hunched over, one clawed hand resting on the ground. It wasn’t a bow of courtesy, but he seemed to have trouble with his balance. He growled in warning, as if challenging Pinky to say something about his position.

Pinky approached slowly, each step echoing in his ear. The monster didn’t move. When their faces were just inches apart, Pinky closed his eyes.

“I promise,” Pinky said. He stuck out his hand to shake on it, because that’s what people did when they wanted to set their deals in stone.

“DONE!”

The monster snarled and shoved past Pinky. Unable to keep standing much longer, Pinky dropped to his knees and wept, unable to hold back his tears anymore.

He wouldn’t see the light of day again. Trapped forever with a monster in this lonely, dark place.

There was a squeak and the sound of frantic scampering behind him, and Pinky opened his eyes to see Papa’s desperate face, pleading with him to reconsider. “Pinky, listen to me! I’m old, but you have so much to-“ Papa’s words cut off as the monster dragged him off Pinky, lumbering towards the stairs on all fours with a hand clenched around Papa’s cloak.

“Wait!” Pinky shouted.

But the monster didn’t care. He and Papa disappeared down the stairs, their pleas for mercy falling on deaf ears.

He never got to say goodbye.

o-o-o-o-o

Papa was thrown into a carriage that moved on spindly, wooden legs and carried across the stone bridge. The carriage disappeared into the forest, Papa’s cries fading away.

Pinky clung to the barred window that was several feet off the ground and several stories high. It didn’t allow him a wide view, and he wasn’t sure where Pharfignewton was. Still looking for grass to eat, he hoped.

He slid to the floor of the cell, huddling underneath the window in a tight ball. His tail was always a source of comfort for him, and he twisted and wrung it in his hands. The sun started to go down, and he imagined how beautiful it would’ve looked from the sweeping grassy hills just outside the cottage.

Beautiful rolling clouds. His cozy bed in the upstairs loft. The sound of Papa tinkering on a machine as a vegetable broth brewed over the stove.

The door slammed against the wall, and the crash startled Pinky out of his fantasies.

It was the monster.

Something inside Pinky snapped. Now he was angry, and angry was a feeling he didn’t like, but this…this cruel excuse of a…whatever he was stole his freedom and his Papa.

“You didn’t let me say goodbye!” Pinky screamed. “Now I’ll never see him…I-I’ll never see him again.”  

He expected the monster to roar in defiance or deny the truth, but he did neither. He only leaned heavily against the doorframe in complete silence. His ears dropped, and something akin to remorse flashed across his face.

But that new emotion quickly disappeared. “Come,” the monster said, dropping to all fours. “I’ll show you to your room.”

New room? It was such a sudden offer that Pinky forgot his anger completely. So he wouldn’t have to live among old chains and damp stone?

“I thought-“

The monster arched an eyebrow, a dangerous edge creeping into his voice. “Unless you’d prefer these accommodations?”

Pinky shook his head.

“Then follow.”

His captor crossed the room without pausing, and Pinky realized he’d never asked for a name. If he was going to live here for the rest of his life, he wanted to at least have a name.

“Hold on,” Pinky said. “I never got your name.”

The monster’s hand hit the floor with a resounding thud. “Call me the Beast,” he growled. Pinky stepped back in surprise, but the mon—the Beast didn’t turn around. “And don’t ever ask again.”

There was a tinge of bitterness in his tone, as if he hated his requested name. But that didn’t make sense. Why call himself a name he hated?

“Poit. Well, my name’s Pinky so-“

The Beast was halfway down the stairs already. Pinky folded his arms. Well, that was very rude. His captor didn’t have manners at all!

Pinky hurried after him. The Beast didn’t turn around. He was a very poor conversationalist.

Another candelabra stood just outside the door to the spooky hallway. It hadn’t been there earlier. “You really shouldn’t put your nice decorations on floors. What if someone stepped on them?” Pinky said.

“So we’ve got an interior designer for a long-term guest?” the candelabra asked. “Now we can finally replace the doom and gloom with something different! Maybe an indoor jungle with monkeys!”

The candelabra could talk! That was pretty cool!

His waxy face was eye level with Pinky. His grin was a little lopsided, his candleholders folding against his gold and brown body with an easy, light confidence.

“Yakko, this castle can’t possibly tolerate more monkeys, nor does it require the aesthetic of a jungle to be one,” the Beast huffed. He still sounded irritated, but less so. “And while we’re on that topic, Wakko and Dot need a reminder to not engage with outsiders. Where are they?”

“A real spoilsport, isn’t he?” Yakko whispered to Pinky.

Pinky giggled, and Yakko’s grin became wider. Alright, so not everybody in this big scary castle was a mean ol’ grump. It was good to know.  

“Oh, they’re just telling Scratchy the news,” Yakko shrugged. “He’s a real couch potato these days. Anyway, maybe you oughta tie a string around your finger, cause you’re clearly forgetting something.”

He waved a flame like one would wave a finger to scold.

“But I patched the leaking roof,” the Beast said. “My work was thorough.”  

Yakko coughed and pointed a flame at Pinky.

The Beast only stared. Then his pink eyes widened as whatever he’d forgotten finally dawned on him.

“Mouse.”

“Where?” Pinky whirled around.

Oh, right. He was a mouse. Silly him.

The Beast growled, like he didn’t know what to think of Pinky. Well, neither did Pinky know what to think of him. So there.

“You owe Yakko for your new room. Let’s go. We’re wasting time.”

With that, the Beast stalked off.

“So…thanks for the room, I think. Poit. Is he always like this?” Pinky asked. He kicked at a speck of dust.

Yakko gave Pinky an encouraging nudge with his candlestick holders. “The Master of the Castle he may be, the Master of First Impressions he is not. If his rawwwwr-fear-me shtick gets to be too much, say the word and I’ll set his cape on fire for ya.”

“Is that a good idea?” Pinky asked. Despite his worries, he couldn’t help but laugh at Yakko’s attempt at roaring.

Yakko nodded, or as much as one could nod when one’s head was a wax candle. “It’s amazing what you can get away with in this place.”

o-o-o-o-o

Pinky was led down to the second floor, into a corridor with the most frightening gargoyles he’d ever seen. But he had to be a good guest, right? Good guests knew the names of every gargoyle, as Yakko was trying to teach him.

He tried so hard to pay attention, but he wouldn’t be able to remember which one was Hugo or Goliath or Laverne or Brooklyn. Yakko didn’t seem like the type to hold it against him though. He talked a lot and knew a lot of things Pinky didn’t know, explaining things like he was used to explaining things.

He seemed awfully young though.

Ahead of them, the Beast lumbered with a heavy gait. His strides were long and lacked the lightness of a rodent’s steps. Though he’d locked Papa up, he seemed more awkward than scary now.

Papa.

Was he home now? Would he be alright? There were chickens to feed and cows to milk. He hoped Papa wouldn’t put his noisy milking machine on Moo-Moo. She didn’t like that.

A tear ran down his cheek, then another. Pinky clutched his tail, staring down at the floor to avoid all the glaring stone eyes on him.

Yakko’s hopping sped up, the brass sounds muffled by the carpet.

There was the smell of slightly singed fur, followed by an irritated grunt. Pinky realized the Beast was watching him from the corner of his eye. A tiny cloud of smoke trailed from his right elbow.

“You can…make yourself at home,” the Beast said, brushing off the tiny fire. “As your new residence, you have free reign of the castle and the surrounding property. You may go anywhere but the West Wing.”

The West Wing?

“What’s in the-“

“IT’S FORBIDDEN!” the Beast bellowed, his massive hand slamming into the carpet and leaving long clawmarks behind. Pinky flinched.

The Beast kept walking. Yakko filled in the silence with chatter.

To Pinky’s relief, his room wasn’t far.

The Beast opened the enormous door, which led to a bedroom that was twice as large as the cottage.

The cottage was home. Not here.  Yakko meant well, but this would never truly be Pinky’s room.

“My servants will attend to your needs,” the Beast said. There was nothing harsh about his words this time, but servants? Pinky didn’t know if he could get used to that. Nor had he seen any servants around. Was Yakko a servant? He never asked for his job title.

“Don’t worry! The toilet’s not alive. None of them are,” Yakko added.

It was probably meant to be helpful, so Pinky did his best to smile at him, but he could only manage a weak nod.  

Then Pinky noticed the giant bed, with thick comforters and a dozen pillows and velvet curtains around the edges. Though fancy and straight out of a fairy tale, it wasn’t his tiny bed tucked in a cozy corner. Meekly, he stepped inside.

“Psst! Invite him to dinner, Romeo!” Yakko hissed. 

“I order you to…join me for dinner,” the Beast demanded. “THAT’S NOT A REQUEST!”

The door slammed, and Pinky was once again left in darkness.

This wasn’t home. It was dark and cold. Homes were cozy and happy and loving. No walls, no prisons, no locks and keys to be thrown away.  

Home was elsewhere. His heart was elsewhere.

Pinky curled up on an unfamiliar pillow. His heart was broken, his chest ached, and there was a deep longing within him. For Mama’s laughter. For Papa’s joy. For the hills and the meadows and the open blue skies.    

His tears flowed. They were many and endless. He felt they would never stop. He’d cry for the rest of his life, for as long as this exile from the world beyond took.

Outside his window, the first snowflakes began to fall. They marked the start of a very long, very cold winter.

AN: Let it be known that this AU is the only place, besides maybe anything involving Brain Meets Brawn, where Brain’s size can be described as intimidating. I want him to be, you know, like an actual monster and not just a big mouse with horns. Don’t get me wrong, tiny beast!Brain is cute, but that would just be more comical than dramatic if I tried to play it as such a serious moment.

For my personal Beast!Brain, I combined elements from @deez-art and @sleepy-hooves art. Deez for the overall look, and the way he glares at Pinky during the “come into the light” part comes from sleepy-hooves.

In this AU, rather than appearance, Brain fears the loss of control the most. He knows his mind is dwindling away unless he can break the curse. Unlike Disney’s Beast, he’s a bit more proactive with trying to break the curse and tries to keep busy instead of brooding in the West Wing all the time, though some tasks can be very difficult for him.

Yakko is the candelabra, Wakko is the mantle clock, and Dot is the teacup. You’ll have to excuse them for following Pinky around. They’re curious kiddos.

Yakko calling Scratchy a couch potato is literal. Scratchy was turned into a p-sychiatrist’s couch.

No matter what happens, Brain always has a soft spot for the Warners. The Warners aren’t scared of him and will snap back.

Poor Pinky gets put through the wringer. But y’all know the story. Eventually they fall in love and get their happily ever after.

[morgana-ren]

Imagine being at a Halloween party thrown by Dabi and someone in a Leatherface costume keeps following you. It turns out to be Shigaraki. You comment on how his human skin mask is cool and how it looks so real, and oddly looks like Bakugo's face. He laughs, tosses it away and leads you to a field of pumpkins, where he non cons you, while Spooky Scary Skeletons plays in the background.

Okay listen, I know this was probably sent in 200 percent as a joke, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to sit down for an hour and make it work. It’s been a weird week. I can make weird work. 

Like imagine kinda knowing Dabi before the league goes super big. You don’t know too much about him, but he’s a friend of a friend and so on and he’s got the dangerous bad boy appeal alongside those haunting blue eyes, so all ya friends hover around him. So lets say you get invited to his spooky-dooky Halloween party he’s throwin’ in an old warehouse. It’s sort of his last hurrah cause it’s a lot harder to try and bone civvie girls when you’re a wanted villain with your face on the news attached to a criminal group, so he’s gunna throw it back tonight and take what he can get, you feel?

So you and ya friends get all cute and dolled up in your costumes and head out to this bash that’s taking place on the wrong side of the tracks in some godforsaken warehouse. It’s in the industrial zone, which is comprised of nothing but abandoned buildings, squat houses, and old warehouses. You’re pretty sure he just found one and broke the chain on the door and called it a night. That should be your first clue, but fuck it, what’s life without a little risk?

Anyway, a few hours pass and admittedly, you’re a lil’ drunk. That being said, you could swear this dude in a leatherface costume is stalking you. Maybe not stalking you, per say, but he’s definitely trying hard to be where you are. It’s not like he’s easy to confuse with anyone else; his costume is super unique, and if you’re being honest, a little disturbing. It legit looks like that kid Bakugo from the Sports Festival but forcefully mutated in with the classic Leatherface look. Whoever it is, they’ve definitely got an edgy sense of humor. It should spook you, but it’s Halloween for fucks sake! At least they’re putting some effort in! It’s no coincidence that you see him literally everywhere you go, so maybe he likes you?

Maybe he’s cute under that creepy mask.

It’s worth a shot (get it, shot?), so you let him follow you to the bar and sit down next to an equally empty seat, hoping to give off the vibe of ‘quit being creepy and come talk to me.’ 

A few seconds later and surprise surprise, he sits down right beside you. No sense in pretending this is anything other than what it is, so you turn right to him and offer to buy him a drink. 

He stares at you for a minute, beady pupils surveying you beneath that godawful mask he’s donning before he nods. He doesn’t tell you what he wants, so you just order him whatever mixture of gasoline and fruit you get. He just stares at you while you sip at your own drink, and you can’t help but laugh. His eyes are fuckin’ intense, and while you’re already a little tipsy, it’s pretty clear he’s dead sober. Luckily, alcohol gives you a charming ice breaker. 

“It’s probably a little difficult to drink with that terrifying thing on your face, but I really appreciate your dedication to the look.” 

Behind the holes of the mask, his eyes crinkle near the edges. You can’t tell if he’s smiling or snarling, but he’s definitely reacting to what you’re saying. He must’ve decided that he likes you, because he finally reaches behind his head and loosens whatever makeshift strap that’s tangled in his silver, ‘fake’ blood matted hair. 

As he lets it fall away from his face, you study what’s underneath. He’s a little rough around the edges, a little chapped with dry skin and more than a few blisters on his pale lips, but he’s cute and the costume has you intrigued. For all you know, it could be liquid latex. The guy seems pretty dedicated after all. It makes you wonder what is Halloween paint and what’s his actual skin. You kinda wanna lick him and find out.

Shut up, alcohol. 

“It’s homemade.” He rasps out, voice cracking and strained like he hasn’t spoken in days. After a sip of his own drink, he slips a subtle smile as he sees you eying the grotesque costume piece. “I’m glad you like it.”

It’s gross to say the least. Whatever it’s made out of, it’s certainly not plastic or rubber like most masks. It smells atrocious, especially coupled with the must and cheap booze of the warehouse, and it makes you a little queasy as it flops around in his lap a little too lifelike for your liking. It even has pores, for Christ’s sake. Tearing your gaze away from it isn’t easy, but if you look much longer, you’re not really sure what your stomach is gunna do, so you turn your attentions to the owner instead. 

“Are you making a statement or just not a fan of the would-be hero types?”

He giggles a little even though you’re not entirely sure what you said was funny. “I guess you could say it’s both.” 

You sit in an awkward silence, sipping at your drink for a few minutes before another wave of alcohol induced courage lights a fire under your ass. If he won’t talk, you sure as fuck will.

“So, are you a friend of Dabi’s or-” He scoffs, loud and hard, lip curling in distaste. “No. I’m unfortunate enough to know him. We work together.” 

“Really? I always wondered what he did for a living.” 

It takes him a second to realize that’s you’re prodding, and a minute longer to come up with an answer. “I guess you could say we’re sort of... activists or something.” 

“Is that so? He never really struck me as the generous type.”

“He’s not.” He grins like a fox in a henhouse, mischievous and sly like he knows something you don’t. “And I’m not either.” 

“Then why be an activist?” 

His smirk fades, and he nurses his drink, flicking his eyes away from you. “I dunno.”

“What kind of activist are you? Like social or environmental or-” 

“Uh-” He clearly wasn’t expecting this line of questioning. “Political.” 

“Oh, that’s cool! What kind of politics are you guys into? You seem like the anarchy sort to me, but I don’t wanna judge-”

“Are you always this nosy?”

His sudden hostility takes you back a little. Sure, you’re drunk and annoying, but that seems a bit excessive. Maybe this isn’t the tree you want to be barking up tonight. 

“Sorry. I was just trying to get to know you.” 

You turn your body away from him slightly, returning your gaze to the rusted metal behind the makeshift bar. You can see him glaring you down out of your periphery but opt to ignore it. Regardless, he stares for a few more moments before downing the rest of the drink you apparently wasted your money on.  “Well, don’t.” 

Whatever, man. It’s a fucking Halloween party. You can find a different jerk-ass to hook up with, one who at least pretends to be nice until the night is over. Dicks are a dime a dozen in a place like this, and the ‘super mysterious, if I told you, I’d have to kill you’ bullshit charade he’s playing is grating on your nerves. Part of you wants to tell him off for being so rude, but the other part is telling you to just shut up, project your disinterest, and wait for him to leave.

You huff a small sigh, blowing the air out of your puckered lips as you roll your eyes behind closed lids. Your side of the conversation comes to an abrupt halt, and suddenly everything in the room is more interesting than he is. Yet even with the uncomfortable awkward air around you both, he doesn’t leave. He just continues scanning you over as you do your best to give him the cold shoulder. So he really thinks there’s any sort of comeback from that, huh?

Apparently he does. He’s not very good with social hints either. You’ve almost tuned him out when you feel a bony hand clutching your upper arm. 

“Hey, come with me. This place is boring and I’ve got something I want to show you.” 

You turn, shooting him a disbelieving glare, but he’s already slid off his bar stool and is pulling you along with him. He doesn’t bother to wait for your answer, weaving through the crowds and dragging you behind him even as you try to wiggle your arm out of his grasp. Had you been in your right mind, you might have screamed or shoved him and told him to get lost, but your liquor marinated mind makes it difficult. He’s kinda right, after all. This place has gotten boring. All your friends left you behind an hour ago to go find their own conquests and dancing by yourself gets pretty lame after a minute. It’s not like you had anything better to do. 

