#kaylee.fic

[haunthouse]

binary star

fandom: disco elysium words: 2k characters: harry du bois, jean vicquemare summary: The fifth morning in the Whirling, and the second morning of the man in the wig pretending not to stare at you as you walk down the stairs, you decide you need to know who he is.

(For the good of the case, of course.)

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[haunthouse]

a second is a century

fandom: blaseball words: 2.3k characters: nico sigh, alexander curtana, talon romero, muggsy legbone, merry exit

summary: It’s the bottom of the ninth. It’s the first day of the season and it’s also the second game of the series, and it’s the bottom of the ninth but it’s also the first inning, and Nico stopped trying to make sense of how those numbers add up a long time ago. It’s been the first day of the season at least a hundred times, by his estimate. (aka: it's blaseball tutorial time loop fic!)

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[haunthouse]

timefighter

fandom: blaseball words: 1.8k characters: jaylen hotdogfingers, parker macmillan

summary: the trench is cold, and it is dark, and it is almost-but-not-quite empty. the vault is cold, and it is eye-searingly bright, and it is claustrophobic the moment she's locked inside. a jaylen study, immediately post-semi centennial.

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[haunthouse]

if you don't go outside

fandom: blaseball words: 4k characters: the scorekeeper, dunn keyes summary: The Scorekeeper draws their coat tighter around their shoulders as they pick their way across the tall grass. The ground is still halfway muddied from the late-offseason snow; their boots sink in uncomfortably and their footsteps make no sound. The ground feels like it will swallow them whole. (The Scorekeeper, and Dunn Keyes, and being a person in a world that does not want you to be a person. Written for @leonstamatis! <3)

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[haunthouse]

perchance something re: finn and consumers?

s15 d51 sure was a game in which events happened

Finn has seen sharks before.

There are forty-one species of sharks off of Maryland's coast, though Finn normally doesn't swim far enough out to come into contact with them in the wild; she prefers to stay within an hour or two of shore, just in case she's needed back on land, and though she's a quick swimmer, that still isn't far enough into open water for many sharks to approach her. Most of the ones she's seen have been through glass at the aquarium (or, when dared, face-to-face in the waters of the aquarium, in the time between sneaking into a tank and being chased out of said tank). She's seen just enough to know sharks aren't all that dangerous, really, when it comes down to it — her own teeth are just as sharp, after all, and it isn't like anyone's afraid of her.

So when the consumer attacks start happening on the other side of the league, she thinks it's unfortunate, sure, but no worse than blooddrain. This splort hurts people; everyone has to take care of their own, patch up their wounds. She stocks the first aid kit in the dugout, and she doesn't really think about it until midway through season fifteen, a year after the first attacks come.

It isn't a shark. She knows that right away.

The first time she sees it is from the dugout, watching a game Bertie is pitching against the Garages — a game where, in his first at-bat, York's eyes go shelled-one-red and he shells one of the Garages' newer players, so of course Finn's already on edge, hands in constant motion at her sides to release some of that nervous energy. She whispers to Kennedy, I'd forgotten he could do that, and Kennedy squeezes her hand, and they say no more, because it is cruel and it is unfortunate but nobody has the energy to worry about those not on their own teams, not anymore, and she thinks it might be terrible to be more concerned about if York is okay, but terrible or not, it's the truth.

It's an inning later — her eyes locked on Kennedy flinching away from the first pitch — that she hears a scream from the pitching mound. Chorby Soul has been attacked. They don't seem surprised by it, not anymore, but the pain is the same; they throw ball after ball until Ken hits a ground out and ends the inning, and go limping back to the away-team dugout. Blood stains their jersey dark.

There's no shark, only the faint outline of something swimming through the air, like a mirage on a distant road. It darts away just as quickly as it came. Finn holds her breath until it is gone, and darts behind home plate to the visitor dugout, first aid kit clutched tight.

She may not have it in her to properly worry about people she doesn't know on teams she doesn't know, but that doesn't mean she isn't going to show them basic kindness.

She approaches the Garages, holds the kit out. "Uh. For Chorby," she says, softly, as one of the Wyatts strikes out behind her.

