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thatlilgremlin · 3 months ago

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✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: Baby Face :･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ✧

➤ Warnings: Fluff

Now Lucius remembered why he hated Dumbledore so much.

It has been days since he locked himself in his office because of the incompetence of the current Headmaster, a killer was on the loose inside the school and the old git refused to shut it down. Now he had to write many letters to the other governors to figure out what to do, he was on his best behaviour after last year's outburst. If his dear husband didn't apologize for him — Salazar forbid a Malfoy would ever apologize to anyone he didn’t think highly off — he wouldn't be a school governor today; not that it would've mattered, he was as wealthy as purebloods come, the job was barely to not lounge in his manor all day long, otherwise boredom would've killed him before he was of age.

He signed his last letter and stretched with loud creaking sounds from his tired limbs, he felt exhausted and needed some comfort; he walked over to his bedroom and found his lover's sleeping form was on the bed, already under the covers, he joined him gladly, scooping him in his arms for a cuddle. He finally fell asleep, his nose nestled in the raven greasy mess that was his love's hair, taking a deep breath of his lovely smokey scent.

The first rays of sunshine woke him up, the first thing he noticed was that his husband wasn't in his arms anymore; he opened his eyes, taking a minute for them to get used to the brightness before shifting to his side, he was welcomed with his love's gorgeous face but with an expression on it that he didn’t really appreciate. The man's bushy eyebrows were furrowed into a scowl; only his dear one could be angry first thing in the morning.

“What did I do to warrant such an expression?” Lucius asked softly, sitting up and stretching once again, his darling kept his eyes on his face.

“How did you get that on your face?” He asked back, squinting his eyes slightly.

“What?” He touched his face, then looked at his hand, there was nothing.

“The beard”

Lucius looked at him then smiled, though still a bit confused, “What about it?”

“How?”

“How what?” He asked, chuckling, his lover's sulky expression was just too cute.

“How do you have a beard?” He clarified, his expression slightly relaxing at the soft grey eyes.

“I've been working a lot lately as you know with the.. Black situation”, he said carefully, seeing the man stiffen at the name “I simply forgot to shave and here is the result”

Lucius gently put his hand on the man’s waist and pulled him closer against him for a cuddle

“It's not fair”, the man exclaimed quite suddenly in a whiny tone.

“What's not fair?”

“I can't grow a beard whatever I try while you grew one overnight!”

Lucius smiled, caressing the other man's cheek affectionately, watching his expression weaver for a second. He placed a gentle kiss on his cheek and gently gripped his waist tighter.

“You're just baby faced, Sevy, it’s normal”, he said gently, “No need to get jealous of my facial hair, I think you look perfect the way you are, you’re already the most handsome man I’ve ever seen”

“Mmh”, Severus simply answered, bringing his hand to the man’s face to touch the blonde start of a beard, “Why do you never let it grow?”

He thought about it, “I think it’s just that I don’t want to trim it and such, you know how much care I put into my appearance and how much care body hair need”

“I see. I think you look great on you either way”, he said as a blush crept onto his cheeks.

“Thank you, darling”, he then put a small kiss on his lips and caressed the blush away.

#im not that good at writing lol #i tried at least #wrote the end in a hurry #it's so bad byeeeee #severus snape #severus #lucius x severus #snape fandom #professor snape #snape #snape community #snapedom #snucius #lucius malfoy

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acewithapaintbrush · 2 years ago

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The Ones That Leave

I am cutting it close with this one. My contribution to week two of @wdtajn

TW for themes of death and craziness and a very open and ambiguous ending. Read at your own risk please

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I am like a small creature swallowed whole by a monster, she thought, and the monster feels my tiny little movements inside.

Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

*****************

Bruno stares at the crack.

The handle of the bucket cuts into his palm. It is filled to the brim with spackle and it's heavy, much heavier than his brittle bones and thin arms are used to anymore. And still, he barely feels it. The only reason it hasn't slipped from his hand is because his fingers are clenched around the metallic handle, frozen and stiff.

His whole body feels frozen and stiff. He doesn't know how long he has been standing here, in this dark hallway behind the walls, staring at the crack. It could be minutes, it could be hours. Probably hours. His eyes are so dry they hurt. When he tries to blink it feels like he is rubbing his eyelids against sandpaper. His lips are dry too, but they always are. That's what you get for not talking for years. In the beginning he'd talked to his rats and given his voice to them for their little plays, but that had only added stress to an already anxious Dolores so he'd stopped speaking completely, had bitten his tongue every time he'd caught himself opening his mouth.

He's been in the walls for five years by now. He hasn't talked for almost as long.

He doesn't even know if he still remembers how.

He stares at the crack and the crack stares back. It is not really a crack to be honest. It is too wide and too big. It starts at the bottom and reaches upwards into the dark, high above his head. It's almost as wide as he is. He'd only need to turn his body a little sideways and he could fit through, step to the other side.

Bruno has no idea what is on the other side. It should lead to the outside, to the garden at the back of the house. At least he thinks it does. But then, wouldn't he be able to see said garden on the other side? The tall trees and the grass and the little bench his mother has put there all those years ago to be able to read in the sunshine?

He doesn't. All he sees is darkness. An inky black, darker than the night, darker than his little room behind the kitchen when he puts out all the candles.

Maybe he is mistaken. Maybe he got turned around somewhere, lost all sense of direction again.

Casita is confusing, sometimes. Sometimes it feels like she is moving the hallways at will, to drive him crazy confuse him. He will turn a corner and realize he's forgotten something and turn back only to be faced with a wall or, even worse, another hallway impossibly stretching on into the dark forever and ever. It's given him vertigo before. It has made him curl up on the floor, shaking and crying.