Alright, fine. Follow the rude guy. He seems pretty adamant about it anyway. 

You try to justify it by telling yourself maybe he’s just super socially awkward or doesn’t have much experience with girls. He could also be one of those super brash, brutally honest people that just says whatever comes to mind. Maybe he didn’t mean it in a mean way. A trailing history of terrible taste in men leaves his unbridled rudeness with a bad taste in your mouth, but it wasn’t like you were planning on seeing him again after tonight. Ride the dick and then ride off into the sunset. 

You both dodge through the groups of people together as he yanks you towards the very back of the warehouse. The couple of doors he leads you through have a fairly prominent ‘Do Not Enter’ sign cautioning at eye level, but he doesn’t seem dissuaded, pulling you through the heavy doors despite the clear warning. A few hallways and dim, empty corridors later and he’s ushering you into something resembling a claustrophobic courtyard outside that joins the warehouse with a few of the surrounding buildings.

It’s very dark outside, and aside from the slight shine of ugly yellow tinted streetlights peeking through the alleyway, you can’t see much of anything. You can’t imagine what on Earth it is out here that he wants to show you, but you doubt you’ll even be able to see it. Anxiety starts to bloom in your chest as your drunk mind starts to realize that you’ve followed a stranger out into a very dark, very isolated area.

“H-hey, I never got your name.”

He laughs softly, coming up behind you and gripping your shoulders in a way that feels all too tight. Steering you forward, he leans in, feet falling in line with your steps.

“You’re right. My bad, that’s awfully rude of me.”

He pushes you forward in a way that seems a bit intense for having just met before latching his hands lazily around the base of your neck and pulling you into his chest.

“I guess it’s a good thing you didn’t know what Dabi does for a living, or else you never would have been stupid enough to follow me out here.”

Okay, it’s Halloween and all, but his brand of prank is starting to feel a little too real. The macabre costume and total boorishness should have been the insight you needed to come to the conclusion that this guy just isn’t quite right in the head, but between the alcohol and your desire to give him the benefit of the doubt, it just never quite clicked for you.

“It’s Shigaraki, by the way. My name. I’m sure you’ve heard it before.”

His wet breath on your neck isn’t the only reason you get shivers. You have heard that name before, only never spoken so casually. His fingers tighten around the tensing muscles in your throat as you swallow down a bombardment of emotion. Panic. Fear. Realization.

There’s a million and ten things going through your mind right now, the foremost of which is why. You aren’t a hero, nor are you a particularly fervent hero supporter. You’re not related to any heroes, and frankly, there’s no one further from the social/cultural hub that is hero society. Isn’t that what this guy gets his rocks off to? At least from the news snippets, that’s the impression you gathered.

You want to ask him why you. Maybe its a selfish question but it’s a question none the less, and one people tend to ask when their place on the mortal coil is being threatened. Yet, no matter how you try to spit out the words, your tongue stills in your dry mouth and refuses to cooperate. The pounding in your chest is giving way to a headache and a serious case of sick, and you swear between the loud pulsing of blood in your veins, you can hear him giggling behind you.

You think maybe that’s a strong enough cue to leave. You can ask him why when you’re separated by a thick layer of glass at Tartarus.

You know, it’s easy to sit back in the comfort of your own home and laugh at the clumsy heroine in any given horror movie who fumbles away from the killer like a newborn fawn just discovering its own lanky legs, but you’re quick to understand just why that troupe is so popular. It takes you a moment to gather the courage to turn on your heel and shove him hard on the chest, and even when you manage, it’s so weak and pathetic that it barely knocks him off balance. It only just gives you enough space that you can dart in the opposite direction. Where you’re going, you have no clue, but it’s not on the forefront of your mind as you pound pavement beneath your shitty costume shoes and shout “Stay away from me!” like some cliche damsel in distress.

Your adrenaline fueled getaway is short lived. A few seconds after beginning your feverish sprint away from what you know to be a very dangerous young fellow, the front of your foot catches on something and sends you toppling to the ground only a few feet from where you began your initial rush. Your fall is less than graceful, and the shriek that emits from your throat before your body thuds to the dirt like a sack of potatoes is far less sexy than anything in any horror movie. The bag you’ve been clutching, filled with nothing but the bare essentials and a half empty flask, is flung from your fingers. Your assailant doesn’t slow-walk towards you in a menacing manner while wielding a knife, but practically jogs over, wheezing with nasally laughter as he grabs you by the hair.

“I bet that went a lot better in your head, huh?”

A lot of things went a lot better in your head, to be fair. That scene. This night. Your life in general. But the little pity party you’re throwing yourself does little to garner his sympathies. No amount of hiccuping and crying fat gobs of tears that leak from your lashes and down into the Halloween makeup it took you hours to do elicits any response from him but what he had already planned on.

His laughter finally dies down and the fingers threaded through your hair manhandle you to your knees before roughly casting you down onto something. Something hollow yet sturdy greets your sensitive, liquor addled stomach as he forces you down and bends you over it. It feels slightly waxy, yet organic to the touch, and seems to wobble around slightly the more he kicks and prods you into a position you’ve seen one too many times in those shitty free pornos.

Pumpkin. It’s a fucking pumpkin.

You can smell the leaves and grass and sodden soil as he positions your hips up in the air, shucking off the costume apron he’d been wearing. Dirt embeds under your finger nails as you struggle to drag the rest of your body over the pumpkin to make your escape, but the hand that isn’t currently fumbling with his zipper is still tightly anchored in your hair, holding you in place. He hisses out a few words warning you against struggling too hard, his quirk is uncontrollable after all.

He makes quick work of the cheap costume bottom, inhaling a ragged breath and digging his jagged nails in a little too tightly to your skin when your ass becomes bared to the cool night air. The sight of you must’ve made him impatient, as he settles for simply yanking up your top along your back to expose your tits instead of going through the effort to try and get it off you. If what you’ve heard is true, he could simply dust it and be rid of it, but he doesn’t seem like he’s in the most centered form of mind right now, and it doesn’t appear like it’s your death he’s after.

No, it seems like he’s after something much more intimate than death.

Your mind is acutely aware of what’s about to happen, but it’s trapped in your paralyzed body, unable to force your heavy limbs to move with the weight of the panic. He’s freed himself from his pants, knuckles bumping against the cleft of your ass with every jerk of the cock that you thank God is hidden from your vision. After a few rigorous pumps, he withdraws for a moment before spitting and dribbling his slick saliva into the palm of his hand, coating his cock and using it as a makeshift lubricant.

When he’s finished making spitting sounds that make your stomach church, he lines his hips against your reluctantly spread legs and you feel the hot, thick tip prodding against the tautly pulled walls of your entrance. It’s enough to renew your childlike kicking and whining, babbling and pleading for him to stop. Regardless, he pays you no mind, opting only to yank his hand from the roots of your hair. It stings and he takes several strands of hair with it, but you don’t have time to focus on the pain as his fingertips dig into the fat of your cheeks, flexing and forcing you to look up at him as he hunches his wiry frame over yours.

It’s hard to see through the haze of tears that blear your vision and thick black makeup caking around your eyes, but you can make out that he’s smiling. If you can call it that, that is. Cracked lips wet and parted, breathing hot, moist breath down onto your forehead. Lips curled upward in a nasty, smarmy grin. A slimy tongue trails along his teeth as he practically drools down onto your shoulder like you’re a thick cut of venison and he’s a rabid wolf ready to sink in his canines.

“You know, I never cared much for Halloween,” His hips cant forward ever so slightly and begins to push the tip inside your unwilling hole. Slowly, slowly at first, but soon with more force. It hurts, morphing from a dull ache into an intense sting the more his girthy length is stuffed snug inside between your thighs. “But Dabi was right- it’s a lot more fun when you dress up.”

To punctuate the end of his sentence, he pulses his hips forward, sinking himself all the way inside and watching with a sick sense of glee as your face contorts in pain. He rolls his hips experimentally against your backside a few times, hissing in slight discomfort at the bittersweet tightness that strangles his flesh inside of yours. It stills him only for a brief moment, long enough for you to truly grasp the horrendous sensation of your body molding to accommodate something too large for it to have been ready to take.

However uncomfortable he may be, it’s nothing compared to what you’re feeling. It seems like a cruel joke that the wanted villain who set his sights on you that night would also have a monster cock, but Halloween was always the devil’s little prank show. He’s crammed it inside you with no regard for the damage it might do, pain radiating in the deep of your stomach as his cockhead is scrunched firmly against the wall of your cervix. Your fingers dig deeper into the dirt, but not to escape. You’re aware you’re too firmly impaled on him for that to be an option, so you settle for trying to give yourself any sensation at all that will lessen the unholy tear of your already sensitive pussy.

Eventually he decides he’s had enough of memorizing your pretty, anguished face, and his movements begin anew. Hips pistoning in a building rhythm, flesh of his thighs slapping obscenely against your bare ass. The protruding stem of the pumpkin grates into your abdomen, forcing pained, breathy ‘ah’s from you with every powerful hump. The anguishing drag of his cock assaulting your insides begins to blend together one after the next, and you do your best to block out the animalistic grunts and a sickening moans he emits with every thrust.

Eventually he lets your face go in favor of sinking his fingers just below your waist to anchor you in place as he pounds away, and you take the opportunity to drop your head in defeat and clench your eyes shut. He’ll get bored of you or he’ll cum. It’s what comes after that you should really be worried about. By the sounds he’s making, he’s far from losing interest. He seems to be getting a bit carried away, muttering something along the lines of “take it, slut” and needing to celebrate holidays more often.

That’s when you hear it.

Spooky, scary, skeletons send shivers down your spine

At first, you think it’s a joke. Like you’re having some sort of twisted nightmare and reality has finally decided to throw you a bone to lead your consciousness back home. But his manic fucking never stops and neither does the pain.

Shrieking souls with shock your soul, seal your doom tonight

A few blinks to clear the fresh wave of agony and one hand digging into the side of the pumpkin to stable yourself enough against his rutting to search for the source of the noise. There’s a glowing light a few feet from you, flashing and vibrating but just out of reach.

Your phone. It’s your phone. Your bag had landed not far from where he had you pinned, and your phone had been thrown from the bag.

Your new October ringtone plays through the damaged speakers, flashing your best friends face on the screen. She’s looking for you, probably wondering where you went. She’d never find you here. No one would.

We’re so sorry skeletons, you’re so misunderstood

Help is so close, yet so far away. Your sobs begin anew, feeling his cock pulse as he whines something about breeding his pretty little bitch into your ear. He’s cumming inside you, papping his hips against you in a shallow, offbeat rhythm. You can feel it, hear it squelching and leaking down your thighs. He came. Inside you. And judging from what few words you can make out between your agonized cries, he has every intention of doing it again.

You just want to socialize but I don’t think we should

[sunflowersunshinevol6]

Punkinhead (spooky mini series)

Pairing: Harry Styles x Reader

Warnings: horror, drug usage

Summary: On a camping trip with their friends, Harry and Y/N awaken an evil unlike any other.

Friends to lovers, spooky series

Part One

1963

Hellen jumped, woken by the sound of her Father's drunken screams. She tip toed to the door of her bedroom. 

"Bout as smart as them cows you're supposed to bring in! An' ya couldn't even do that!" Hellen winced, hearing her father's hand come down across her brother's cheek. Hellen watched her brother stumble, only to be yanked back up by her father. 

"I'm sorry Pa." He whimpered. 

"Know wha? You're gonna keep watch over them cows tonight. Give that scarecrow a break." Hellen heard her brother take in a sharp breath, struggling against their father's hold.

"No Pa! Please-"

"An' maybe Punkinhead'll take ya off my hands! Only need one Scarecrow right?!" Hellen watched her father grab a lamp and some rope, dragging her brother behind him. 

Hellen put her boots and coat on quickly. Surely he was kidding about Punkinhead. Punkinhead wasn't a real thing. He didn't exist. Twenty minutes later she heard her Pa come back inside, slumping into his chair. She waited until she heard his soft snores before sneaking out into the night after her brother. 

It was windy, the pumpkin patch was eerie at night, like little goblins waiting around, ready to strike at any moment. She shined her flashlight up where the scarecrow should have been. In it's place her brother, shivering in the cold.

"Abel!" Hellen shouted. She held the light between her legs, reaching up to try and untie him. 

"He….he's coming." Able wheezed. His eyes were wide, staring at something in the distance. "He's coming for me." 

"What?!" Hellen shouted, but she could feel it, the chill on the back of her neck. She looked up, Abel's eyes were red rimmed and filled with fear. He looked down at her. 

"Leave." Abel gasped. "Go Hellen!" Hellen kissed her brother's cheek before turning away. 

The wind howled and as she ran a piercing scream, blood curdling and filled with agony shook the night. Hellen glanced over her shoulder. What she saw would haunt her for the rest of her days. 

Present Day

“I can’t believe you invited her to go with us.” Kennedi rolled her eyes as she hoisted her gym bag over her shoulder. She stood in the lobby with her boyfriend and their friends. Her dig was aimed at him though, Harry, her boyfriend, who had a female roommate she was not fond of. 

It wasn’t that she was afraid Harry would sleep with Y/N. No, that would never happen. It was more so the fact that they were so close and she was so weird, yet Harry fawned over everything she did. Like she was the greatest person ever….it was annoying.

“Y/N is my best friend Ken. I can’t exactly leave her behind.”

“Yes you can,” Kennedi hissed. “You’re not joined at the hip.”

“I think Y/N’s cool,” Niall interjected before Harry could say anything. “She looks like she could kick my ass.” Niall had liked Y/N from the moment Harry introduced them. She was more on the punk alternative side with ripped leggings, diy vests and a plethora of band t-shirts. Let’s not forget her Doc Martens that were entirely kick ass by themselves. Kennedi rolled her eyes. 

“Whatever Niall, you would.” Kennedi turned her attention back to Harry. “You live with her. You see her everyday. Do you have to invite her everywhere? That’s all I’m asking.” she wrapped her arms around Harry’s waist. “Don’t you want to be alone with me?” Niall rolled his eyes when she bat her lashes at Harry. God she was annoying. 

“We will be alone baby,” he kissed the tip of her nose. Niall smirked at the way Kennedi’s face fell, annoyance furrowing her brows. “She’s my best mate. I can’t leave her behind.”

“You can, you just choose not to.” Kennedi pouted. Harry sighed, dropping his arms. “I’m sorry.” she said quickly. “I just...I worry sometimes.” Niall wanted to be sick. She played Harry so easily. He knew the real reason Kennedi hated Y/N was because she knew Harry. Y/N was first, all the time, and that pissed her off. Harry could deny it all he wanted. But everyone knew.

“Look. I gotta go home, but Y/N and I will meet you guys here bright and early in the morning so...be ready to go.” Harry kissed Kennedi once more before leaving the gym. 

Harry skipped steps as he made his way up to the flat he shared with Y/N. They had met three years ago when Harry had moved to the states for school. She needed a roommate and he needed a place to stay. Though it had taken a couple months for them to get used to each other, it was true, they were practically joined at the hip at this point. 

“Y/N!” he shouted, kicking the door shut with his foot. Their dog, Scrappy, bounded up to him. They weren’t sure what he was, he had been a stray, living outside of their building when they found him. Maybe it was weird for friends that lived together to have a pet. But they did. 

“Hey boy,” Harry knelt down, scratching behind Scrappy’s ear. He could smell food cooking in the kitchen and hear what sounded like Iron Maiden, from the kitchen. 

Y/N was cooking something Thai, a red bandana around her head, keeping her bangs out of her face. “Hello love,” Harry said, sneaking around her towards the cupboard. He pressed a kiss to her cheek. Anyone watching them would think they were a couple, but they knew better. 

“Hey. I’m making chicken teriyaki. Know you’re not much for meat but-”

“No, no,” Harry interrupted. “It’s good.” He filled a cup with tap water, leaning against the counter. “You ready for tomorrow?” he asked, knowing full well that the answer was no. 

“You sure I can’t just stay here? I mean, then my mom won’t have to come take care of Scrappy and I won’t embarrass you in front of your friends.” Harry studied her. Y/N was gorgeous, her humor was dark, but she was such a good and caring person. He hated that people judged her for the way she looked, especially his friends.

“Y/N you don’t embarrass me,” he said, grabbing two plates for her and another glass for her to drink out of. “You’re always home. You never go out….I think you could have fun. Kennedi is...tricky,” he said, unable to find the right way to say it, “but Niall is great. You’ll love Elenore and Gigi. Maya and you could get along really well...Louis , Liam and Zayn, they’re fun.” He took her hand, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. “I want them to get to know you. To like you as much as I do.”

“Harry,” Y/N said, turning to look at him. Harry was extremely close. Their noses almost brushing as she looked up at him. She’d had feelings for him for a long time, but she knew he would never date her. Guys like him didn’t date girls like her. She was lucky just to be his friend. “I don’t want you to think you always have to invite me.”

“I don’t. I’m asking you.” he poked his lip out, giving her puppy dog eyes. “Please.”

“Harry.” Y/N said, trying not to smile. “Don’t.” he wrapped his arms around her, placing his chin on her shoulder. “Don’t give me that look.” he fake whimpered, giggling at the end and hiding his face in her shoulder. “Okay. Okay.” she laughed, tugging at his arms. “Get off me.” she smirked. “Like I could say no to you anyway.” 

That night Y/N crawled into bed, burrowing into the blankets. 

It wasn’t like she hadn’t tried to be friends with his friends. She was a loner, granted she had a couple of friends of her own, she preferred her own company. That was until Harry entered her life. He was sweet and fun to be around, he didn’t care how much she liked horror films or if she preferred the pit at a rock concert to front row tickets to see Ariana Grande (she’d gone, much to Kennedi’s dismay.) Harry just fit. He was her one ‘normal.’ Her one piece of consistency. But she hated feeling like she was holding him back. 

“I’m going to have fun tomorrow.” she sighed, looking at the ceiling. “I’m going to have fun on this trip.”