Finn does not know the Garages by name, not the ones Mike hasn't introduced her to. She isn't sure which of them looks at her, then at the first aid kit, then at the five-foot tall shell that's been dragged to the side of the field, then back at her — directly into her eyes, as if trying to make her flinch back.

"Your friend shelled my friend," he says.

"I'm sorry, really, I am," Finn replies. All in a rush and unsure if she means it as much as she should. "I don't think he had a choice, but — I still want to help, if I can? Or you can just, uh, take the first aid kit — I wasn't sure if you had your own, here, we keep meaning to stock the visitor's dugout with them, too, and we keep forgetting, because it hasn't happened here, until this series —"

He takes the first aid kit from her outstretched hands and turns his back to cut off her rambling, and that's fair, Finn thinks. You have to take care of your own.

Chorby is attacked again the next inning, and Finn sees the same Garage as before — Mueller, according to the back of his jersey — wince and pick up the first aid kit again, though Chorby waves it off. She spends the game with fingers crossed that it won't happen again. More specifically: she spends the game hoping and hoping and hoping that it won't happen to any of them, that the Crabs will be spared a little longer.

And they are, from consumers. But when Chorby hits Nagomi with a pitch at the bottom of the seventh and Finn hears York gasp beside her, it feels like the Garages are taking revenge. Her eyes drift from Nagomi's slow stride to first base to Oliver Loofah's shell, propped up in the outfield.

Maybe it was silly to think the first aid kit might even the scales there, in a splort where people do such terrible things to one another, but. But.

(They win, 19-4, but the cheers of "Crabs good!" feel hollow.)

[haunthouse]

superhero au violet + fancy event

Violet shouldn't be here.

The ILB has begun parading the remaining Wyatt Masons around at events, galas meant to fundraise whatever initiatives the ILB is sinking their teeth into next, and Violet is more and more sure that coming was a bad idea — it has been months since they escaped the ILB, and coming back feels like stepping into a bear trap with eyes wide open. They fiddle with the sleeves of their suit and wish it was the sweaters they have back home instead.

They still look like the other Wyatts. The ten that remain. They've dyed their hair back to black, and they waked into the ballroom only a few steps behind the rest; so long as they don't give themselves away, nobody needs to know they shouldn't be there. So long as no one does a head count and realizes they've picked up an extra Wyatt, they're fine. They can be back to the apartment before Ivy and Roo even realize they've left.

It's a plan that depends on a lot of things out of their control. They shove their hands into their pockets and force themselves to scan the room, looking for familiar faces. Familiar enough to be mirrors.

Vi wants to leave. The door is still only a dozen steps away; they could be out into the night before anyone noticed their presence, much less their absence.

But they've already done that once. They can't leave the rest of the Wyatts behind again, not without saying anything.

They take a deep breath, and make their way into the crowd. It'll be fine. It's just like a bank robbery. Except Ivy and Roo usually take point on those, on anything less than polite, and Violet has come alone, didn't even tell them where they were going. Maybe they should have. Maybe this was all a mistake —

"Violet?"

It's whispered low enough and close enough that no one else could possibly hear, but still makes them jump, their breath catching in their throat with fear of being caught.

But no one at the ILB calls them Violet. They're always Six, there, or sometimes Vi to the other Wyatts; they didn't choose the name Violet until well after they'd gotten out, rolling the syllables around in their mind down at the riverbank. So it's only halfway a surprise when they turn and see Moses Mason standing next to them.

Violet's eyes are wide as Moses takes them by the shoulder and steers them out of the room, down the hall, looking over her shoulder to make sure they aren't being noticed. They think about saying something, but Moses raises a finger to xer lips, shushes them with a conspiratorial smile — like they're in this together, not a stray Wyatt who's fucked up irreparably and the superhero sent to collect them, and it makes Vi relax just a fraction.

"I'm here for a reason," they whisper, the moment they stop moving, hidden in an alcove from prying eyes and security cameras alike. "I need to — I wanted to make sure they were okay."