Casita always relents after a while. Bumping his feet with her floorboards in apology and gently guiding him back into his room at the end of the day where he then will collapse into his makeshift bed, spent and exhausted. Sometimes he wonders if he'd ever be able to find his room again without her help.

Sometimes he wonders if he'd ever be able to leave without her help. If she'd let him.

But it's just a game. Certainly just a game.

Casita is vindictive playful like that.

Casita is cruel mischievous like that.

Casita is…

Bruno takes a shaky breath. It hurts in his chest. Maybe he hasn't been breathing this entire time.

Casita is haunted. That's what the old man had said to him, all those years ago. He'd taken eight year old Bruno by the shoulders. He'd shaken the boy, leaned down so he could stare right into his face. His eyes had been red-rimmed and wild, his hair greasy, his breath smelly. The spittle from between chapped lips and bad teeth had hit Bruno right on the cheek and he'd been so disgusted and scared that he'd almost missed the words.

"That house is haunted! Unnatural! It is evil! Get out boy, get your Mama and sisters out of there!"

Alma had finally found them, locked in a staring contest filled with fear and revulsion and horror and pulled the man away. She'd screamed at him, told him to leave her child alone, to never dare show his face in front of her family again.

Later that night Bruno had tried to see into the future of the man, scared out of his mind that he would return, would suddenly stand in front of his bed in the middle of the night to scream at him again.

The vision had shown the man walking towards Casita with a match in his hand, muttering and stumbling. But then it had shifted into a picture of a wall. Nothing but a wall. The one on the second floor, near Alma's room.

Bruno doesn't know why he never told anyone about this vision. Doesn't know why he stared at the green slab depicting nothing but a wall and decided to destroy it and never talk about it again.

Two weeks later, the man was declared missing. Everyone assumed that he had simply left the valley after he'd been ostracized by pretty much everyone for upsetting the revered Alma Madrigal.

But Bruno had heard it at night. The faint sound of scratching from behind the walls, of footsteps hurrying up and down unseen hallways. Wailing and moaning.

He'd close his eyes and hear all these noises and see the image of a wall, immortalized on a green slab and tell himself that it's nothing.

Just the rats. Just the creaks of an old house.

Just the screaming and begging of a trapped man howling of the wind.

Surely, nothing more.

Once, and only once, months after the sounds had grown fainter and fainter and ultimately disappeared, had he asked his mother about the man. What had happened to him.

"It doesn't matter.", she'd said. "He left."

But he'd seen it in her eyes. Had seen it in the way she'd clenched her fists and in the way she'd glanced at the walls surrounding them, in the way she'd lowered her voice and tried to keep a smile on her face and failed horribly.

He'd seen it all and he'd understood that it wouldn't have mattered if he'd told her about his vision in time.

It wouldn't have mattered at all.

And he'd nodded and agreed.

The man left.

Except Bruno knows better now, has always known better. He can sometimes see something moving out of the corner of his eyes. A man-shaped shadow, a fleeting misplacement of light. Once he'd tried to turn a corner and Casita had pushed him back, had hit him in the chest with one of her floorboards so hard it had taken his breath away. But not quickly enough to prevent him from catching a glimpse of the heap of ruined clothes on the floor. Of white bones sticking out of them, fingers like sticks still reaching out to scrabble at a wall covered in scratches.

He doesn't go into that part of the house anymore. It is probably covered in cracks by now, but he doesn't care. If Casita ever breaks apart, that hallway will be the epicenter. One of the scratches will have turned into a crack and that will be the one that tears her apart in the end.

That's where her end will begin and maybe that's how it's meant to be.

Bruno steps closer to the crack that is not a crack. The darkness behind it is absolute, but it still looks like there are things writhing inside of it, shadows battling for dominance. He has stared into it for so long that he's beginning to see faces in its depth. Contorted, grotesque faces.

His mother. His sisters. Their children.

The man.

His father.

Maybe the man was right. Maybe there has always been evil in these walls. Or maybe Casita is just a little bit too human. Capable of change in the worst ways possible.

Maybe it started with the man. Maybe it started long before that.

For the first time Bruno wonders what it must be like to be a thing with a conscience. To see and hear and feel but not be able to move in any way that matters. Only opening cupboards and swinging doors and moving floorboards. Housing beings with whole lives and emotions within you and still only looking in from the outside. Watching their lives pass you by, growing older while you are stuck just the way you have always been.

It's enough to drive someone crazy.

Bruno laughs, shrill and loud and crazed. It's the first sound he has made in five years and a small part of him hopes Dolores is asleep or far enough away to not have heard.

What a horrible first thing to hear from her uncle after five years of silence.

The darkness answers him, it ripples and wavers. He hears a small boy laughing in there, hears a small girl laughing behind him. What a merry little symphony they make, full of bells and death life.

The walls expand and collapse, the floorboards under his feet vibrate.

Ah, Bruno realizes. Casita is crying laughing too.

The darkness creeps out of the crack door. It slithers at the corners, looking like vines testing the air. And then it passes that invisible boundary and reaches out to him.

Bruno reaches back. He's always been the one to reach out to everyone but at some point the people have stopped accepting his outstretched hand, have pulled back instead, and so his outstretched arm has withered away like a flower cut off from its stem.

But here in this dark and dusty hallway a darkness reaches out and Bruno reaches back and it welcomes him. It is so cold where it touches his fingertips that it burns. It feels like he is touching a candle flame and Bruno shivers and a grin pulls at his lips.

He has been cold for so long. He can't wait to get warm again.

He gets pulled towards the dark doorway and he willingly steps forward.

Casita SCREAMS laughs and Bruno SCREAMS laughs with her.

And then he is gone.

He left.

#encanto #bruno madrigal #encanto fanfic #wdtajn #Prompt horror #Horror and creepiness #I tried at least #What if Casita wasn't magical so much as haunted?

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