It was a grave. Six feet deep, already laid out in front of her. The cemetery was dark, wind howling around her. The headstone was blank. She stepped forward, fear gripping her belly, she looked down into the grave-

Beep. Beep. 

Y/N’s eyes snapped open. Her body drenched with sweat. She threw her hand over her face, groaning. Why did she agree to get up at six am. Why did she agree to this. 

Harry was already awake when Y/N came out of her room. Dressed in sweats and an oversized Meat Puppets t shirt, her hair tossed into a messy bun. Harry was in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, phone in one hand, cup of coffee in the other. He was shirtless, his basketball shorts hanging low on his hips. He smiled up at Y/N, pointing at a plate of eggs and toast on the table. 

“Made you breakfast.” 

“Thanks.” Y/N smiled, sitting down. Harry watched her as she scratched her head, stretching her arms up before digging in. He smiled to himself. He thought she was always prettiest like this. No makeup, baggy, comfy clothes, hair out of her face. He could watch her all day. It was moments like this, when he was alone with her here, he would pretend they were more. He would pretend she was his wife and this was their home. He would never tell her that, he didn’t think she could ever like him as much as he liked her. That’s why he was with Kennedi. He needed to get over it. Y/N was his friend. Only his friend.

Y/N could feel Harry’s eyes on her. She cleared her throat, looking up at him. He was watching her with such intensity, she shifted in her seat uncomfortably. “Harry?” he blinked, looking at her. “Might want to get dressed. We gotta leave in like an hour.” she smiled softly, watching his cheeks go red. 

“R-right.” he stuttered. Y/N watched as he downed the rest of his coffee.

“You know, you could have gotten into the back seat after we picked everyone up.” Harry said as he pulled the van up to the gym. His friends were waiting outside. Y/N rolled her eyes, tapping away on her phone. 

“And let the princess see me sitting next to you? God forbid.” Harry’s jaw twitched but he didn’t say anything. He knew she was right. If Y/N was sat up front by him, Kennedi would blow a gasket. That wasn’t something Harry was looking forward to. He had hoped maybe on this trip they’d get to know each other. Maybe get along. But he was doubting that seriously.

“Harry!” Kennedi squealed, she hopped into the front seat, pressing her lips to Harry’s. Her eyes flickered to the backseat, disappointed to find Y/N wasn’t watching. She would get it through her head this weekend though. Harry was hers. And she wasn’t going to let anyone get in the way of that. 

Y/N took her head phones out as the back door opened and Harry’s friends clammerd in. The one named Niall sat beside her. “Hi,” she did her best to smile at him. 

“Hey,” he gestured to her phone. “What are you listening to?” he asked. 

“Oh,” she held out an earbud. “Black Flag.”

“No shit.” Niall sounded impressed. “Lemme listen yeah?”

Harry couldn’t stop glancing into the rearview mirror. Niall and Y/N sat closely together, talking and whispering to each other. He felt the weight of Kennedi’s hand in his but also the raging jealousy. He wanted to be back there with Y/N. 

About an hour into their trip Harry pulled up to a rundown gas station. As he pulled in an old man and his son came out of the building. 

“Everybody out! Stretch ya legs!” Harry shouted. Niall let Y/N go first, before hopping down out of the van after her. He stumbled slightly, reaching for her hand as he righted himself. 

“Careful there,” Y/N smiled. Niall reached out, gently grabbing her waist. Y/N felt herself leaning up, eyes closing softly-

“Y/N!” Y/N’s head turned sharply. Harry was glaring at her and Niall. “Can I talk to you?” Niall smirked, letting her go. 

He was gonna get through to both of them by the end of this trip. It amazed Niall how blind the two of them could be. I mean, he didn’t even know Y/N but could tell she had some major feelings for Harry. 

“What’s up?” Y/N asked as Harry pumped the gas. Harry looked down at her, trying not to let his irritation at Niall show. 

“What’re you and Niall doing?” Y/N raised her eyebrows. 

“Excuse me?” 

“Just….just be careful please. I love Ni but-”

“Harry.” Y/N cut him off. “Harry this is what you wanted. For me to get along with your friends. That’s what I’m doing right?” Harry huffed, looking away. “Harry you’re not my boyfriend….you can’t tell me you want me to be friends with your friends and then two seconds later get mad when I do.” she glanced over his shoulder. “And Kennedi’s watching….Look I don’t want any drama okay.” Y/N turned away quickly. Just as  Kennedi was walking up on him. She placed a hand on his shoulder. 

"You alright babe?" She asked. Harry nodded.

They got in the van and continued on their way. Louis and Zayn passed around a joint. Y/N talked with Gigi and Maya. They were sweet and Liam was adorable with Maya. Harry stayed up front with Kennedi. He hated hearing Y/N's laugh and not knowing what she was laughing at. He hated that she was having fun without him. 

"Hey! Hey!" Gigi crawled over Y/N's lap, pointing out the window. A sign reading 'Grover's Pumpkin Patch' was passing them by. "Come on Harry! Let's stop!" 

"We haven't even gotten to the cabin yet." Kennedi complained. Gigi rolled her eyes. 

"So? We can take some with us to carve." Kennedi huffed, crossing her arms as Harry made the turn towards the pumpkin patch. Y/N took Niall's hand as they made their way down the dirt path. An old house sat at the top of the hill, the wood rotted and flung apart. An old woman came out to the porch as Harry parked in front of the house, everyone filing out of the van.

"Welcome to Grover's Pumpkin Patch. How can I help ya'll?" She had thin white hair and coke bottle glasses, crows feet withered around her watery blue eyes. Her gingham dress blew gently in the breeze. Harry stepped up, shaking her hand. 

"Hi! 'm Harry. We were wonderin' if we could get some pumpkins?" She smiled, her eyes meeting Y/N's, there was something about the woman that put Y/N off though. She wasn't comfortable. 

"10 dollars. You each can pick one." Harry grinned, reaching into his pocket. "Just stay away from the Scarecrow." She pointed over their shoulder. A scarecrow stood in the middle of the field, with a jack o lantern head. Kennedi snorted. 

"What's that supposed to be?" Harry pinched her side and the woman narrowed her eyes. 

"That is the alter to Punkinhead." 

"Punkinhead?" Y/N repeated. "Who's that?"

"He's a demon. He fetches souls for the Underworld. If you done someone wrong they can summon him, and he won't rest until you're dead." Y/N's blood ran cold, the dream the night before flashing once more in her mind. 

"Sounds scary." Kennedi said sarcastically, "lets go Harry. Get the stupid pumpkin so we can get to the cabin." She tugged on his arm as the group followed them. Y/N lingered by the old woman. 

"It's true you know….you seem like you have sense." Y/N nodded. 

"I should….I should go." 

"Godspeed."

"Kennedi." Y/N said, her voice shaking with unease. "I don't think you should do that." She looked to Harry, hoping he would say something to his girlfriend, but he only glanced at Y/N and pursed his lips.

Kennedi had made her way straight to the Scarecrow. The old woman had annoyed her and she was gonna show her. She wasn't afraid of anything, especially not some stupid story. 

"Kennedi." Her eyes flickered towards Y/N, she looked genuinely terrified. "Don't." 

"Ooh." Kennedi said, her tone mocking as she grabbed the scarecrow's head. "Is Punkinhead gonna get me?" She yanked the head off the scarecrow, throwing it to the ground. Y/N shivered at the noise it made on impact, squishy as it split apart. Kennedi hopped down from the post, wiping her hands.

"Kennedi." Niall scolded. She rolled her eyes.

"Come on. I don't believe in stupid horror stories. Punkinhead is about as real as the Boogeyman." She nudged Niall hard in the shoulder as she yanked Harry back towards the car.

Y/N stood rooted to the spot, staring at the smashed pumpkin. A chilly breeze swept over her and her stomach was churning.

"She shouldn't have done that." She finally said, turning to look at Niall. "I have a really bad feeling." Niall shook his head, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, turning them back to the car.

"I don't like her either Y/N but you shouldn't worry. Punkinhead is just a story....an urban legend." Y/N looked back at the house as they got into the car. The old woman stood on her porch, still watching them. As they made eye contact the feelings grew. Y/N didn't know what it was, but something bad was on the horizon.

Hellen went back into her house. She went into her bedroom, kneeling down she ripped up the floorboard and pulled out an old book. She brought it to the kitchen, slamming it on the table. 

"Stupid kids. They'll learn." She growled, flipping through the pages. "Here it is." She said, stopping suddenly. 

"Cross my heart and hope to die, please keep me blinded from the sight. When Punkinhead appears tonight. Appease the soul, save the right, bad blood will feed this patch tonight."

[the-reader-to-my-hero]

Of Motorcycles and Mothmen

A/N: this was inspired by @ichor-and-symbiosis ‘s cute Mothman Tomura headcannons but with my own twist. Since yall are thirsty for the mothman here ya go this is a Modern!AU no quirks.

It had been an ordinary evening. Well. As ordinary as it got in this creepy ass part of the woods. But the young mechanic honestly preferred the unseen eyes of whatever-the-hell-was-watching-her over the hundreds of people commuting via the subway.

Olive Jones was not very good with people.

She was just never really able to break out of her socially awkward “phase”. She had a really rough time in high school, so bad that it lead to violent anger issues that ultimately got her suspended on assault charges of other classmates. After that, with a strained relationship with her family, she moved from Australia to Japan to study at a technical school.

Being a foreigner and not knowing anyone really didn’t help Olive’s case but it didn’t exactly hurt it either. She was good at her job, running a small shop for both electronics and motorbikes. Her income was steady so she spent her extra money on videogames and subscription fees.

She preferred to travel to a game store outside the city, using an older road that cut through one of Japan’s large forests. It was a weekly trip. Part of the decision was Olive had scopophobia, which is essentially the fear of being watched or stared at. Her pale freckled skin, short dusty blonde hair, and the eyepatch over her right eye definitely made her something to ogle at. Isn’t like she blamed people.

But the woods...well… that was different. At first it was just a certain part of the woods, especially around dusk, near a creek she could see flowing during the summer months. It was spooky, but being a foreign blonde woman in her early-mid 20’s, Olive wasn’t about to stop and check it out. That’s how you die folks.

Then it all changed when one fateful night, ye ole faithful moped broke down...in the woods… near that one creepy place. Olive kept a heavy metal wrench in one hand the whole time, jumping at every sound, eyes darting around as the hairs on her neck stood up. She cursed up a loud Aussie storm, yelling at her moped like she was cussing someone out, hoping maybe, it would keep away any lurking predators. That and she actually...did that a lot.

She didn’t consider that any would find her act entertaining, especially when the act dropped when her moped tipped over.

“Aw! Bloody fucking hell! You blasted No good, piss-poor broken-backed camel!” that was the most PG one of the insults. The wind had then suddenly picked up, branches rustling as if laughing at her misfortune.

Luckily, she got her ride working, but something had changed. No everytime she went through that forest, she felt like she was being watched the entire time. She told herself it was paranoia cause she broke down, that she's just overthinking it, but that of course, didn't make it go away.

Then finally… Something happened…

It was a dark stormy night, as cliche as it sounds. For the record, the storm came out of nowhere, a sunny day switching to a stormy night in the time Olive was browsing new releases.

It was raining like fucking cats and dogs. Jones was really wishing she had itty bitty windshield wipers on her helmet visor as she whisked through the tunnel of light her moped lamp gave her. The rain sparkled in the light, refracting it, like little gem stones. It would be kind of pretty if the mechanic wasn’t drenched to the bone and trying to ignore the shiver that went down her back.

The wind whistled through the trees, and Olive could glimpse the branches above her swaying in the wind. That feeling got stronger. She swore she heard a flapping sound, a loud one amongst the chaos, like wings.

She isn’t entirely sure what made her look in her rearview mirror, but it would change the course of Olive Jone’s life. In her circular rearview mirror, illuminated by the refracted light off the rain droplets, were two big, glowing red eyes, a mere 10 yards behind her moped.

Olive’s head flew to look behind her as she shouted “WHAT THE FU—“

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

The moped hydroplaned across a big puddle from the flooding creek. Olive lost control, attempting to turn around the sharp bend in the road but she only succeeded in losing balance and sailing off the road toward the steep hill into the ditch. She flew off her moped mid-air, the wheels on the bike still moving, headlight shining up on an approaching figure in the night sky.

Olive could only close her eyes and brace herself.

She landed on her left shoulder, and she swore she heard a rather unpleasant pop! Sound off, but she was already tumbling down the steep incline as her Moped did the same with a bunch of crashes and thuds.

Somehow, her moped’s headlight still worked, shining like a beacon in the rain as it lied on its side. Olive Jones however, was caked in mud and grass and leaves, sprawled out lying on her stomach, in shock. Somewhere along the way, she lost her helmet, which was wedged between two rocks higher up the incline.

Everything hurt. Olive wondered if this was the end for her, and how long it would take people to notice. She was a nobody. Some aussie shut in with a work permit. Was she gonna die out here? How long until her moped’s headlamp died?

There was a sound, a familiar one, like the beating of wings. Olive spotted movement, her single eye scanning the skyline.

And then….

There he was.

He blocked out the moped’s headlamp, a humanoid silhouette. Immediately something was off, mainly the huge pair of paper thin wings folding behind their back.

Olive couldn't move underneath their red eyed gaze, even though she was unable to see it. She laid there, frozen, trying to blink out the cold rain that seeped through her eyelashes. She was dreaming right? She hit her head too hard? This giant...moth….man…. was just a hallucination right?

But the squelch of the mud beneath their strange alien feet as they took a slow step forward couldn’t have been more real. With an overwhelming terror, Olive’s body flew into action, shoving her upper body upright. All at once her left shoulder clenched with a searing pain that she sucked in through her teeth. She nearly fell face first back into the mud, but she forced herself to sit up, falling backward against a stump.

Maybe it was the pain. Making her see loony things Olive bared her teeth like some snarling injured animal, clasping at the shoulder with her good arm, while planting her feet in front of her.

The thing cocked its head to the side abruptly, before leering closer.

“s-S-Stop!!” Olive yelped in English, voice cracking. It blinked its red eyes rapidly, as if it were confused. Oh right. Japan. But did it even understand Japanese? Did it talk? It was uncanny valley how human it looked and how extremely not.

The pain in Ol’s shoulder was nearly unbearable from her own iron grip. She buried her converse hightops into the mud, shrinking away as he came ever closer. With a hard swallow she switched languages. “D-don’t hurt me please. Don't come any closer! I-I-I’ll batter ya!” That was awfully convincing considering she was soaked to the bone from the downpour, covered in mud, and could feel bruises and cuts forming all over her body.

Another step. Olive couldn't press herself any further into the tree.

It crouched, wings draped on either side. It chirped as if in curiosity. Red eyes burned into her, glared at her, and—probably all this time huh? All that time she felt like she was being watched out here in the woods. Had it been watching? Waiting to make the kill?

Olive found herself shrinking beneath its gaze, trying to hide her shivering form.

Something grabbed her jaw. It was hard and smooth like plastic, but solid, not flesh, as it forcefully pulled her forward. She choked on air, unable to look away from those red eyes.

Ol wasn’t quite sure what happened next. She just…kinda went limp, her body folding under her. Maybe it was the shock, the fear, the stress, but she never hit the muddy ground. No, she was caught by what she can only assume are hands, which slowly maneuvered and manipulated her body with surprising care. Whatever it was, it was mindful of her shoulder when she whimpered in pain. She realized she was shivering. Violently. God she'll probably catch one helluva cold.

Warmth.

Olive was pressed up against something warm and soft, like some sort of blanket and if that didn’t take her out instantly, the exhaustion sure did.

[kaiju-z]

Today’s summary is of a One-Shot DM’d by the lovely @langstymclangstface​. Go visit their page and give them some love, for they are a talented writer and we had a hellaciously fun time playing this one shot together!

Seon Adventures Episode 20.5:  “Crumbling Wax”, a Seon Adventures Halloween One-Shot

(Aka Nelatha’s Coochie Quest. The sequel title no one asked for :eyesemoji:)

It has been. A short while since our heroes have been in the city of Crystalgate, Capitol of the country of Aetorumia.

A costume festival is being held, bright and shining lights illuminating the night time sky above the wandering citizens as they pass by booths and tables of contents, finding entertainment for themselves and their loved ones.

Each and every one has made it their goal to wear a costume as ostentatious as the next, a sort of challenge between each other to see who can be the most in the spirit of the event.

High spirits are in the air, in spite of a problem that has arisen for everyone. Or most of everyone. A sickness has hit a substantial part of the populace and thus, people are using this evening as a gateaway from the bad vibes of their relatives being down for the count.

Some call it the end of the world, but they’re honestly being overdramatic dramatic.

Amongst the walkers of this town, there are four of the five members of the party “The Cultbusters”. Sadly, Belli is at home (I headcanon that Mournimar left Morgan with her, as we didn’t get a description of Morgan’s costume. So the good direwolf is there to be her comfort animal, along with familiar, Orion.) and she is siiiiiick. And thus, she is locked off at home, as are all that have been hit by this flu.

The rest of the party are lucky.

And the rest of the party are dressed up to their heart’s content!

Amelia wears the proud costume of a sea corsair. A daring, romanticized fersion of a pirate, with Archie as her fat little shoulder griffin, a pair of wings strapped to the chunky, hunky kitty’s back, a little beak on his face. He’s living his best life and loves his catmom.

Walking beside her, Nelatha Shadowspire’s joined the group yet again. Accompanying her lady friend Genasi, she is wearing a sexed up version of a Cleric’s uniform. Particularly, that of a Honos cleric. (She is basically a fantasy sexy nurse) And she is confident as hell in that outfit. She makes it work and she knows it.

Flanking them is Mournimar, who, while initially planning some other attire, has opted for the costume of a favored character of his from a classical play. He wears the rags of the infamous drug dealer, tomb raider, bard and poet, the Graverobber. And he is blue screening real bad on account of not being used to such festivities. With Belli on the sick bed, he is but inchest away from touching shoulders with his fellow tiefling.