"Course you did," Moses says. Soft. Ze doesn't look like ze wants to be here, either, though ze wears the uncertainty much better than Violet; if they didn't already know Moses wasn't the ILB's biggest fan, they probably wouldn't notice the act slipping away. Moses is a good actor; Violet is just anxious enough to pick up on little details, hir shoulders curving softer once ze's out of the crowd, their smile just as worthy of newspaper front pages but their brow furrowing. "Brave of you," xe says, and Violet hears brave, but stupid.

"I left them," Violet says with all the weight of a confession, eyes cast down at the floor. "I got out. But I left them."

"You know the bit about oxygen masks, on planes?" Violet gives him a blank look. "No, right, you wouldn't. You have to save yourself first. You got two more out with you, too, that's not nothing. But this is dangerous."

"Brave," Violet echoes, still not looking directly at Moses.

"Brave and dangerous," Moses agrees, easy as that. "You know Wither's here, right?"

That stops Vi in their tracks, all their thoughts grinding to a halt. "No," they say, slowly. "She was supposed to be on patrol duty tonight. I checked."

"They switched the schedules around. She's fashionably late, though. You think we can make it around to all the others before she gets here?"

"We?" Their voice is small. Hesitant. They feel like they could be knocked over by the slightest breeze.

"Well, I'm not making you do it alone," Moses says. "We have to tell them the plan, right?"

"There's a plan?"

"Course there's a plan. Riverbank. Same as with you. We'll figure out the rest later. I have favors I can call in, you know, friends who might be able to help plan another escape, if that's what you want."

Violet believes him. They nod, slowly; Moses reaches out to fix their tie, tucks a dandelion in their breastpocket, far enough in that it doesn't stick out — "For luck," he says.

"Thank you," Violet whispers, once they're once again standing in the doorway of the ballroom, Moses looking out for Wither's arrival, Violet scanning for the other Wyatts.

They'll need luck, if they're going to get a message to all ten of them in time — you're going to get out of here, I'm going to help, I promise, and if you get out before I can come back, meet at the riverbank. But maybe help from a friend is close enough to luck, when it comes down to it.

[haunthouse]

kenfinn + weddings?

“I want to be your wife,” Finn says one morning, middle of season seven, sunlight coming through the kitchen window strong enough that she has to squint her eyes to get a good view of Kennedy. She’s curled in the armchair in the corner; she pretends she doesn’t notice the way his steps falter for a moment as he processes what she’s said, before he regains his footing, brings their matching mugs of coffee to the table and nudges her to the side so he can sit beside her.

“Is that a proposal?” His eyebrows are raised. It’s like a staring contest; she can’t look away from him, wants to catalogue every reaction, store it in her memory forever.

“It can be, if you want,” she says. “Or not! I can do something bigger — I don’t have a ring, or anything, but I figured, well, we’re already pretty much there, right? And I’d like to call you my wife, and have you call me your wife, even if we don’t have time for a big wedding, or anything — I don’t think I’d want anything big, anyways, you know? Just —” and she picks up one of Kennedy’s hands, twines their fingers together as much as she can without squashing the webbing between hers. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Ken’s smiling, eyes crinkled at the corners. Finn looks and looks and looks, doesn’t dare blink and miss a moment. “Obviously I’m saying yes,” he says, and that was never really in doubt but Finn still breathes a sigh of relief, half-giddy at hearing it. “Obviously. I’d be honored to call you my wife, Finn.”

It’s one thing to think about it, conceptually; to roll the idea around in her mind at night or to blurt it out in the morning. It’s another thing to hear the words in Ken’s voice. Finn is breathless for a moment; she leans forward, her forehead pressed against Kennedy’s, his glasses knocked askew by her nose. “My wife, Kennedy,” she says softly, the joy of it overwhelming her. “My wife, my wife, my wife.”

Kennedy leans in the remaining centimeters, presses his lips to the corner of her mouth, to her cheek, to her forehead. He’s smiling too much for them to properly land, and she laughs. It’s been a hard season, and it isn’t even halfway over, but this is good, this is nothing but pure ocean breezes against bare skin and fish swirling around feet in the shallows — happiness, to put it simply.

“Should we tell the rest of the Crabs?” Finn asks, after a while.

Kennedy thinks for a moment. “Let’s see how long it takes them to figure it out,” he says, grinning.

[haunthouse]

simon + closet?

In twenty-seven years of walking around unseen — a number Simon tries hir very best not to think about, because there's always the danger that that math (counted out on Allie's fingers, seasons added to siestas, like it wasn't the worst thing Simon'd ever heard) will actually, finally drive hir insane — Simon's accumulated a bit of a collection of stuff.

Not stolen maliciously, of course, just... sweaters taken off the backs of chairs, turning just as invisible the moment they're draped across Simon's shoulders. Ze'd tested that, a bit, a couple years in. Seen if ze could toss a sheet over hir head and walk around all classic halloween ghost, actually be seen — like it'd be that easy. It wasn't. More comfortable clothes than the ones ze'd died in were a good consolation prize.

So there's an ever-growing pile of clothes in the closet of the empty room ze's been crashing in for more than a decade. (Since, ze knows now, its owner — whoever that'd been — had been tugged back to the land of the living to play ball against an evil peanut's army, and subsequently disappeared.) It's only an issue now that ze's not invisible. Ze never thought, before, about who's things ze was grabbing; now, ze can barely go a day without —

"Si, dude, is that my sweatshirt?"

José's voice is light enough that Simon can knock away the instinctive spike of anxiety. It's not an accusation, just a question; José's smiling with his eyebrows raised when Simon turns to look at him.

"Uhhhhh," ze says, eloquently. Fights the urge to shove hir hands in the sweatshirt's pockets and curl into hirself, and the opposite urge to take off the sweatshirt, toss it at José, and run away. Ze might not be the best at socializing yet, but ze's pretty sure either of those would send the wrong message. Instead, ze smiles back at José. "Probably? Sorry, man, should've put your name on it if you didn't want ghosts stealing it."

José laughs. Like, actually laughs, like Simon's telling a joke that ze has somehow managed to entirely miss despite being the one telling it. Ze suddenly feels deeply, horribly lost, but ze just tilts hir head at José, waiting for some kind of explanation.

"Oh, I thought — just, y'know, my name kinda is on it? Was my team jacket, and the Wings thought it was a good idea to, like, do the whole jersey thing with the names and numbers on the back of those, too, you know?"

Ze resists the urge to twist hir entire torso to look at the back of the jacket and confirm that Haley is written there in big capital letters — there's no reason José'd be lying, and ze feels hir face heating up, cheeks almost definitely turning a bright enough red that even the dim lights of the kitchen couldn't hide it.

"Oooookay, I — uh, I did not notice that, sorry, dude — if you want it back, obvi you can have it, that's, like, totally my bad!" Ze's rambling. Ze can feel hirself rambling, and despite hir brain firmly telling hir mouth to shut up, please, holy shit, it just keeps going, until José cuts in.

"Dude. Chill." José's hand lands on Simon's shoulder. Simon finds hir nerves dissipating, even if just for a second — ze'll surely be freaking out about this whole conversation again once ze's back in hir room trying to explain it to Roto, but for now, it's fine. "Seriously, don't even worry about it. You've had it for years at this point, it's yours! No worries!"

The sleeves of the sweatshirt fall way past Simon's hands; ze curls hir fingers up in the fabric, trying to force the smile on hir face to feel natural. (Ze used to be good at this shit. Talking to people. Flirting with them, even. Twenty-seven years taking its fuckin' toll again, turning hir into a total disaster.) "Cool," ze says. Ze means to follow it up with something else, a thank you or a hey Roto says I should just like ask you your intentions or some shit or a I'm gonna make dinner, wanna join, but ze doesn't settle on an option soon enough, and the words stick in hir throat.

"Cool," José echoes, grinning wide. He leaves, presumably continuing on his way to wherever he was going before Simon's sweatshirt theft sidetracked him, and Simon is left standing there, staring into thin air.