He, of double disguises. Who, along with the elf baby have dressed up as the characters of Fangface and Fangpuss respectively. They are goofy outfits, but Luctan is having a ball with it, enjoying the cartoonishness of it all and the hilarity that he, someone already in disguise, is wearing a third skin now. And the baby is baby. He don’t care none.

Last, but far, far from least, Malak walks with his new traveling companions, wearing a skeleton costume. A onesie, his face painted up to appear skullish.

Together the five, plus the baby and cat, walk amongst the people as streamers fly overhead. People dance and play and drink to their heart’s content. In a various level of dress.

What catches their attention is that amongst the chaos there’s a man selling candles. A sign upon his booth states the title “The Candle Man”, as their noses are attracted by multitude of scents from these particular ones.

The closer they walk, the musical tunes of The Living Tombstone’s “Spooky Scary Skeletons” hail in repetition, much to the frustration and disguist of Nel, who’s bardic pride feels poked at with the ridicilousness of that tune.

Along the way to the Candle Man’s booth, Malak’s eye stops at a nice old fashioned game of bobbing for apples. His curiosity overtaking him, the human man gives it a go and dunks his head in the water, trying to be as dexterous as he can with his chompers.

He tries his best. Swinging his head left, right, center. Up and down, trying his damnedest to nab one of the apples. But alas, he fails at the task. From the outside perspective, someone has to walk on over to him and pull him out and back, as the Death Cleric looked like he was drowning.

Trying to give it a go himself, Mournimar enters the “battlefield” of fruit and preps to dive headfirst (as you do). Malak is the ever helpful man he is and places a hand on Mournimar’s shoulder for encouragement, casting Guidance on him.

Through a combination of the ranger’s skill in handling items and the Cleric’s holy magic, the tiefling nabs an apple. But not just your regular Granny Smith’s apple! This one is of a golden color.

“Congratulations, you won the grand prise!”

He is the victor of the game and earns himself a bag of candies from the vendor, a kind lady speaking in her best Applecore accent.

“Excellent!” exclaims Mournimar and offers the bag around. But be it because of a distate in sweets or a lack of hunger, he is left to feast on the candies himself. All the more for himself!

As they continue on, they pass by a number of establishments. From new age bars, to meat houses.  Bakeries and the like, all theming their foods after the holiday that has been bestowed upon the masses, with skulls and pumpkins and bats and all sorts of crawlies.

Luctan asks around about the sickness. Most people suggest it’s a cold time of year, so it’s normal. There are a couple of people out of town, panicking a bit regarding a pandemic. Performers say they’ve lost a hood half of their act, because of this. Lost their voices and shit.

Mourni’s type of Orc walking around, basically looks him up and down, shakes his head and says they tried, but shit didn’t work

A fire genasi performs a juggling act with flaming knives nearby. Luctan, being the boy, who loves his pointy things that he is, goes for a closer watch of the show. The Genasi man waves at Luctan, between throws and tosses and twirls and spins of the burning blades.

Impressed with the performance, Luctan gives a gold piece and a bunch more Fire Genasi come out, juggling. Despite that they are very excited to perform for him and stuff, they haven’t said a single thing. To Luctan, it appears that they are just very dedicated to their craft. And he appreciates that.

(He loves a man, who can handle a blade. Somewhere Ficus has himbs a sneeze, probably.)

Nel is not amused. Why? Aside from the juggling, her resting witch face is earned from seeing Amelia approach a pet store, where they have cats dressed in little costumes.

And you can pet said cats.

Set up as advertisements and stuff. You can buy treats themed for each cat.

She picks up the quiet mewing of kittens from the back of the room, where people pay to have kittens crawl and paw over them.

While Malak enjoys a variety of Pumpkin Spice Lattés (And there are so MANY Pumpkin Spice Lattés) Amelia goes to the cats. There’s a nice lady holding two fat cats. And she gets to pet some cats. Lennard and Harry. They were married and had a ceremony last week and the kittens are in the back.

Amelia is tearing up. This is the best day of her life.

Good work is being done for these cats. She is warned about a certain cat boi who jumps on people and demands cuddles.  Amelia seems to be prepared for this. Heavy is the ribcage that must contain so much love for felines.

Out of nowhere  areally fat Scottish fold jumps and descends on her, which causes Nel to scream a loud screm.

In response,  The cat looks at Nel and bleps.

This is the happiest day in Amelia’s life.

Cats are available for adoption.

With the cat on her head and the two in her arms, as well as Archie on her shoulders, she is virtually in cat heavan. If this is a dream, don’t let her wake up.

All the while, Malak gets free gingerbread with every latté. (Nel feels like the world’ll collapse around her over all the coffee.)

Eventually, with cats in tow, the party find themselves at the Candle Man’s store.

One very bored teenager fiddling with a candle. He looks like he can’t be bothered. As they get closer to inspect them, each one looks like a person. They seem to be made expertly, made in order of famous people, but they don’t recognize any of them.

Except for one.

Luctan vaguely recognizes one of the figures as the dancer!Zitra! But something seems off about it, like it was done in a hurry. Almost like someone wasn’t used to this, as opposed to the expert.

The young one explains that  the candlemaker’s sick, so the kid had to rush ‘em.  Luctan buys one of the Lady Zitra and an unknown dude.  Then hands the young salesperson a pamphlet and encouraging words. He believes that they can do better!

Curious, Malak wants a candle made of him. But gets the strange explanation that a personal hairstrand is required for the wick. And backs off immediatelly.

Luctan and Mournimar have no idea what this is about. To Nel there seems to be more than he’s letting on. Sinister vibe coming off of him.

She’s noticed he hasn’t’blinked once since they met him, but a few minutes prior.

He’s very cagey about what his general job is, as opposed to the summer job.

It’s mostly, you know, ehm, bar keeping and cleaning.

At the Busty Wench. The one in town.

Nel doesn’t remember a franchise opening here.

On these revelations, the shadyness of the character, if Malak hadn’t changed his mind before, he most certainly had now.

Malak casts Zone of Truth.

The moment he casts the spell, something odd happens. No. Something horrid happens. The ground begins to melt.

All around them? Everyone starts melting as blobs of flesh and clothes and then they realize they’re surrounded by wax, which starts to pull and move towards the stand, which is slowly changing form until they start in front of a vague humanoid figure twice of Mournimar’s height.

Yeah...

The sign is very litteral.

Much to Amelia’s horror, all cats, but Archie, begin to melt. Gordon and Harry and the one on her head crumble and fuse and melt off and down to the ground below. Even the cats were fake.

The wax man has a big as smile. Whatever he is. the party had never heard of it before.

As he says that, he rises into the air and drops down and suddenly everything is melting into wax, white and overpowering scent of burning candle and the floor is disappearing beneath everyone’s feet.

BOGUS!”, to say the least.

Thinking fast,  Nel uses Polymorph and changes into a giant eagle and grabs Amelia and Archie to move them to safety. Once in the air, she looks out into the horizon and in a perfect circle? She sees that the city is surrounded by a desert. And slowly-an-and- and melting?!

Malak is noticing that the fire jugglers, who but moments prior were catching and throwing burning blades, were now sleeping and drowning in wax.

He tries to save them, but isn’t strong enough to do a thng about all this.

From what the lot of the ‘busters can gather, apparently the sick people are the real ones. And they are sinking.

Wasting no further time, the rest of the party start climbing.

Arriving at the top, they see that the area they started from? There’s this vast and expanding black hole, going outwards. Up top, Luctan has a vague feeling that something isnt’real here, but there’s so much magic surrounding him, he cant’pinpoint what the illusion is.

All the while Mournimar strategizes with the polymorphed Nelatha.

Malak takes a notice that the hair sticking out of the wax candles is still there and he realizes that the figurines at the stall are left completely in tact.

Luck realizes that some of the people he tried pulling out had wax figurines.

The ones he was shown were selected so he wouldn’t recognize them. It is by mere chance that they had met the Lady herself. And thus, he acts upon a gut feeling.  He removes the hairstring and the figurine cracks, before beginning a climb down to the candle booth. To repeat that on a grander level. And Mournimar follows, in spite of Luctan’s protests.

Nel is tasked with carrying the others away.

(And here we have a bit of a 2-3 minute break, because Cat’s mic was off for a good while. Because her kitten, the Little Man/Little Bastard as she calls him had turned it off. It was the funniest thing ever.)

As they part ways, Amelia casts Levitate on Luctan. Yell heah!

As Luck flies, he remembers he left Belli asleep in the Shadowspire Manor, which from his perspective, begins to melt. Cursing under his breath, he takes the figurines with a box and removes the hairs on the way to Belli’s as Mournimar sprints after him.

As they move, Mourni notices Luctan’s in tiefling form. And has a tail?!

The levitation drops eventually and Luctan falls on the ground. As he turns around, he sees he’s been chased by a fellow tiefling, but it’s not someone he recognizes.

Nel turns in her normal form forcibly as they travel and they are surrounded by strangers. Making her 3 point landing, Amelia notices a bird turning into a humanoid form and sadly doesn’t recognize Nel.

Everyone’s... surrounded by strangers.

A figure about Amelia’s height rises from the wax and says “Hello there, don’t be frightened. You’ve been saved.”

Luck see this form as well, but it’s smaller and childlike and feels an eerie sense of calm.

Mournimar, unfortunately, fails on a wisdom save and “ knows everything’ll be alright”.

As he realizes this, his features starts melting off, until Mourni is gone, replaced with a lump of wax.

Seeing all this madness happening around him, Malak casts Protection of Good and Evil and protects himself.

Luck feels Danger as he sees that someone start melting, which causes him to have... the freaks out. It’s this reason why he probably only too late notices he has his tail back?!

Feeling threatened by this wax fhild,  Luctan casts Sacred Flame, which burns a hole through the child’s chest. Not falling for whatever niceties the child propheces, the red tiefling burst into a dash towards Belli’s location.

Mournimar is ordered to attack Luctan. And he does so, chasing after him, unsheathing the swords from his hips and attacking.  All the while this big lump of wax follows along as the floor seems to start to swallow him.

Luctan gets attacked and the seering pain feels like fire. Looking at the wound inflicted by the possessed Mournimar, he realizes he’s made of wax. Out of anxiety and rage and frustration and pain, he goes on to react with a Hellish Punishment at his attacker and melts Mournimar?!

(BEGONE, TIEF!)

Malak makes an attack, casting Litch Slap on the monstrous child. He hadn’t prepared any combat spells, but at the very least he had this.

Chunks fly and hit Amelia and Nel and reveal wax underneath.

Nel bounces. Not recognizing anyone, she has no reason to be here.

The thing goes after Malak.

Amelia bounces as well.

She takes two steps, before  a hand reaches out from the ground and grabs her, squeezing and burning.

With a strength, unmatched and one powerful crushing motion, Amelia’s head pops off. And she poofs out of existence.

Malak attacks with his axe and that has no effect. As Nel runs, tendrils are grabbing at her feet. “Nope-nope-nope-nope-nope.”

One successful tendril  grabs and pulls her down.

Nel feels herself being pulled down into the wax and it pours down into the ground. She suffocates and no longer is within this realm of existence.

The tendrils go after Luctan, shifting into vicious spikes, but melt behind him, due to him perpetually casting Prestidigitation, applying sparks in the viscinity aorund him.

.He carries on like this, until the sensation of emptyness under him catches his attention.

And he starts falling.

And falling.

And. While still dressed in the Fangface costume, he tries to concentrate on hsi wings. Figuring he could create them at this point, he does so. Wax versions of his wings shape from his shoulderblades. And for a short moment, he manages to fly up.

Until the wings break apart.

And he starts falling yet again.

As spikes portrude from around him and impale him, taking him out as well.

And then there’s Malak.

“ I’m the last survivor, you guys.”

The kid begins to clap with a wicked smile and congratulates him.

Then we all open our eyes. Peppery Pete stands over us as we wake up.

Basically. What it comes down to, as we catch our bearings and get up, is that Pete explains Belli hired Pete to drug us with some strange drug.

It was whack.

The party are not amused. Nel is confused.

They just stand there. Being menacing.

Malak takes a knee and rests a hand on Pete’s shoulder.

“Look, mistakes happen.”

“ But if you ever do this to us or anyone again, I will personally sever your soul from your body.”

Pete is. To say the least. Terrified from the death glare.

And Amelia basically realizes that Pete is bullshitting them and Belli had nothing to do with this. It was meant to be a team building exercise.

“Yeah, but why am I here, though?!” - Nel’s still confused.

FIN!

Previous episode / Next episode

[eddycurrents]

For the week of 5 May 2019

Quick Bits:

Age of Conan: Bêlit #3 throws a few road bumps in the way of Bêlit’s plans as the Kushites renege of their deal and her drunken “Captain” continues being a jerk. I’m really liking this exploration of Bêlit’s early days from Tini Howard, Kate Niemczyk, Scott Hanna, Jason Keith, and Travis Lanham.

| Published by Marvel

Archie #704 throws some roadblocks in the way of Archie and Sabrina’s relationship through the form of a “Bachelor”-like charity programme set up by Cheryl. I love the even more stylized pastel colour palette from Matt Herms.

| Published by Archie Comics

Batman & The Outsiders #1 is an entertaining debut from Bryan Hill, Dexter Soy, Veronica Gandini, Clayton Cowles. I’ve not read the arc in Detective Comics that feeds into this, but this first issue provides enough information for new readers now to be lost and gives good incentive to check out what’s come before. Great art from Soy and Gandini, with an interesting look inside a team and a compelling start to a mystery about the last survivor from a metahuman generating factory.

| Published by DC Comics

Bettie Page #4 concludes the QE2 aliens caper. Love the art from Julius Ohta, Ellie Wright, and Sheelagh D.

| Published by Dynamite

Bronze Age Boogie #2 continues the strangest Doom Patrol story as the Martian invasion angle has taken hold in the future and a motley crew of heroes bands together to try to stop them. Stuart Moore, Alberto Ponticelli, Giulia Brusco, and Rob Steen are playing with some interesting cross-media influences to tell a highly entertaining tale. It’s rounded out with the usual goodies in the form of prose, letters, and what’s probably my favourite of the back-up strips so far, Major Ursa, from Tyrone Finch, Mauricet, Lee Loughridge, and Rob Steen.

| Published by Ahoy

Conan the Barbarian #6 sees Jason Aaron, Mahmud Asrar, Matthew Wilson, and Travis Lanham tell a story of Conan’s frustrations as a mercenary in the skirmishes between Turan and Stygia. People constantly underestimating Conan is always a fun story.

| Published by Marvel

Deadly Class #38 sees Marcus and Maria return to King’s Dominion. It’s kind of messed up seeing the new status quo, but at the same time the tension that Rick Remender, Wes Craig, Jordan Boyd, and Rus Wooton build here between to old Legacy kids and Marcus & Maria feels like it’s going to explode, suggesting something even worse for the characters is coming soon. It’s very captivating.

| Published by Image / Giant Generator

Detective Comics #1003 reveals the identity of the Arkham Knight. It’s not really anyone you could have possibly guessed, but an interesting addition to Batman’s rogues gallery. Also the cult surrounding the Arkham Knight is certifiably insane. Gorgeous artwork again from Brad Walker, Andrew Hennessy, and Nathan Fairbairn.

| Published by Marvel

The Empty Man #7 goes full Clive Barker as we get an explanation for what the Empty Man really is and how he continues to manifest himself upon reality. I know I keep saying it, but the body horror brought about in the art from Jesús Hervás and Niko Guardia just can’t be stressed enough. Every issue they seem to outdo themselves with creepy and intriguing designs.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

Eve Stranger #1 looks to be another winner for Black Crown. This first issue sets up the titular character as a secret agent who seems to need to reboot her memory every week. Why, exactly, is left unknown, but that’s part of the fun. David Barnett, Philip Bond, Eva de la Cruz, and Jane Heir do a wonderful job here with the action and intrigue. Also it’s great to see Bond doing more espionage tinged action, his art always looks so great telling these kinds of stories.

| Published by IDW / Black Crown

Excellence #1 is a thoroughly excellent debut from Brandon Thomas, Khary Randolph, Emilio Lopez, and Deron Bennett. The world and character building in this first issue is impeccable and the art from Randolph and Lopez will just blow you away. Incredible development of a magic-based society and the class structure therein.

| Published by Image / Skybound

The Flash #70 begins “Year One” promising new insight and occurrences during Barry’s origin story. Given that the last time this happened his mother was murdered, changing the timeline and resulting down the line in Barry trying to fix it with Flashpoint, anything’s possible. The real draw, though, is the stunning artwork from Howard Porter and Hi-Fi. Porter is really giving this his all and it shines through wonderfully.

| Published by DC Comics

Hawkman #12 brings Bryan Hitch’s tenure on the series to an end with the conclusion to “Cataclysm”. This is an excellent, action-packed final confrontation between the legion of Hawkmen and the Deathbringers, setting up a whole Hawkman for possibly the first time and hints as to worse things waiting on the horizon.

| Published by DC Comics

Infinite Dark #6 amplifies the terror and chaos as the dead-ish things exposed to the void start spreading fear and panic throughout the station. Ryan Cady, Andrea Mutti, K. Michael Russell, and Troy Peteri ratchet up the horror here.

| Published by Image / Top Cow

Invaders #5 raises more questions after we thought some things were coming into focus in the previous issue, as Chip Zdarsky, Carlos Magno, Butch Guice, Alex Guimarães, and Travis Lanham continue “War Ghosts”. The tension here on the brink of all out war between the US and Atlantis is incredible, and there are more interesting twists that suggest something far more sinister occurring.

| Published by Marvel

Jim Henson’s The Storyteller: Sirens #2 features a gorgeous adaptation of the story of Chinese mother goddess, Nuwa, by Chan Chau with letters by Jim Campbell. The artwork is amazingly beautiful supporting a very sweet tale.