[haunthouse]

finn + black holes?

cw for crabs black hole content - typical stuff — altered mental states, manipulation by a higher entity

It's been a year since Finn's stood on the pitching mound for a whole game, and longer since she's done it under the swirling song of the black hole.

She hasn't so much as glimpsed the black hole, her whole time shadowed — even when she'd started attending the Crabs' games again, gotten over the initial guilt of disappointing them by being unceremoniously shoved into the shadows, she'd skipped those games. Looking in the mirror to see her light dimmed overtop her head had been bad enough. She hadn't wanted any more reminders of her failing. It would have crushed her, knowing even the black hole no longer found her worthy.

But — Axel gives up ten runs, and four days later Finn is on the field under the black hole. (The Crabs win, but they don't loop, and it's just the warmth of being back with her team, her family, that spreads through her chest like ink through water.)

And four days after that, she's in Yellowstone, under the same black hole — every black hole, after all, is the same one, the one the Crabs had found something adjacent to a home in for so long, the one that makes it difficult to remember why she'd hated being Up at the time. It wasn't home, but it brings whispers of a home that has been scattered to the winds: the old days, a team full of faces she knew like the backs of her own hands, none of them yet traded or incinerated or vaulted. It sings to her of postseason cookouts in Ken's backyard, sleepy pre-game breakfasts in Bertie and Brock's kitchen, the shrieking celebration after their first championship (and their second, and their third, because they didn't start to dissolve until after Ascension, not really).

By the end of the second inning, the Crabs have set the black hole into motion, stealing one Magic player and compressing another, and Finn laughs from her spot in the dugout as she waits to pitch again.

It happens again in the fifth, and the joy of it nearly cracks her ribs with how sharply it slashes through her. Another Magic stolen, another compressed. Another ten runs' worth of love pouring forth from the deep depths of the black hole.

It's been so long since Finn's felt like this. It's been — it's been years, she thinks, decades, centuries, maybe — she doesn't think she's even been alive that long, but she thinks it must be true, anyways. Out of the corner of her eyes, there's the afterimage of the Magic worrying after their compressed teammates, shooting glances at the Crabs (afraid of them?), but she hardly processes their presence. They don't matter, not really. They're not the Crabs; they aren't her family. Even the newer additions to the team — Fran, Avila, Conner, Kaz, people she's hardly had a chance to get to know, are colored in with that love, their faces superimposed into memories of the team as it was, as it will never be again.

She cheers with everything in her when Conner hits a three-run homer, batting in both of the borrowed Magic players. She wonders if maybe they'd like to stay on the Crabs, after the game. If that would be allowed. Surely, now that they're on the team, they're having just as much fun as she is. She doesn't remember their names, but they're Crabs, now, too, for however short a time.

The game goes by in a blur, from there. The Crabs don't score again — but neither do the Magic; Finn holds them to one run and thinks of it as a kindness, look, at least I didn't shut you out!

And then it's over. The black hole smears its way back into the sky, fading back into blue. She nearly collapses on the mound.

She — forgot. She forgot what it was like, and what it was like without — not without as she was in the shadows, her light dimmed and the song vacant, but without as she is after the game, light too bright in her eyes and song fading like a dream.

One of the Magic tells her to get off the field. They're — they're angry. She isn't sure why, but she knows they are; she feels like she recognizes their face, and maybe that means they're one of the ones who's jersey had briefly changed to deep red, or maybe she'd just struck them out a few times.

It doesn't really matter. She goes, catches up with the rest of the Crabs. Finn is exhausted in a way she has not been in over a year. She falls into stride with Bertie and leans against xem the whole way to the locker room.

"I, uh," she says, voice hoarse as if she's been shouting. "I think I forgot how — how much it is?"

"It's certainly intense," Bertie agrees. He doesn't sound as exhausted as she is, but — he wasn't playing, and she supposes that helps. Not as all-encompassing from the dugout. "Rest up, alright, Finn?"

"Mhm." She separates herself from their side, sits down heavy on a bench. "I will, I promise. I think — I think I need a nap."