| Published by Boom Entertainment / Archaia

Justice League Odyssey #9 opens up an interesting thread that Starfire, Cyborg, and Azrael may be unduly under the influence of Darkseid. Dan Abnett is setting up some simmering conflict between Jessica Cruz and the rest of the team here, along with quite a few occult catchphrases thrown in to help amplify the mood.

| Published by DC Comics

Lodger #5 is the end to this excellent crime drama from the Laphams and it is all kinds of messed up. We learn what really happened to Ricky’s family and...yeah. This has been a strange, at times disturbing, ride and they stuck the landing.

| Published by IDW / Black Crown

Murder Falcon #8 is the epic conclusion to this series as Jake and Murf take on Magnum Khaos. Between this series and Extremity, Daniel Warren Johnson has proven himself time and again as a master storyteller and it shines through with the heartrending end to this story. This one goes up to eleven.

| Published by Image / Skybound

Red Sonja & Vampirella Meet Betty & Veronica #1 is an interesting mash-up of the three properties from Amy Chu, Maria Sanapo, Vinicius Andrade, and Taylor Esposito. Some nice fish out of water humour as Sonja and Vampirella acclimate to Riverdale.

| Published by Dynamite

Savage Sword of Conan #5 concludes “The Cult of Koga Thun” from Gerry Duggan, Ron Garney, Richard Isanove, and Travis Lanham. Some interesting twists in this finale of what has been a highly entertaining adventure.

| Published by Marvel

She Could Fly: The Lost Pilot #2 sees Martín Morazzo cut loose again with some of the designs and presentation for Luna’s dreams and schizophrenic episodes.

| Published by Dark Horse / Berger Books

Star Wars: Age of Rebellion - Boba Fett #1 features some incredibly rich artwork from Marc Laming and Neeraj Menon. Great detail throughout this story spotlighting Boba Fett’s cold, silent amorality.

| Published by Marvel

Star Wars: Doctor Aphra #32 begins “Unspeakable Rebel Superweapon” as Aphra and her young protege steal the titular MacGuffin. There’s some interesting flashbacks to Aphra’s youth and it’s great to see Caspar Wijngaard doing more Star Wars art, even if just the flashbacks.

| Published by Marvel

These Savage Shores #4 is a sumptuous feast. Ram V, Sumit Kumar, Vittorio Astone, and Aditya Bidikar are elevating the artform of comics which each subsequent issue. The epistolary narrative, the horror and mythological themes, the plays upon the nine-panel grid, the shadowy character designs, the lush and spooky colours, the overlap with historical events, the unique approach and detail in each character’s missive...just one of these elements would result in an entertaining tale, this comic mixes all of them into a superlative package. You’re doing yourself a disservice if you’re not reading this series.

| Published by Vault

The Unstoppable Wasp #7 throws Nadia a birthday party, wherein she learns of her relations to what seems like half of the Marvel universe. Also, issues a death threat to Tony Stark. It’s cute, from Jeremy Whitley, Alti Firmansyah, Espen Grundetjern, and Joe Caramagna.

| Published by Marvel

War of the Realms: New Agents of Atlas #1 sets up the conflict in the Pacific with Sindr while introducing a swath of new international characters to the Marvel universe. Also, Amadeus Cho continues to be a massive idiot, even at his shrunken size. Great art from Gang Hyuk Lim and Federico Blee.

| Published by Marvel

Wonder Twins #4 sets up the twins with a pair of dates, allowing for some hilarious misadventures. Also, Polly seems to have a weird obsession with testicular cancer. Mark Russell, Stephen Byrne, and Dave Sharpe continue the fun, even though this one kind of takes us away from all ages material.

| Published by DC Comics / Wonder Comics

Wyrd #3 opens up the messy can of worms of Wyrd’s past further as a figure out of the past he can’t remember emerges for a “meet”. Great tone and atmosphere for this story from Curt Pires, Antonio Fuso, Stefano Simeone, and Micah Myers.

| Published by Dark Horse

X-Force #7 begins “The Counterfeit King” from Ed Brisson, Dylan Burnett, Damian Couceiro, Jesus Aburtov, and Joe Caramagna as past and present threaten to collide. Some nice character development for the team as they wait for Deathlok to do his thing.

| Published by Marvel

Other Highlights: Accell #20, Age of X-Man: Apocalypse & The X-Tracts #3, Battlestar Galactica: Twilight Command #3, Betty & Veronica #5, Black Hammer: Age of Doom #10, By Night #11, Captain America #10, Captain Marvel #5, Catwoman #11, Curse Words #21, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #6, Gunning for Hits #5, Hack/Slash vs. Chaos #5, Hit Girl: Season Two #4, House of Whispers #9, Ice Cream Man #12, James Bond: Origin #9, The Last Space Race #4, The Long Con #9, Marvels Annotated #3, Oberon #4, Ronin Island #3, Section Zero #2, Shadow Roads #7, Six Days, Spider-Man/Deadpool #50, Star Wars Adventures #21, Supergirl #30, Symbiote Spider-Man #2, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #44, Unnatural #9, Vindication #4, War of the Realms: Journey Into Mystery #2, Wasted Space #9, Waves, Wonder Woman #70

Recommended Collections: Accell - Volume 4: Slipstream Dream, Beyonders - Volume 1, Blackbird - Volume 1, Doctor Who: The Thirteenth Doctor - Volume 1, The Freeze - Volume 1, Justice League - Volume 2: Graveyard of the Gods, Pearl - Volume 1, Quantum & Woody! - Volume 2: Separation Anxiety, Red Sonja/Tarzan, Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider - Volume 1: Spider-Geddon, Star Wars: Age of Republic - Villains, Thor by Jason Aaron: Complete Collection - Volume 1, The Woods: Yearbook Edition - Volume 1

d. emerson eddy feels like a frappuccino.

[smollandtoll]

TITLE | IDK Spooky Stuff aka the Buzzfeed Unsolved AU WORDS | ~4960 WHY | ask @sidgenophotochallenge TAGS/WARNINGS | uh...fluff, spooky times, ghost elements, Geno’s bad American accent SUMMARY | Sid never thought he’d be stupid enough to make one of his biggest fears a cornerstone of his career, but here he was, going to dusty, dirty, old and abandoned places week after week trying to find proof of the supernatural. Adding Geno into the mix made things a little more complicated, but also good. Good and terrible.

IDK SPOOKY STUFF

Sid dropped another motion detector and set it with the help of his flashlight, held between his teeth. It was just starting to get dim enough that he couldn’t make out any of the text without a proper light. Fifteen feet away on the other side of the tracks Geno was doing the same thing, looking focused as he placed another device down and waved over it to check it was working. Sid pulled the light out of his mouth and shined it over at him.

“Have you ever thought about what it would be like if we weren’t constantly cold and dirty while doing this?” He called over and Geno smiled but didn’t look up.

“Your show Sid, you want.”

“Yeah. My show.” Sid snorted. It’d been at least a year and a half since it’d just been his show. The leaves rustled around him as he stood and took a few steps back to survey their trap.

If anything was going to move in this area they’d see it immediately.

“No ghost trains get by tonight.” Geno said, appearing at his elbow.

Sid jutted out his chin, pressing his lips together flat. “A full train apparition has never been seen, you know that. Let’s just get our footage and back to the house, we’re losing daylight.”

“Eager to go sleep in haunted house? You feel okay? You possess?” Geno mocked, making like he was going to check Sid’s temperature with the back of his hand. Sid ducked out of the way and fiddled with his handheld phone rig. He knew Phil was filming the wide shots of the tracks from a ways away, and their mics were recording. Geno had a dumb sense of humour, it was expected.

He ignored Geno’s genial chirping and started his own recording, speaking to the audience directly, he turned the camera to catch Geno, already watching him. He had an unreadable look on his face - Sid looked up from the camera for a moment to make real eye contact - Geno’s poker face in places like this was impeccable, he had no idea what the other man was thinking.

The case they were on was just outside of Pittsburgh, chilly but beautiful this time of year. There was an old colonial manor house and grounds that were said to be haunted by various spirits carried there by the train that had once run straight through the extensive property. Though the train hadn’t run in years the tracks were still there and visitors to the house said they regularly heard the train whistling as it passed by at night.

“Getting cold out, Sid, we done?” Geno tucked his hands deep into his jean jacket pockets. He cut a tall, sharp figure where he stood, broad-shouldered with his toque tucked low and his jeans rumpled casually over his hiking boots.

“Yeah, I think we’re good here for now. We’ll come back tomorrow and shoot some EVP questioning.” They turned and walked down the tracks, steps noisy in the leaves as they headed back to where Phil was waiting.

“No ghost box?” Geno extended an elbow and jostled him. Sid rolled his eyes.

“The ghost box provides results. The fans like it.”

“Is loud and stupid. Make no sense, not English.” He made a disgusted face at Sid that was as familiar and warm as an old sweater.

“How would you know, eh?” He grinned as G scowled harder, “C’mon Phil is getting that look on his face like he’s going to be late to Skype with his dog again if we don’t hurry up.”

Sid never thought he’d be stupid enough to make one of his biggest fears a cornerstone of his career, but here he was, going to dusty, dirty, old and abandoned places week after week trying to find proof of the supernatural.

As far as Sid was concerned, ghosts, spirits, and various other malicious beings were as good as proven. He’d always been a fairly superstitious kid, refusing to wash his jerseys when there was a big game coming up, doing all of his daily tasks in a certain order according to him or else melting down for a whole day feeling out of whack.

His mom used to just call him particular.

But he’d really had his mind made up when he was a preteen attending a boarding school that looked like a castle and was once used as a makeshift war hospital. Some of the shit that happened over his years attending Shattuck just could not be explained.

Students had items go missing when they’d turned their backs for a moment, shadowy figures vanished between the library stacks and Sid himself had had a distressing event with a tube of toothpaste that he preferred not to dwell on.

When injuries made a career in hockey impossible to follow through on, he turned to his second love - filmmaking. Watching stories about people helped him understand the world around him and let him explain himself in turn.  

Film school led to small projects which led to big projects and eventually a job making ridiculous Youtube videos for an internet company in California.

Pretty soon he found himself being coaxed to make videos about things he felt passionate about…and that lead to jumping at every bump in the night and giving his first co-host (an unamused and perpetually exasperated Tanger) a lot of chirping fodder for the rest of time. It was kind of like Youtube catnip apparently - humiliatingly, but seeing his own videos with millions of views made every minute of discomfort worth it.

Adding Geno into the mix made things a little more complicated, but also good. Good and terrible.

“You need me go first?”

Sid shot a glare over his shoulder at where Geno was standing just behind him, phone cradled in his hand, pointing the camera attachment right at him. He was probably capturing an incredibly unflattering angle that was all nose - because Geno was a dick. A few steps behind them Phil was holding their proper rig, looking as unimpressed as always.

“I hate you.” Sid muttered and took another deep calming breath. There was nothing to be afraid of, it was just a house, a big empty house where nothing could hurt him. He crossed himself quickly with his eyes closed and then threw open the grand front door of the Pittsburgh Manor House.

“Looks nice!” Geno was crowding him now, peering over his shoulder and shining his flashlight into the depths of the house, “kill for place like this in L.A. Worth fortune.”

“Don’t talk about killing,” Sid hissed, stepping gingerly into the manor - he didn’t like the vibes of this place at all, the hair on the back of his neck instantly stood on end. He could feel his pupils dilating to take in whatever scraps of light were lurking in the shadows. It smelled musty - mostly like a house that hadn’t been thoroughly cleaned or lived in for decades, which was exactly what it was.

Geno slipped around him easily, sailing into the drawing room across the creaking hardwood floors and taking stock of the place as casually as a new home buyer.

Phil flipped on the lights in the grand foyer and set his camera down on the nearest side table, sending a puff of dust off the intricate wood inlay.

“I’m going to start bringing our gear inside.” He disappeared out the open door and Sid suppressed a shudder. He refused to look into the yawning expanse of darkness that lay waiting at the top of the large staircase dead ahead of the doors - there would be plenty of time for that.

Unfortunately, there was no real safe place to look instead, the previous owners had clearly liked mirrors - they lined the walls of the space, every few feet another one, their elaborate, gilded frames dulled with more dust. Every shadow and bit of light seemed to bounce back and forth, making even his own movement startling in his peripheral. Sid was already starting to feel the history of this place sticking to his clothes, getting jumpy as shadows loomed in every corner.

“You okay?” Geno had lowered his camera, no longer recording, and was giving him a shrewd look. Sid shook himself, he really had to work on his game face - but then again they paid him to do this because of how piss-his-pants scared he got every time.

“I’m fine. The usual.” He crossed his arms over his chest and looked around again. He counted the mirrors this time and acted like he had a handle on his shit. Geno was an old hand at seeing through all of his most patented bluffs though and clicked his tongue chidingly at him.

“Serious Sid. Is just old house. No one here but us.” Geno was close enough now that Sid could feel the heat from his body all along his right side. Sid refused to look at him, heart throbbing traitorously in his chest.

“You always say that.” He always tried to comfort Sid when it mattered, his normal bickering, stubborn persona giving way to the marshmallow soul underneath.

“Because that always truth!” Geno grabbed his shoulder to jostle him until he cracked a smile up at him. “Beside, nothing happen to you, if was ghost. Too pretty.”

Sid’s stomach turned over, one part helpless reaction to flattery and one part thick disappointment. Geno was a terrible flirt and he was definitely just joking, the fans always loved it when they teased each other.

Running a too-successful-for-what-it-is Youtube series with someone you’ve been in unrequited love with since the beginning of time was absolutely garbage, every time.

Sid and Geno had met one dreary Monday afternoon in a conference room full of a cobbled together group of producers, writers and editors. They were put into teams to experiment with whatever content creation ideas that came to them.

Geno was all legs in terrible jorts, a graphic tee proclaiming something about beer, and a backwards snapback. He had a sly look on his face like he was trying to figure out who best to play dumb foreigner with.

(It was always the interns, always.)

It was probably the very first day that they’d had their first argument about ghosts. Sid had staunchly defended his position (“Just because there isn’t evidence yet doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist - you can’t count out that many witnesses!”) and Geno stood by his (“No. Stupid. No ghost.”). They’d had their coworkers in stitches and tossing around the words “chemistry”.

When it was clear he and Tanger - while still great friends - just didn’t spark together on camera, Geno was the natural replacement. He had an unshakeable ability to believe nothing could possibly be scarier than real-life in-soviet-era Russia and a knack for funny, if weird and distinctly Russian flavoured, quips.

Ever since they’d been stuck spending an excruciating amount of time together in the darkest, creepiest places imaginable. Just thinking about the dolls and spiders on that island still gave Sid chills; not to mention their demon encounters.

They taped together, edited together, answered questions together, traveled together, planned together and explored together. As much as they played up animosity and competition in the show they actually got along really well. Sid had met Geno’s adorable little parents multiple times, and his sister, Taylor, could be regularly found sending Geno Russian cat memes to translate for her.

It had just been a crush originally, but the nature of the show had them working in such close quarters so consistently. The constant contact was like steroids for Sid’s treacherous heart. Somehow Geno became his best friend, and the first person he wanted to talk to in the morning and the last person he wanted to see at night.

The walkthrough of the manor dragged on.

There were so many rooms full of disturbing little totems left by fellow ghost hunters; weird dolls and pentagrams drawn in the dust on the floor. Geno of course, totally ignoring how creepy everything was, seemed to actually like the place, commenting cheerfully on how nice the house actually was with its high ceilings, how many rooms there were, how a big family could live there comfortably.

They set up their case introduction in the music room, with the derelict piano behind them, mirrors once again all around them. Sid read Geno the history of the house for his reactions, so that they could then intercut his voice over and through other relevant footage. It was routine, something they did so often it usually calmed Sid down, but this time he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched. He found himself fighting the nagging urge to look over his shoulder while he was reading.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise then, that the following room tours left him startling regularly, spooked by Phil, and Geno, and his own shadow. Nothing in this house was sitting right with him.

“-Wait. Did you hear that?” Sid stopped short behind Geno on the staircase. Phil’s camera lens redirected its focus on him, Sid ignored it.

“What?” Geno was never tired of his ‘delusions’ or short with him in annoyance. He was always open, welcome to suggestions and ready to talk him off every supernatural ledge.

“I thought I heard- ” Sid looked up at him and managed a crooked smile, “you’re not going to believe me. I thought I heard a train.”

“GHOST TRAIN!” Geno exclaimed and then turned to continue up the stairs, unconcerned, “I hear nothing. Wind probably. If actual ghost train we get footage on motion capture.”

“Yeah,” Sid checked his phone, squinting at its brightness after the dim lighting of his GoPro. “It’s 11:35 right now, for the time stamps.”

Geno hummed in agreement and continued climbing, the old stairs creaking under his weight.

The grand chandelier that was supposed to hang in the stairwell was missing, supposedly used in a hanging many years ago that caused its structural failure that then lead to it falling and crushing another person decades later.

This house had seen some serious shit.

Geno reached a limit with the silence, clearly bored, and started doing a weird approximation of an American accent to talk to the ghosts. His nonchalance never failed to baffle Sid.

“Yo to the ghosts! Are you very well going to give a chat to us?” He always sounded hilariously like he’d been fed through Google translate too many times when he tried to do an American impression. The actual accent was decent - it was his choice of words that was so ridiculous, adding as many extra words as he could fit into any sentence.

“We are the very nice best boys!” Sid began to giggle at that, all of Geno’s words over-enunciated, “You can trust us with all your talk, ghosts.”

“Is there something so funny or wrong about our time here, there, Sidney?” He turned to Sid wearing an expression of absolute serious inquiry which caused both Sid and Phil to start losing their shit together.

“Ghosts are the most serious of businesses.” Geno planted his hands on his hips but before he could say anything else, a sharp floorboard creak rang through the space around them although none of them had moved. The levity of the situation broke immediately. They all looked around in silence but for their breathing for a minute, two. Part of Sid wanted to think it was just the house settling, but some part of him was sure it was something much worse.

“It’s getting late.” Phil murmured just as his camera beeped that its battery had 25% life left. Sid steeled himself for his least favourite part of their on-scene cases.

“Let’s finish up and find a place to camp for the night.”

The campouts had always been tough for Sid, but worse yet was when they actually had a bed instead of just a floor to sleep on. The first time Sid stared down at a sole double bed for both him and Geno to sleep on for the night, he didn’t know what to think. Everything mostly condensed down to two distinct kinds of dread:

The feeling of knowing you’d be spending a night in an inherently dangerous and unknown situation while likely feeling too tense or fearful to feel comfortable sleeping at all,

Being forced to be in such close and intimate proximity to the object of your affections who is fully oblivious to your feelings about them.

Geno, of course, took one look at the bed and dumped his things to the right side, claiming it for himself. He then immediately stretched out across the entire expanse of the mattress. His ankles hung off the end of the bed, exposing his ‘In Bigfoot I believe’ patterned socks. When he’d found them he’d proudly sent Sid a selfie with them like he was getting on the #Crosboo bandwagon or something.

Sid loved him from head to ridiculous toe and had been suddenly stricken with the conviction that he was definitely going to ruin everything in one way or another that night.

Luckily, nothing really out of the ordinary happened. Sid hadn’t liked it one bit and barely dozed all night - snapping awake every time Geno breathed a little too hard or the building creaked in the wind. He had survived though, and hadn’t even spent the long small hours of the morning thinking about how he even kind of liked the way Geno buzzed as he slept, somewhere between a snore and a purr. Okay, that was a lie, he’d definitely thought about that a lot, mind racing in a screeching loop between their imminent haunting and how soft Geno’s features were in sleep.

If he grew too agitated at any point in time in their spooky campouts, breathing hard with anxiety or turning over and over again to try and settle down, Geno would gruffly - but with genuine concern - always rouse himself enough to check on Sid. He’d make sure he actually still wanted to be there and then usually dropped his head back to his pillow and called him bad names in Russian, muttering about interrupting his beauty sleep.

Sometimes he just rolled over and threw one incredibly long leg or an arm over Sid to keep him still, his warm breath fanning over Sid’s shoulder, heat from his limbs seeping into Sid’s skin and settling his fears. It was always during the calm after those moments that Sid thought maybe, maybe he could love me back.

They settled on the master suite for their campout. It was perched at the top of the house with its own access staircase and beautiful architectural elements like the dark beams that ran across the ceiling and large paned windows that overlooked the vast property. It would have been lovely if he hadn’t been told it was haunted by several of the manor’s former owners.

Once all their tripods were set up they walked Phil back out to his car where he - the lucky son of a bitch - got to drive back to the motel and meet up with them the next morning with breakfast from in town.

They climbed all the stairs, back to their waiting nest of camera equipment and settled in for the night. Side by side in their sleeping bags on the ground, lights switched off, Sid felt the familiar dread of anticipation settle in as Geno began to snore.

Hours passed, or minutes. Tree branches waved strange moving shadows across the floor and the gentlest wind rattled the glass panes of the windows. Sid was almost lulled into a nervous doze when the footsteps started.

It was just one at first, easily explained by general creaks and shrieks of the house settling, but then another came, and another. A slow, purposeful climbing of the stairs that filled Sid’s belly with dread. His eyes snapped open but there was only darkness around him and he refused to look over at the opening to the stairs in case he actually did see someone who didn’t belong there.

The footsteps ceased when it sounded like they got to the top of the stairs and that was almost worse, thinking perhaps whatever was with them was just watching, or maybe now gliding soundlessly closer to them.

“Geno,” Sid hissed, squirming a little closer to where heavy human breathing had been regularly coming to his left. Geno murmured indistinctly, face mashed casually into his pillow.

The temperature felt like it was dropping around them, chillier by the moment and Sid’s heart, which had already jumped at the first footstep, began to race. He could barely hear anything over the sound of his pulse thundering in his ears.

“Geno! Do you feel that? D-did you hear the footsteps?” Was he imagining things or was his breath actually fogging in front of him a little.

“Just house, Sid.” Geno muttered and reached out to touch him, probably what was meant to be a friendly pat but Sid managed to catch his hand. He clutched Geno’s hand like a lifeline, warm and alive and real.

The heavy scent of inexplicable perfume tickled his nose, and Sid gulped for air, shutting his eyes tightly, not wanting to see his imminent death. He knew he was holding Geno’s hand far too tightly, folded into his chest.

“Heart beat strong.” Geno finally shifted more, sounding like he was turning onto his side and sliding closer to Sid, “you really scared?”

“Don’t you smell that?” He scarcely wanted to whisper.

“Smell house,” Geno replied, like he had every time they were in one of these situations, “come Sid, need sleep.”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon - I really don’t think we’re alone up here.”

“We alone.” Geno said firmly, “don’t want to share. Any ghosts can fuck off.” He raised his voice almost like he was calling out a dare to anything listening. Sid swore he heard a distant door slam. His eyes snapped open but all he could really see was darkness and Geno’s eyes shining in front of him.

“Shut up, what was that?”

“Nothing. Come. Sleep.” Before Sid could react, he was being dragged closer by the hand he still had a death grip on. Geno’s body was warm even through both of their sleeping bags and some of the tension drained out of Sid’s spine at the feeling of being close. All he could hear was Geno breathing now, moving, tucking Sid’s sleeping bag close and wrapping his arm around his waist. All he could smell was the scent of slightly sweaty Geno - no perfume at all.

A large palm cupped the back of his head, encouraging him to tuck his face into Geno’s neck which he gladly did.

“Good. Sleep now. Let me protect. Nothing get you.” Sid took several deep breaths, “Don’t know why you always do this, work self up, stress not good. I’m worry you know.”

Sid huffed a hoarse laugh into Geno’s collar. Geno’s throat bobbed against his cheek as he swallowed.

“I do. Most worry, always. Not want to do if you’re not have fun.” his voice was incredibly soft and Sid blinked into the darkness created by their bodies.

“I do have fun. When we’re together it’s fine.”

“Not fine now, Sid.” He sighed heavily, “sometimes wish we can just prove ghosts real so we stop doing this.” He shifted his legs closer to Sid’s, nylon sleeping bag rustling, “but selfish also. Want never prove ghosts, do this with you forever. Keep close, love always.” he stroked his hand over the soft hair at the back of Sid’s neck.

“Geno-”

“Come Sid, need sleep.” he repeated quietly almost sadly, pulling him even closer. Sid let himself lie there for a little longer, tucked into the bubble of warmth that Geno created for him, thinking over his words. Finally he pushed away and sat up, grabbing his phone and flipping on the light immediately.

Geno squinted at him, hand coming up to block the brightness as best he could.

“Sid?”

“I don’t want to do this right now.” He swallowed, refusing to look outside of the pool of light that Geno was in, his bright spot in the darkness, “I don’t want to tell you that I’m in love with you and it doesn’t matter what we’re doing as long as we’re doing it together - here, in this haunted fucking house. So I’m going to turn off my light, and we’re going to go to sleep and tomorrow morning when the sun is up and we’re on our way home we can talk.”

Geno blinked at him owlishly before a smile started to curl the corners of his lips.  He then nodded. Sid turned the light on his phone off and immediately regretted it, the darkness rushing in. He put it aside and slid seamlessly back into the circle of Geno’s arms.

“So brave Sid.” G teased, voice rumbling in his chest. Sid didn’t need to see his face to know he was smirking.

“Shut up.”

Morning broke as it always did, not soon enough, but welcome relief after an uncomfortable night on a hard floor.

They lazily packed up their gear, shooting texts to Phil about what they wanted for breakfast. Geno looked puffy and tired behind his glasses, and pulled his toque and jacket and boots back on in his usual thick morning silence.

Sid was starting to doubt his own sanity, wondering if what had happened in the middle of the night was actually just a psychotic break brought on by fear. But then as he was struggling into his backpack Geno was there, in his personal space and straightening out the straps for him, carefully righting Sid’s jacket and then meeting his gaze meaningfully.

“Come on, let’s get the fuck out of this shitty place and get something to eat.” Sid said, maybe too loudly, but Geno just grinned in reply and motioned for him to lead the way out.

Somewhere in the middle of his second hash brown patty, scarfed down in their rental car, Geno started speaking English again and began complaining loudly about his work emails piling up while scrolling through his phone with greasy fingers.

Sid smothered a smile, looking out the window in the back seat while they drove the winding path down to where they’d left their motion detectors for the night by the tracks.

Everything was more or less exactly where they’d left it. Phil set about checking and packing up their low light cameras and Geno and Sid crunched down to the tracks to gather up all the detectors they’d laid out.

Geno shot Sid heavy looks as they packed each device carefully back into their padded camera bag compartments - he was clearly waiting for their conversation about as patiently as a lab waiting for dinner.

They were shoving all their gear bags back into the car’s trunk, struggling to Tetris in the tripods when Sid heard it - the train.

He snapped upright out of the trunk and turned towards the tracks below them - Geno and Phil had apparently heard it this time as well, as they paused what they were doing to turn and look too.

Before he could take more than a couple steps back towards the tracks, the leaves started kicking up in a great wind and a steam engine came barrelling through the wooded corridor. It looked and sounded and behaved as real as any other train Sid had ever seen, and in a flash it was gone as soon as it’d come.

“….Did you see that?” he turned to them with breathless wide eyes. Phil was swearing at his phone, he hadn’t been fast enough to catch it - Sid hadn’t even thought of recording it. Geno anticlimactically shrugged.

“Guess tracks not as abandoned as thought.” Sid turned to face Geno squarely, not believing what he was hearing.

“Seriously G? That’s what you’re going with? You just saw a ghost train with your own two eyes and-”

“Saw train, yes. Saw ghost train? No.” He crossed his arms over his chest.

“How can you even say that? You know that these tracks haven’t been used in decades!” Sid could hear his voice climbing higher and higher but couldn’t stop it.

“Maybe someone pull prank.”

“A. Full. Sized. Train.”

“Maybe was illusion, make us think we see something that not there, like mag-” Sid grabbed either side of Geno’s face, careful but firm, pressing his cheeks until his lips pursed and he couldn’t continue.

“I love you. But if you don’t shut up I’m going to leave you here with the ghosts. Let me have this for at least ten minutes.” Geno pulled Sid’s hands away from his face by the wrists, already smirking down at him.

“Oooookay. I don’t even want to know what happened in that house last night.” Phil unlocked the car and climbed in without looking back at them.

“Love me?” he looked smug and sleepy behind his glasses. Lips chapped, and hair a mess, continually and frustratingly skeptical about things that mattered.

“You already know that.”

“Want to hear again. Am science man, like repeated result.” Sid rolled his eyes and pulled Geno’s snickering face into a kiss, his glasses getting wedged awkwardly against their cheeks before they separated.

“Are we going to argue about that train for the rest of the week?” Sid pulled back just enough to let Geno fix his glasses and look down at him, impossibly fond.

“Think we going to argue about train for rest of our lives.”

AO3

[thelunarbond]

OC Questions with Phoenix

Questions taken from this post! Sorry if there are any typos, this was super long and I’m tired lmao

1) Their age? 

19

2) Their sexuality/sexual preference?

He struggled with it for a while, but now he’s openly pansexual. Anyone who’s nice to him for a while he’ll become attracted to 

3) Any siblings?

Phoenix has a little brother called Baxter! Baxter is 12 years old. They have a great sibling relationship; they trust each other and always look out for one another

4) Their favourite season?

Autumn/Winter. He hates being too hot and sweating, and he loves wearing sweaters cuz he’s insecure about his arms 

5) Who were/are their parents/guardians?

His parents were an artist and a musician, but they both died when he was 8-9 years old. His foster parents do not get along with him at all and they have arguments on the daily. Since joining the Lunar Bond, Phoenix lives with the other members and doesn’t visit them at all; he only sees his brother outside of the house

6) Their gender?

Cis male 

7) Their date of birth?

3rd September! (side note; I always do a drawing for his birthday, I’ll be sure to post it here this year!)

8) What clothing style?

He prioritises being comfy over everything else. He always wears a pair of ripped black skinny jeans and old, beaten up sneakers. He’ll often wear a long sleeved t-shirt or an oversized hoodie/sweater; the biggest one he owns goes down to his knees! He’ll also sometimes wear earrings (he has a cartilage piercing and both lobes pierced). He’ll never wear anything in public that shows off his arms or legs 

9) What is their favourite food after a break up?

No food. He doesn’t eat. He might drink some water if he gets a headache from thirst. And he’ll spend the rest of the time crying or sleeping. He’s melodramatic help him

10) Their favourite thing to do after a break up?

As mentioned earlier, crying and sleeping. Also listening to sad music. Help him please I’m begging

11) What happens in “the honeymoon phase” for this character?

He’s constantly buying gifts. And wants to see them every day. He becomes incredibly clingy and can sometimes get jealous. He’ll basically do anything for his S/O. He’ll turn up unannounced on their doorstep with flowers. Nobody in the Lunar Bond expects him to be like this at all, as his initial personality is so cold. However he is the most romantic person in the Lunar Bond by a long shot

12) How many serious relationships have they been in?

Three; one when he was 14-16, one from when he was 16-17 and one from recently to present day  👀 

13) What is their nationality?

The Lunar Bond universe is set in a world different from our own, so I’ll just write the equivalent nationality. He’s white British 

14) What languages do they speak?

He really wants to learn a language, however at the moment he only speaks English

15) What is their profession/education?

He’s currently a NEET. He dropped out of school due to anxiety and doesn’t have a job because he recently moved to the city and is too afraid to apply. In school, he did exceptionally well; he’s incredibly clever and always got straight A’s in all his classes. Perhaps when he comes out of his shell a little he’ll get a job doing something he loves

16) Their favourite comfort food?

Soup. Especially chicken noodle soup, as his mother used to make it for him. He’ll always have a bowl of soup if he’s feeling down

17) What is a food they hate?

Not a food, but he can’t stand coffee. He absolutely hates the bitter taste and can’t drink it because the caffeine makes him jittery

18) Their music taste?

Anything. His phone has all kinds of music, from contemporary pop to rock to classical to jazz. His father being a musician really helped him open his eyes to a broad range of music. The only kind of music he won’t listen to is screamo, as it’s too “noisy”. He has a preference towards calm songs as they help him feel relaxed, but he’ll listen to anything

19) Is there a story behind their name/meaning?

(For this question, I’ll write about the process of naming Phoenix!)

Originally, Phoenix’s name came from a name generator. I was struggling to find a name suitable for my main character that wasn’t too safe but also wasn’t too wacky and wild to the point where it wasn’t realistic, and it also had to suit the character. Once I saw the name Phoenix I just knew it fit him perfectly. At the start of the Lunar Bond story, he feels like he doesn’t suit his name; a Phoenix is fiery and always comes back after death and he feels that he is none of those things. However as the story progresses, Phoenix always rises back up after being knocked down. And as he opens up to his new friends, he becomes passionate and fiery about keeping them safe and close to him. He grows in the story to suit his name; he rises back up after every failure, and has the fire in his heart to protect those close to him 

20) Something they do that seems childish to others?

He frequently gets lost in make believe worlds in his head. These mostly come from books he’s been reading, as he loves adventure and fantasy books. He’ll zone out for 30-90 minutes and daydream about being a part of a fantasy world; some people around him think that it’s childish as he’s not grounded in reality

21) What is their all time favourite TV show? 

He doesn’t watch TV. At all. He didn’t really watch TV when he was younger either. He plays video games occasionally, but he mainly reads books or watches films

22) What is their all time favourite movie?

(I’ll write the real-world equivalent of Phoenix’s favourite films here!)

It changes depending on his mood. Hes indecisive and can’t choose a favourite. If he wants to relax, he likes animated films like Kiki’s Delivery Service. He also likes superhero movies like The Avengers. He also likes classics like The Shining. 

23) How big is their family?

Incredibly small. His only blood relative he has left is his brother Baxter. Both his parents were only children, so he doesn’t have any aunts, uncles or cousins. Both his sets of grandparents died when he was very young

24) Are they close to anyone specific in their family?

As his only remaining blood relative, Phoenix is very close to Baxter. They tell each other everything and not a day goes by where they don’t talk to each other, at least on the phone or through texts. For the majority of his life, Baxter saw Phoenix as more of a parent figure as oppose to a brother as Phoenix would always look after him. Baxter also doesn’t remember his parents so relies on Phoenix to tell him about them and what they were like

25) Have they got any allergies?

Not in terms of food, but his skin is incredibly sensitive. He can’t use products that are too scented or he’ll get a rash. He also can’t use aftershave for the same reason, so he’s stuck using the same soaps that he knows for a fact won’t irritate his skin

26) Are they an emotional person?

Yes. He’s incredibly emotional. However, he won’t let it show in front of other people. To people who don’t know him well, Phoenix is cold, stoic and sharp tongued, and pushes away those who try and get close to him. He’s terrified of getting hurt, so he doesn’t allow people near him. On the inside, Phoenix is lonely and begging for someone to support him. When he’s alone, he lets out all of his emotions. He’ll punch a pillow if he’s angry, he’ll cry himself to sleep if he’s sad, he’ll giggle like a schoolboy if he’s happy. There’s only one person who can see straight through him... 👀

27) Do they get angry/lose their temper quickly?

He doesn’t get angry easily, but he’s easily irritated. He will never yell at someone or start an argument unless they’ve really touched a nerve. He will never start a physical fight with someone either. His anxiety makes him easily irritable, so he might tell someone sternly to leave him alone but that’s about as far as it goes the majority of the time

28) What are some of their guilty pleasures?

Animated films, and when he was a kid he was secretly into musical films aimed predominately at young girls (e.g. High School Musical). He still knows all the words to the songs to this day

29) Do they have pets? Do they want pets?