Once, before their lineup became nigh-unrecognizable, the Crabs would spend the aftermath of a black hole game together, pile up on the floor of the locker room and fall asleep, shockingly comfortable despite the amount of chitin present. (The Crabitat locker room had a stock of blankets and pillows to be pulled out for such moments. For away games, they made do with whatever was there.) It had been nice. It had been more than nice. It had been the same feeling of togetherness the black hole sang at her, sticking around long after the sky turned blue again overhead.

They don't do that, not anymore. Too many new additions. The new guys don't have the same response to the black hole — they get excited, sure, but it doesn't spread down to their bone marrow the same way it does for the small remaining few who'd Ascended. (Just her, Bertie, and Ken, now.)

Finn slouches her way out of the locker room, out of the stadium, and into the first body of water she finds, instead, and falls asleep alone, missing something.

[haunthouse]

allijay + switchboard

premise is that jaylen was on a one-on-one switchboard call with allie when she was alternated!! chat rp hell my beloveds saw the other half of this convo with new jaylen so. this is old jaylen.

"Results are up," Jaylen says, ignoring the warning signs: the pressure of a headache building behind her eyes, the sinking feeling in her stomach. "Gimme a minute to read 'em, I'll give you the highlights."

She scrolls down the league's election results page. Unwin the underbracket, and gray creeps into the corners of her vision. Something about debt — never a good omen — and a rumbling like distant thunder booms. The Monitor has given gifts to every team, and the sound grows louder, and louder, loud enough that she drops the switchboard's phone to the ground and covers her ears with her hands, eyes clenching shut as the room trembles.

When she opens her eyes, the phone is in her hand again. She doesn't remember picking it up.

"Jay? You still there?"

It's still Allie's voice on the other end of the phone. Jaylen takes a deep breath, then another — she is no longer in Tot's garage, no longer at hir switchboard. The set-up in front of her is sparser; a soundboard, a connecting phone with its curlicue cable, a couple of notebooks and her guitar leaning against the wall — her guitar, the acoustic one with the old Garages stickers on it they'd printed on label paper back in college, half-peeling off.

"Allie?" Her voice comes out smaller than she wants it to be. Shakes on the familiar syllables of his name, splitting them into pieces, cracked pottery glued haphazardly back together. Her ears are ringing. "What the fuck was that?"

"What was what?" She can picture, even at a distance, the furrow in Allie's brow. "You alright, honey? What's wrong?"

"I don't know, it — I got fucking teleported or some shit, I don't know. Sounded like a bomb going off or something. You didn't fucking hear that?"

And it is, in this new universe and in the old one, Allie who makes the connection first, who says "Okay," who says, slowly in that way that means he's trying not to panic, "Elections were today, right? Jay, I need you to check the results for me."

"I was about to, uh, give me a second —" and Jaylen scrambles to find her phone where she dropped it, face-up on the table next to the switchboard.

The Flowers chose Jaylen Hotdogfingers to receive an Alternate Trust.

She reads the blessing aloud, like it's a death sentence, like how Parker III had read out Star player Jaylen Hotdogfingers is incinerated those first elections.

"Fuck. Fuck, Allie, are you — are you still there?" She asks, though what she means is are you still my Allie?

"I'm here, I — did not want to be right, shit. I'm here, Jay, I'm — are you still —" and it could be are you still there or it could be are you still my Jay and Jaylen doesn't know, but she doesn't let him finish the sentence.

"I don't know how to fucking tell, I — I was in Tot's garage, I was telling you about the shit the coin was saying, I was gonna catch you up on the Moss Woman bullshit after the election." She's counting the facts off on her fingers like they mean anything.

"No, you were — you were telling me about the farmer's market," Allie says, something sinking in his voice. "Shit. Uh. Hi."

And Jaylen — who had gone out of her mind with worry when the shadows were at risk of alternating just in case Mike got swapped, who had taken the news of Agan alternating from within the trench with immense panic on Allie's behalf, but who hadn't done anything to prepare for it herself, because why would she, she's a good pitcher, a famous one at that, and maybe Patterson's alternation should have made her afraid but she had hardly noticed it because it isn't like she'd cared about the first Polkadot at all — begins to cry.