Phoenix hasn’t had a pet since he had a hamster when he was 5. When he moves into his own house he’d absolutely love to have a cat. Or 2. Or 5. He loves cats! He can’t have one right now though because Chase is allergic 

30) Do they like kids? Do they want kids/have kids?

He doesn’t mind children. He doesn’t love them or hate them. He’s very good at looking after children/babysitting because he looked after Baxter for so long. However he doesn’t want his own children because he would worry about them all the time

31) Who’s cuddle buddy are they?

Spoilers 🤐 🤐 🤐

32) Do they have any tattoos?

No. He’s terrified of needles so he’s never getting a tattoo

33) Do they have any piercings?

Only the ear piercings I mentioned earlier!

34) What is their hair colour? Is this their natural colour?

Phoenix’s hair is a light-ish brown colour, which is his natural colour. Minami is desperate to dye his hair but he always says no

35) Do they like musicals?

Other than the teen musicals he watched in secret as a kid? Sure! He has to be in the right mood to watch a musical though. He only watches musicals that are made into films; he’d be way too intimidated to go and watch one on stage

36) Do they like marmite?

He tolerates it. He doesn’t love it or hate it. He’ll eat it if it’s there but he won’t go and buy a jar of it

37) Do they like glitter?

Not really. He thinks it’s too messy and he likes to keep stuff tidy. He’s let Minami put glitter on his face before though

38) Do they believe in the supernatural?

Phoenix is the kind of person to be totally sceptical of supernatural stuff, but then the minute something vaguely spooky happens he’ll freak out and run away

39) Have they ever seen a dead body?

Yes. Wont go into details because spoilers  🤐 🤐 🤐

40) Have they ever had a near death experience?

Being a member of the Lunar Bond is a constant near death experience 

41) Have they ever broken a bone?

Yes. As a kid he broke his leg while climbing a tree in the forest. The worst part was that because he was alone and didn’t have a phone, he was found 2 and a half hours later by his mother as she was wondering where he was

42) What are they like when they’re drunk/what kind of drunk are they?

An overly emotional drunk. All his feelings come spilling out everywhere and he’ll be crying or laughing hysterically or yelling. If he has an S/O he’ll become even more clingy than he is usually

43) Did they ever get drunk while underage?

Yes. He got drunk with his ex-boyfriend when he was 15. Nothing too bad happened; he just ended up spending 3 hours telling said ex-boyfriend how much he loves him. Technically in some countries he’s still underage (however the drinking age where he lives is 18 so it’s all good!) 

44) What is the first thing they do when they wake up?

He checks the time on his phone so he knows what day it is and what time it is, as he’s been known to spend a long time sleeping. He’ll then make himself some tea

45) Do they consider themselves to be popular?

Absolutely not. Phoenix spends a lot of time worrying that his new friends in the Lunar Bond don’t actually like him, and that they’re being nice because they feel like they have to be nice to their teammate. Among the members of the Lunar Bond, he’s actually fairly popular and thought of highly; but he’ll never believe them if they say that to his face

46) How do they like their tea/coffee?

Tea: Depends on the type. He’ll drink loose leaf teas slightly weaker as they have a stronger flavour, so brewing time is lessened. He drinks green tea fairly strong. Some teas such as vanilla rooibos he’ll drink black, but other teas such as Lady Grey he’ll add some milk. Some teas such as Lapsang Souchong he’ll drink weaker with a little sugar

Coffee: In the trash. Where it belongs. At least in his opinion

47) What do they smell like?

Lemon and tea tree body wash, as that’s the only one he likes that doesn’t irritate his skin. Also second hand books

48) Are they a virgin?

No, but don’t tell him I told you that

49) Do they wear glasses/contacts?

He needs reading glasses as he’s slightly long sighted, but it’s not so bad that he has to wear them all the time. He wears them fairly often as he’s nearly always reading, and he just forgets to take them off 

50) Are they good at remembering significant dates, such as birthdays or anniversaries?

Yes. He doesn’t even need to write them down. He remembers dates from weird things, such as when he got his new glasses or when he got his ears pierced. He never forgets a birthday or anniversary and always buys gifts far ahead of time

[monster-ronpa]

Warriors of hope meeting another kid who’s a Naga/Lamia?

First imagine for the kids! I tried to make it good, but it’s also pretty long because of that.

Please tell me if they’re in character, I want these kids to be written to the highest quality.

Also, to the original requester, please tell me if you would like Monaca included–I will make the necessary changes.

~Mod Rachnera

You’re Just Like Me! (Lamia!Warriors of Hope and their new Friend)

Masaru Daimon(Lamia Subspecies: Echidna)

Masaru always thought of himself as a type of “hero.” The guy that’d save everyone else from the bad people.

But, he never really got to live out that lifestyle. Why? Because the world isn’t tailored to most kids’ wishes.

Raised by his single human father on account that his mother left a year after his birth, Masaru was mistreated for many of his days. Blamed for the Lamia that left his dad on the account that their kid wasn’t a girl like she’d hoped. Apparently neither of them truly loved him, it seems.

But, Masaru still tried! He wanted to help others, and he tried his best. Some reciprocated nicely, like the woman across the street needing help with groceries. 

Others…didn’t, like the monster-racist old man across the street pelting him with rocks for attempting to help him cross a busy street.

The kid felt so alone…even if he did help people, really–no one seemed to care much for anything except themselves. Even other monster kids thought he was weird, and stayed away from him.

Well, except for one. You. He met you when you were also being bullied by other kids–human and monster.

“Hey! Leave that kid alone!” he viciously slithered towards you as you were curled up in a coiled heap, shielding your human body from the sticks they hit you with.

Scaring them away with a fierce, signature Echidna-viper hiss, they ran off, and he looked at you. You looked at him through the coils of your tail and he reached a scaled hand out.

“Are you okay?” he smiled, “Those kids didn’t poke your eyes out, huh??” “N-No, they didn’t.”

As you uncoiled your tail, it dawned on him–you were a Lamia! An Echidna! Just like him, scales and everything! But why were you being bullied? ….guess he said that out loud.

“I-I’m t-t-the only Echidna in c-class,” you said quietly. Masaru paused, staring for a bit.

“Well, where d’you go?” “H-Hope’s Peak Elementary..?” “Wow, really?! Hey, what class are you in?!” “T-The teachers put me in the m-monster class for the Monster Lil’ Ultimates..” “I’m gonna be going there!”

Your eyes lit up as you smiled hopefully, “Really?” your demeanor brightened up immensely when he said so! That made Masaru smile as he put his hands on your shoulders.

“What’s your name??” “Y/N!” “I’m Masaru, Y/N! And don’t worry!” he points to himself, “Once I’m in the school, you won’t be bullied anymore! Cuz I’ll be your friend! And I’ll protect you from aaaaall the bullies and make sure you’re not lonely!” he grinned, “I’ll be your hero!”

At that, you seemed so, so happy. You smiled brightly, “Thank you Masaru!” you giggled, “You’re already my hero! The best hero!”

Those words echoed in his mind as he made his way back home–until he could enact justice upon his father for such mistreatment, Masaru would endure it. He’d keep being the hero you need–the hero you want. And not only that..

…he’d be the best friend he could be as well.

Jataro Kemuri(Lamia Subspecies: Medusa)

Jataro wasn’t liked by others. And, well, he knew it was because he was a Medusa.

People hated him. Feared him. Disliked him. They wanted to get away from him. He didn’t even want to appear as if he was trying to be mean or distant–he just…he just has bad vision, like any Medusa.

But, even after putting a mask over his face from his mother’s orders, he was still convinced–people distanced themselves since he was atrocious. Disgusting.

No one loved him, they just tolerated him since they couldn’t see his face. But, really, would it matter? Even with the mask he’ll be hated. People don’t want to be friends with him, or spend time with him.

Jataro just accepted that…maybe he was destined to be alone. In a world where everyone hated. But maybe it was best to be alone. After all, if he was hated, no one would want to get close to him, then disappoint him when they let him go, right?

….so he thought.

He was coming from the bathroom at the park one day only to bump into someone else coming from another direction. He let out a small yelp before adjusting his mask, and looking at who he bumped into.

Looking up, your eyes met with his. You fixed your glasses before squinting.

Oh….you’re a–a Medusa too! He gasped quietly and you spoke first as he was frozen in shock and uncertainty. “I’m sorry, these glasses are really cheap, so they….don’t help me see much,” you said with a squint.

Jataro blinked, “Ohhhh….no, it’s fine, it’s my fault anyway…” he looks down, fiddling with his fingers.

“I was lost in thought–I was, like….thinking about..” he hums, “….I forgot. Anyway, it’s my fault you bumped into me. Just like how earlier, I bumped into a human lady and made her drop a carton of eggs in the store–my mom got reaaaally angry at me…you know, why do you think we crack eggs before we eat them? Do you think it’s cuz we can’t digest the shell, or is it cuz, like, it just really hurts to chew? Like eating glass, hahahah–” he didn’t realize he was rambling until just now, so he shut his lips, pursing them tightly.

You blink, “……Uh. O-Oh, no, it really was my fault–I wasn’t looking….b-but hey! Uhm, c–cool mask! Did you make it?”

He smiled, “Oh, yeah…..I have to wear this mask–my mom says if I don’t, then people’s eyes will explode from how scary and ugly my face is…plusss, the snakes? in my hair are really short, cuz my hair is short–and they look really weird and spooky too..”

You blinked. Then told him to wait there. Jataro didn’t get it, but he did as he was told, simply swinging his arms around boredly as he went to a nearby bench.

Coming back to him, you were now wearing a paper bag around your head, sitting next to him. “….are you…making fun of me..?” “No, I just thought.”

You smiled at him underneath the mask, he could tell. Why? “I just thought that, well, if you were ugly, I am too!” you coiled your tail around his in a gesture similar to a handshake, “Lets be ugly together–Lamias all stick together, you know?”

Jataro blushed heavily under his mask, tugging it shyly, “…….okay…..you’re weird, and….I-I don’t get why you wanna be ugly with someone as atrocious as me…but I won’t stop you. E-Even if your kindness is….unsettling.” 

Truthfully, deep down…he was glad someone would stick by him in this awful world.

Kotoko Utsugi(Lamia Subspecies: Melusine)

Kotoko was going along with her fellow Melusine mother to audition for a play. Albeit it was a bit forceful, Kotoko didn’t want to go to the audition and instead wanted to go and play.

“No, no, don’t you see, Kotoko? When you get up on that stage, no doubt–you’ll sparkle and shine! You’ll get to be as bright as the sun!”

She didn’t care about that, though. She never did. All she wanted was to be a normal kid.

Yet here she was, auditioning for a play, and getting the role, as usual. And getting creepy stares and perverted smiles from the men producing and directing them–as she usually did.

She was especially famous for making it big as a child monster actor, which probably intensified their “admiration” from her. She had no doubt that monster fetishizers and pedophiles probably liked her too, and that made her nauseous.

That was when she heard another small voice.

“Hey! Cool headband! Did your folks force you to sign up for this stupid play too?”

Looking over, she came face to face with you–and gasped softly. You were a Melusine! You had wings like hers and everything!

Realizing she was staring silently, she gasped again, before answering hastily, “Oh, yeah! Uhm–I mean…yeah, I got the part, but, I was kinda…yeah, I was forced to. My mom really wanted me to. And so I did..”

“Same! My pops and big sis really wanted me to–for whatever reason. They got real pushy so I just went with it so they’d stop bothering me!” you look around, “But, truth be told, I was planning on skipping practice to go to the park!”

Kotoko’s eyes widened a bit, “Wouldn’t you get in trouble with the producers?” that thought made her feel so uneasy..

“No, trust me, I’m real good at making excuses–and they fall for ‘em every time! Those dumb ol’ guys. Hey, wanna play with me tomorrow? We can skip auditions and go get some drinks!”

Kotoko nervously glanced around to make sure no one was listening to your plans, before accepting with a bright smile. Finally, maybe–maybe this is her chance to have some semblance of happiness and peace in her life..

“Oh, by the way, I’m Y/N! What’s your name?” “It’s Kotoko! Eh, K-Kotoko Utsugi, that is!” “Nice!”

As your older sister called you back over to leave, you lifted your tail up, “I’ll see you tomorrow for some fun, okay, Kotoko? We’re gonna skip like–all the practice and go play around instead!”

She looked at your tail, before hesitantly wrapping hers around it in a sort of handshake kind of way. Smiling happily, she giggled a bit and you did too, smiling back.

“See ya, Kotoko!” “Y-Yeah, see you around!”

For once, Kotoko felt a sliver of hope in her heart–maybe this would be her escape. Her escape from the cruel, dirty world she was thrusted into against her will.

Nagisa Shingetsu(Regular Lamia)

Nagisa watched with cold, unblinking eyes at the human and monster children who were playing outside.

He would’ve gone outside to play with them on break, but due to mental anxiety that he’d be punished if he didn’t continue to study, he was continuing to do schoolwork.

Although, since he was left without much of a distraction, he began to think on how stressed out he was.

He hadn’t gotten sleep, as usual, at all yesterday night. 

Makeup provided by his mother had hidden most of the fatigue that used to be very visible on his face, but he had nearly fallen asleep a few times before having to pinch himself awake.

Although his stress and anxiety was getting to him, and he pressed down on his pencil too hard, breaking it and tearing the paper a bit.

Instantly he noticed this and growled in frustration, sliding his upper half off of his chair to get ready to look for something to fix the paper and sharpen his pencil when he saw you.

You were quietly sketching away on a piece of paper but that wasn’t what interested him–you were the only other Lamia he’s met in this school. If he was honest, he felt mildly ostracized from others due to his species not being too prevalent here. How did he not notice sooner?

But he was staring too long since you looked up at him, blinking. Blushing in embarrassment, he blinks himself when you wave him over.

“I heard the paper tearing, do you need tape?” you asked as you reached into your desk to get him some just in case.

“Oh, um….yes, that’d be appreciated. If you have a pencil sharpener to spare, too…then…?” he nods, “Thank you.”

You hand him some tape and a pencil sharpener, “It’s fine, that happens to me too–I get distracted or press too hard and everything goes wrong.” “Haha, yeah, I guess..”

Nagisa sat there in quietness for a bit before asking you a question. “Why didn’t you go out to play with the others? Surely that must be more fun?”

You smiled sadly, “Uh, well, I don’t actually have any friends to play with. No one really wants to be the new transfer student’s friend, I guess.”

Oh, so that’s it. Nagisa had an urge to get to know you for some reason–another Lamia, perhaps. Plus, his head was throbbing and he needed a break. Or at least, someone to converse with.

“I could…go ahead and show you around this place. My father works here, I know it from head to toe–er, tail. But, that should be after school or at least on another break. Does that sound okay?”

You nod, smiling thankfully, “Okay! Thank you! It’s really appreciated–the fact that I have company and that you’re gonna show me around,” you giggle and he blushes again but smiles gently.

“Y-Yeah, it’s the least I can do for a new student……well, back to work. See you then.” “Mhm! Oh, and my name is Y/N!” “Oh…I’m Nagisa, then.”

You wave at him as he goes to sit down again, “Nice to meet you, Nagisa!”

He felt accomplished today just for that small event. Maybe this could be a chance for him to feel….not so stressed all the time. Maybe.

[yellingmetatron]

A Spooky Story for Halloween

‘Tis the season for spookiness, so I thought I’d share a little story.  Is it related to my muse?  No.  Will it entertain you regardless?  Might do.  And hey, there’s gonna be a ghost lady.  Bitches (by which I mean everyone on tumblr including myself) dig ghost ladies.

Now, I have seen a common complaint about the archetypal Beauty and the Beast story, which is that in most its iterations, the story is about a male monster being redeemed by a woman. “Why can’t a man see past a woman’s outer monstrosity and into the goodness within?”  I hear you cry.  “Must it always be a woman who bears a man’s darkness?  Cannot a man love a monster for who she truly is?”

Well good news, kids: There is in fact a folktale that reverses the dynamic.  As with most fairy tales, there are several different tellings, all valid.  But I intend to share with you my favorite version, known popularly as “King Henry”, but re-imagined by myself as “King Doormat”.  Why King Doormat?  Oh, you’ll see.

Once upon a time in Ye Goode Olde Dayes, there lived a monarch called King Doormat.  He was a paragon of chivalry in the Dark Ages and something of a moron, which is no doubt why he was so beloved by his subjects. When he wasn’t busy being chivalrous and a moron, he liked to go out into the forest with his entourage and hunt, because you’re not expected to be chivalrous to deer, something that his courtiers probably spent quite a while getting King Doormat to understand.

The king and his followers were having a jolly good day in the royal forest not being chivalrous to deer, when suddenly a storm blew in.

“Hey, said King Doormat, “This looks like it’s a real wicked pissah.” He was the King of Massachusetts, apparently.  “Why don’t we take shelter in that hunting lodge?”  The king gestured to nearby Doomdeath Hall, which had stood abandoned for half a century after the last Lord Doomdeath, Gerard Squiggleby, had been eaten alive by ghost monsters.  The king’s retinue, who were less chivalrous than their liege but not much smarter, agreed.

They’d barely managed to break into the wine cellar when suddenly the storm outside got even worse. There was a flash of lightening, a sudden darkness, which is the opposite of lightening, and then a hideous screech that combined all the charm of nails on a chalkboard with the understated dignity of a cat stuck up a chimney.  And then who should come stamping into the hall but a ghost monster?  A lady ghost monster, even.  Let’s let Steeleye Span describe her, because heaven knows I can’t be bothered to invest much energy in this story given I know how it comes out:

Her head hit the roof-tree of the house Her middle you could not span Each frightened huntsman fled the hall And left the king alone Her teeth were like the tether stakes Her nose like club or mell And nothing less she seemed to be Than a fiend that comes from hell

King Doormat, being so exceptionally chivalrous, did not run away, but instead offered her some food.