[haunthouse]

also vi and roo + getting caught

"Vi," Roo whines, throwing themselves into the booth next to Violet. "You've been keeping secrets."

There's about a billion things that could be about, and not one of them is anything Vi wants to talk about, not in the middle of the speakeasy, not anywhere. They don't make a habit of keeping secrets from Roo. Roo's the better liar of the two of them — better at most things that'd make them good at the sort of work they do, a Mason with real potential. (They use those skills, mostly, for heists. Robberies. Of all the options that exist, it's a relief to Vi that they're not doing anything more dangerous, anything more likely to end in gunfights and bullet wounds and dead siblings.) Violet is a better fighter than they are a liar. Mostly, they try not to do either. Mostly, they try not to get themselves into situations where they have to do either.

There's plenty they've been just... choosing not to talk about, though. It isn't quite a lie to act like they're still going to kill Moses one of these days, not when they want it to be true — or maybe they want to want it to be true, though with that many layers, what's the difference, really? It's not a lie to fail to mention that they think if they choose not to complete their assignment, too, then the Masons' patience with Roo's antics will wear thin, and there will be targets on both of their backs.

They don't mention how close they've gotten with the Boston crew, either. Half the time, when they're at the speakeasy now, Moses isn't even there. They could spin it as getting close to her acquaintances, gaining their trust to betray it later, but they don't.

Roo's here, anyway. The lie would never hold up.

"I'm not!" Vi says, a little too panicked for it to sound true. (Lie number one.) "What secrets?"

Roo rolls their eyes. They don't need to call Vi's bluff out loud. Violet's expecting them to start asking about Moses, or the job, or Moses-and-the-job because really they're the same thing, but instead Roo tilts their head towards Dunn onstage, sitting in her piano chair and chatting with someone Vi half-recognizes as a regular at the speakeasy. Roo's eyebrows are raised as far as they'll go when they look back to Violet.

"What," Vi asks. Strained.

"Don't what me, Vi. What's going o-o-o-on?" They stretch out the last syllable till its like a rubber band set to snap. "You've been looking over at her all day." Vi can hear them grinning, even as they avoid looking directly at Roo. The lights in the speakeasy are dim, but Violet doesn't want to test whether or not they're dim enough to disguise their cheeks turning red.

"Nothing's going on! Dunn's just. A friend."

"A friend," Roo says, with the same amount of glee as if Vi had said they'd gotten secretly married — not to Dunn, of course, just, generally, as a concept. They're not thinking about that. "Aw, Vi! I didn't know you had those. Good job!"

Violet elbows Roo in the side. "I'm supposed to be making friends here, you know." The subtext is, of course, that they're not meant to be real friends, just people Vi gets to trust them before killing Moses. Violet doesn't need to say that part aloud. They're both aware of it.

Roo pokes Vi's cheek. Keeps doing it until Vi turns and looks at Roo, cramming themselves backwards into the very corner of the booth as they do. Roo's pouting.

"You," Roo declares, somewhere between accusatory and betrayed. "Are lying to me. Me. Your very own twin! You're all heart-eyes at the singing girl and you're lying about it!"

"I'm not —" Vi starts to protest, but the look Roo gives them makes them stop. (Lie number two.) "I'm. Listen. I might —"

They're cut off by someone sliding into the booth across from them. Violet had been too focused on Roo — for a brief, panicked moment, they think that was a mistake, letting down their guard, not being aware of where every person in the bar was.

And then they look across the table, and it's Dunn.

Not dangerous. Not physically, anyway.

"Hi, Vi. You haven't introduced me to your sibling, yet!" Dunn's all smiles. Vi has to fight back the urge to ask how much of the conversation she'd heard on her way over. "I'm Dulcinea! You can call me Dunn, though. Nice to meet you!"

"Roo," Roo says, shaking the hand Dunn offers them with a grin. Dread finds a home somewhere behind Vi's ribcage — they know the look on Roo's face, and they know it only ever means problems.

"I've heard so much about you," Roo says, proving Vi's predictions right. (Lie number three.) Violet kicks their leg under the table, but they just keep smiling.