“I hope venison is OK,” said King Doormat fretfully, “Only my advisors tell me if you let peasants eat venison they turn to stone, so I hope you’re at least, like, a baroness—"

“I wanna eat your horse,” said the lady ghost monster.

“…My what?”

“Your horse.  Kill your horse so I can eat it.”

“Oh, said King Doormat,” realization dawning, “You’re a French ghost.  Well, no judgement here, my father always said it takes all kinds to—”

“Less talking more killing,” growled the lady ghost monster, her teeth lengthening and her hair catching fire.

So off Doormat went to kill his horse, and presented its carcass to the lady ghost monster.  She turned to mist, crawled in one of its nostrils, and ate the whole thing from the inside-out, leaving only its skin.

“Well, that’s literally the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen,” said Doormat, “But at least it’s sort of overwhelmed the feeling of guilt I had for killing my favorite horse—”

“I wanna eat your dogs now,” said the lady ghost monster.

“…Wat.”

“Did I fudging stutter?”

“…But there’s still deer though.”  Doormat gestured helplessly to the three deer carcasses lying in the corner.  “I mean you could probably eat some organ meat without turning to stone, I hear most peasants—”

The lady ghost monster unhinged her jaw like a snake, bent all her joints backward, and made a sound like a foghorn being murdered by an ambulance siren in the king’s face.

“…OK, you can eat my dogs,” squeaked the king.

The lady ghost monster helpfully supervised the king in slaughtering the four dear hunting dogs he’d raised from puppies.  Then she ate them.

“So,” said King Doormat, weeping uncontrollably, “I don’t want to be rude, but—”

“Gonna eat your hunting hawks now.”

“…OK.”

And so the lady ghost monster ate his hunting hawks.  Of course she had him kill them himself, because she didn’t want to break a ghost nail or something.  Then she made him sew up his horse’s hide into a giant wineskin and fill it with wine. The king was thankful for that home economics course he took once, especially that one class where they practiced sewing up horse hides into giant wineskins.

After she finished her drink the king fully expected her leave, because in these backward times ladies and gentlemen usually parted company after dinner, but she just hung around, staring at him with her great big scary lady ghost monster eyes.

“Nice… weather,” the king hazarded, “I mean, I usually prefer sunshine, but I imagine being a ghost monster storms are a bit more your jam, and I can kind of appreciate—”

“That’s racist,” the lady ghost monster said, “No go out and gather heather to make me a bed.”

So he did.  Because of course he did.  He wouldn’t be King Doormat if he didn’t.  He picked all the heather he could outside, in the rain, by himself.  He dried it by the fire, and offered her ermine mantle as a blanket.

“Now get naked and lie next to me,” said the lady ghost monster.

“Yes, lady ghost monster,” said the king, unlacing his tunic.

“And promise me you’ll marry me tomorrow.”

“I promise, lady ghost monster,” said the king, finishing taking off his clothes.

“I’m your fiancée now so you can call me Janet.  And don’t hog all the mantle, I get cold easy.”

“Yes, Janet.  No, Janet,” said the king lying next to her and thinking of England.  Which was a bit weird considering we’d established that he’s the king of Massachusetts, but that’s hardly the strangest thing about this story.  I’d like to remind you that this lady passed up eating three deer, just in case you forgot.  They’re still there, the dead deer.  Uneaten.

The next morning, the sun was shining and the birds were singing.  The air smelled like pine, and lavender, and cotton candy, and honestly it was hell to someone with chronic rhinitis but King Doormat didn’t have that problem. He woke up pretty early but pretended to be asleep for a while in order to postpone acknowledging the terrible reality of his life, and in that moment truly appreciated what it was like to be the 99%.

“Open your eyes,” lilted a beautiful voice next to him.  King Doormat did so, and what should he behold but the fairest lady in all the land.

“Oh goodly king,” said the lady, her voice like sweet music and kittens, “Thou hast broken the curse that ‘twas ‘pon me.  Truly thou art chivalrous, giving me all I asked.   I shall be thine own true love for all thy days, such love that only the bards sing.  What say thee, good king Doormat?  Am I not the most perfect woman for which a heterosexual man could ask?”

And King Doormat replied, “Bitch, you ate my pets.”

No, actually, of course he married her, but frankly I like my ending better.  I mean, everyone gives the miller’s daughter in Rumpelstiltskin a lot of grief for marrying a guy who had repeatedly threatened to kill her, but at least she had the excuse of having basically no choice.  I mean, would you turn down a marriage proposal from a guy who was both the reigning monarch and perfectly happy to kill people for incredibly petty reasons?  Maybe she got to poison him and rule as Queen Regent after the business with Rumpelstiltskin was settled. That would have been a happy ending.

…what was I talking about? Oh, right.  This story was Motif D732 in Stith Thompson's motif index, “The Loathly Lady”.  Gender-inverted Beauty and the Beast.  Not all versions of the story have a protagonist this spineless—I mean, “chivalrous”.  I hope it tickled your spooky bone, and remember: If this night of All Hallows Eve you find yourself in the company of any lady (or gentleman) ghost monsters, be smart and don’t feed them your pets and then agree to marry them.  Odds are they’ll actually get where you’re coming from and leave you alone, because life isn’t like fairy tales.  And frankly some people would prefer to date ghost monsters instead of fair ladies, so no need to break any “curse”.

Happy Halloween!

[all-these-ghosts]

A long time ago, when Matt was ten or eleven, Will came out to San Diego. At the zoo, Matt's parents said he and Will could walk around by themselves and meet back up for lunch. Matt was obviously in charge. Back then, the two years between them gave him undeniable authority. It was beautiful outside, and they watched a lion snatch a wayward pigeon from the air, and Matt had his notebook and he was drawing a picture of the lesser kudu with the pencils he got for Christmas— And then he looked up, and Will was gone. Matt panicked. He ran through the whole Africa section, shouting his cousin's name, but Will was nowhere. Somehow in just a few seconds he'd disappeared completely. Matt didn't know what happened to kids who lost their younger cousins — did you go to juvie for that? — but it couldn't be anything good. And it was a zoo. What if he fell into the bear exhibit? Of course Will turned up just a few minutes later. He'd found one of those penny-squishing machines and gotten distracted trying to figure out how it worked. Luckily Matt found him before his parents did. No one else ever even knew what happened. No one else ever knew how close Matt came to losing him; how close Will came to getting lost. — Sitting around the ashes of someone else's campfire, talking shit, it's easy for Matt to pretend that things are normal. Except that every breath hurts his lungs, and the temperature's fallen fifty degrees since yesterday — the forest went from unbearably hot to just above freezing — and the air is thick with smoke from the destruction of the tower. High above them, little fires spark in piles of brush. Their distant light looks like fireflies if he squints hard enough. Will's poking at the logs with a stick. Matt wonders who built the fire, and what happened to them. "It's cold," Matt says. "It's still August, right?" "Doesn't matter." "It does," Matt insists. He remembers the months he spent traveling and how carefully he'd counted the days. At one point he'd had what he's pretty sure was pneumonia, and even through fever and delirium and a hacking, bloody cough, he had marked the sunsets. "You start losing track of the days and you lose track of everything." Suddenly one of the logs collapses into itself. Bugs scuttle out onto the ground. Matt leans over to look at them, then pulls back, repulsed. "What are those?" Will reaches down like he's going to pick one up. Matt slaps his arm away. "Don't touch them!" His cousin gives him a strange, curious look, the tilt of his head almost avian. "They can't hurt me," he says slowly, like it's obvious. Will sets his hand on the ground. One of the bugs crawls up his arm, settling on his shoulder. Matt shudders. Will doesn't respond at all. The ash is black and almost shiny against the forest floor. It reminds him of that black ooze Will had forced out of the dirt back at the compound. "What happened to you up there?" Matt asks. He's not sure he really wants to know, and Will doesn't say anything. Matt's dad used to say all kinds of stuff about Aunt Dana and her family. It wasn't mean, exactly, just — it was obvious that he didn't really understand her or any of the things she did. Once on Thanksgiving while Will was talking about something, Matt's dad muttered, "Spooky, just like his dad." Matt's mom kicked him under the table and gave everybody else a forced smile, which was more or less how those dinners always went. Afterwards he'd tried to figure out what his dad meant. Spooky. Will wasn't a ghost or a werewolf. He didn't watch too many scary movies or sneak around in dark corners or wear really gory masks on Halloween. Now, in the dark around the skeleton of a fire, Will's eyes shining, Matt sees it. The bug sits on Will's shoulder. Matt feels like it's staring at him, too. Finally Will changes the subject. "It's weird, seeing my dad again. I'm taller than him." Matt nods. He'd been taller than his dad, too. "I don't know what to say to him." He thinks of his own father thousands of miles away, almost certainly dead, but the silence isn't any deeper now than it ever was. Matt can't remember the last real conversation he had with his dad. He says, "I never did either." "What do you think—" Will starts, then pauses. "Do you ever think about, like, what they would've wanted? What they thought we'd be?" The unspoken is obvious: if the world hadn't ended. If there had been a future to imagine. "My dad wanted me to join the Navy. You know. Be a man." He flexes his arm. It's a joke now. Whatever muscle tone he'd had two years ago is long gone. His body cannibalized its own excess months ago. Will smirks. "Too bad you're so shit at following orders." He grins. "Yeah. Too bad." He looks at Will. "What about you?" Will starts digging in the dirt with the stick; Matt wonders what he's trying to unearth. Finally he says, "I have no idea. Like, we never even talked about it. Sometimes I wonder if…" He swallows. The muscles in his jaw tense. "If they always knew what was going to happen." Will's blood in the dirt, those men chasing him, whatever happened to him up in that tower. Matt asks quietly, "What's going to happen?" "I just keep thinking about that dream I used to have." Will's voice is strained. "When I was a kid." Matt remembers, too. At the end of the dream I died. He asks, "Do you really think you can save the world?" Will shrugs. "Who else is gonna do it?" They stay up together, even though there isn't much to say. Matt looks up. The stars are still the same, at least. Thousands of years ago, before atlases and Google Maps, people could still find their way home. It settles him. As long as they can see the stars, they won't get lost.

[sdsuconcertchoiritaly]

Day 6: Venice, Part 2

This morning we’re singing for Mass at St. Mark’s Basilica. There’s only one bathroom in our 8-person room at the hostel, but I scoped out a few extra bathrooms in the hallway last night, so I don’t have to wait for anyone in the shower this morning. This is easily the nicest hostel I’ve stayed in, but it’s still very different than a hotel and not my preferred way to travel.

Breakfast is understandably less extravagant than our hotel in Florence, so I have some yogurt, juice, and a ham and cheese sandwich on a crumbly roll. We’re all wearing our blue fleece quarter-zips this morning so we match for our performance at St. Mark’s Basilica. I don’t really like wearing it, but it keeps me warm under my parka on the cold boat ride across the canal from Giudecca to Venice proper.

St. Mark’s looks even more brilliant and curious in the daytime. Its architectural style is all over the place but seems somewhere close to Byzantine. There are mosaics on the facade over the doors; these are characteristic of the region, which is known for its glass-making. The line to get inside the basilica is already stretching quite a ways, but we get to take a private entrance into the back of the church since we’re singing for Mass. We stand a while in a hallway that looks pretty similar to any church basement I’ve been in. We leave our coats and belongings down here, and after some waiting, we walk upstairs to stand in our formation next to one of the side chapels where daily Mass will be held this morning. We sing Angele Dei before Mass starts, and I hear the priest reference some of the words of the song in Italian during his greeting.

Though we’re not truly participating in the Mass and I can barely understand any of the priest’s Italian, I’m able to follow along well enough and respond at the right times. This is something that I really appreciate about Catholicism: the universality of it. Every Mass in any language anywhere in the world has the same format, which makes it easy to participate wherever one finds themself. There seems to be a bit of Latin woven into some of the prayers, and some from our group who are better Catholics than me are able to say these from memory. We sing during communion and after Mass and the assembled crowd applauds.

We’ve been facing into the corner toward the chapel for the duration of Mass, but I take a brief look around at the rest of the basilica’s interior on the way out. The whole place seems to be covered in gold, with mosaics on the upper walls and ceilings. Like the outside, every column inside seems to be made from a different type of marble and has a unique capital. Mauro told us last night when we first saw St. Mark’s that this is because most of the pieces of the basilica were stolen from other places and brought here to be incorporated in the building. Nothing truly belongs here, which gives the whole building a haphazard, puzzle-piece look. There are so many colors and different types of stone; it’s a strange kind of beauty.

Outside in the open plaza beside the basilica, a man who heard us sing has bought us trays of sandwiches and pitchers of hot chocolate (which is so thick it’s like drinking warm pudding, but that’s just the style here). His name is Matthias, he is from Germany or Switzerland, and he is evidently friends with Warren Buffet. He speaks to us for a bit, encouraging us to let our lights shine. We sing an impromptu song to thank him for his unexpected generosity. Others seem deeply moved by his gesture, perhaps rightly so, but I find it rather puzzling and I can’t get a handle on what this guy is all about. In any case, the sandwich is good and the crowd in the plaza enjoys our song.

We’re free now for the rest of the day, so our group rallies and makes a plan. Miranda, Cari, and Andrea are going to see the rest of the basilica and its attached museum, which we later learn houses relics from the crucifixion in addition to St. Mark’s body. I go with the rest of our group back to the hostel to change clothes and drop off my choir folder.

We take the vaporetto (the Italian name for the boat that is part of the public transportation system here in Venice) to San Giorgio, a tiny island right next to Giudecca (the island where we’re staying), to explore the church and see the views of Venice from the top of the bell tower. The church is beautiful and minimalistic compared to St. Mark’s. It’s white and gray inside, with large oil paintings adorning the walls along the nave and above altars in the side chapels. There are intricately carved wooden stalls for the choir behind the main altar. We use our student IDs to get a discount on the tickets for the bell tower, and shortly we’re taking the lift up to the top. I’m not sure how tall the tower is, but the views are truly stunning, as Mauro promised. While we’re at the top, I FaceTime my sister to show her the view. It’s just after 5:00am at home, so it takes a couple tries to wake her up, but I hope the view is worth it. I’ve been exchanging a couple texts with my family each day of the trip, but it’s nice to see Laura’s face and show her this view in real time.

After the bell tower at San Giorgio, we take the vaporetto to the main island to walk around Venice a bit. We’re in pursuit of a quick lunch but enjoy wandering the streets seeing what the shops have to offer. We come across a few small squares (each is called a campo, since the only piazza in Venice is Piazza San Marco) and poke around a couple small churches. We’ve unintentionally made a loop from Piazza San Marco back to the San Zaccaria vaporetto stop where we got off the boat; it’s been a nice meandering walk. We finally grab a panino from a small shop just off the piazza and keep browsing a few more shops on our way to Rialto. We find the Rialto Bridge and take a few photos, then head back toward the piazza to meet back up with Miranda, Cari, and Andrea. We’re going to the Palazza Docale (Doge’s Palace) and prisons for the rest of the afternoon.

The Palazza Docale was pretty much the single governmental center of Venice for a few hundred years beginning in the fourteenth century. Inside, we find galleries filled with art that once adorned the palace, an armory of old weapons used by the Venetian army and navy, and dozens of intricately decorated rooms where various councils met and conducted their duties. Each room has dark wooden panels on the lower part of the wall with stalls or benches for sitting, massive full-length frescoes on the upper half of the walls, and golden wood carvings and more frescoes on the ceilings. They are some of the most beautiful rooms I can remember seeing in all my travels. The full council chamber is, in fact, one of the largest rooms in all of Europe at about 50 meters long and 30 meters wide.

From the palace, we cross the famous Bridge of Sighs (so named because of the grievous expressions prisoners would utter while crossing it) to the prison. We walk through several floors of narrow stone hallways and small rooms with heavy doors where prisoners were kept. There aren’t any placards or signs to indicate features of the rooms or explanations of what life was like for prisoners, but we find some graffiti that seems to date back quite a long time. It’s a sufficiently spooky adventure. Soon, we’re crossing the Bridge of Sighs once more and are marveling at how quickly the sun has set back in the palace courtyard. We unanimously agree that the palace and prison were well worth the ticket price of 13 euro. If ever you find yourself in Venice, don’t miss this one.

Our group heads back to Giudecca so a few folks can change and freshen up for supper and the Vivaldi performance we’ll be attending later tonight. I don’t need to change or rest, so I overpay for a cocktail at the hostel bar and chat with a few others who are hanging out there. There are very few restaurants on Giudecca, so we take the vaporetto back to the main island, this time stopping at the Grand Canal and crossing the Ponte dell’Academia on foot to find supper near the church of San Vidal where the concert will happen later tonight.

The nine of us have supper together in a small room at a restaurant whose name I don’t remember—it hardly matters, since most restaurants are pretty much the same and offer largely the same dishes. I have a glass of Chardonnay and an entree of linguini with mixed seafood. Miranda and Ted have the same thing, but Miranda freaks out at the sight of a small octopus in her pasta, so I get to eat a few extra tentacles. The meal is delicious, if a little overpriced.

We’re only about a block away from the concert, so we enter and sit in our reserved section. An eight-piece string ensemble (with occasional harpsichord) performs a suite Vivaldi wrote for each of the seasons along with a couple other concertos. I can feel the day wearing on me and our meal settling in my stomach, so I struggle to stay awake during the first couple numbers. Then I notice one or two of the players are particularly good-looking and are playing very passionately and that keeps me alert for the rest of the concert. It’s a fantastic performance; the precision and energy of the ensemble is remarkable and the music itself is quite exciting. The audience loves it, to the point that the ensemble performs two or three encores before exiting for the last time. It’s a great way to end the night, especially for our group of music nerds.

We board the vaporetto one final time back to Giudecca to settle down for the night as our time in Venice is coming to a close. I pack up my things as best I can before falling asleep, thankful for the day and sad to be leaving this gorgeous city.