[haunthouse]

"i'm just tired." + derrick and jaylen

self-indulgent au where jaylen got killed instead of shadowed bc i. think abt jaylen in the trench again a lot

It’s the third time Jaylen’s died, and she still hasn’t figured out where the fuck her room in the trench is.

The first time, she’d been too far gone to even process it when hallways and rooms started branching from the field. The second, she’d spent most of fighting; god fucking knows enough people’d wanted a piece of her, and by the time she’d been called up with the Hall Stars she’d been tired, yes, bloodied, yes, but victorious.

She settles this time for sitting at the base of her statue in the Hall — still of the first time she was incinerated, as if nothing but that initial martyrdom matters, the bright-eyed excitement on her marble face before anyone’d known what this splort could really do. She sits, and she waits to be pulled to the field to pitch, like the first two times, and she waits for someone else to come into the room, and she waits for fucking anything, and none of it happens.

Until there’s footsteps, harsh against the stone floors. They walk slow and aimless, then stop in their tracks, and by the time she looks up Derrick’s back is to her and beating a hasty retreat. She can’t fucking blame him for it, but still she calls out, voice echoing far too loudly. “Wait.” She regrets it as soon as it’s out, but it’s too late to take it back.

Derrick stops. “Hello again, friend of a friend,” he says, static tilting the words sarcastic.

“Don’t make it weird,” she snaps, then winces, then digs her palms into the sharp corners of the statue’s pedestal to keep herself from saying anything else she’ll wish she hadn’t.

“I had no idea what you meant.” He looks back at her, just close enough for her to see him rolling his eyes. Static whirrs like he’s speaking under his breath, but she can’t make out if there’s any words in it. Can’t read his expression.

“Can you —” she cuts off, pride preventing her from actually asking for help, even here, dead three times over and talking to someone who probably wants nothing more than for her to be gone. “Listen, I need a favor.”

“I never promised you a thing, what do you want me to do?” Even with the distance and through the radio she can feel the bitterness in it. Which is — whatever, it’s fair, their last conversation wasn’t exactly on great terms, even if she did make sure to slip a if I get incinerated you’ll talk to me in the trench right clause that’d gone mostly-ignored.

“Listen, dude, if anyone else had stumbled in here first I would’ve just asked them. Even fucking Perez hasn’t come in to try and give me the grand tour again — I have no clue how long I’ve been here, and it’s not my fault you’re the only asshole dumb enough to wander into the big creepy statue room, and —”

“This story’s going somewhere.”

“I can’t find my fucking room.”

“Where, where? When you asked me that question it sounded like a joke.”

“No, I’m — this place is a fucking maze and I don’t know where the fuck it is, but I know you do, because I know you guys raided it for instruments or whatever, and —” Her voice is picking up volume, and she stops all of a sudden, quiets back to a tired mumble. “I’m just fucking tired, dude.”

Static whirrs under his breath again, but he seems to give up on finding lyrics. Instead, he turns on his heel and starts walking away again.

Jaylen stands up, hands clenched into fist at her sides. “Seriously? I’m not asking to be best friends, I just want to know where my fucking bed is —”

“You never understood me much,” he says, turning back around and making a follow me gesture. “It’s just us, walking home and dodging cars. The rest of the believers follow brighter burning stars.”

“Oh,” Jaylen says, halfway taken aback. It takes a moment before she remembers how to move her feet to follow.

[haunthouse]

jaylen & mike & derrick + board games

“Derrick Krueger, I’m going to fucking murder you, I swear to god.” To say that Jaylen’s glaring daggers is an understatement. Jaylen is staring at Derrick so viciously that she wouldn’t be surprised if he suddenly burst into flames — sure, spontaneous human combustion is usually an umpires only thing, but if anything were to inspire sudden pyrokinesis, she thinks it’d be Betrayal.

“Nah,” Derrick says, apparently unbothered by the threats. “According to the book, I’m going to be killing you guys. My character’s turned into a vampire and is hungry for blood. Or something.”

“Not in the game, asshole, in real life. I can’t fucking believe you would betray us like that. After all we’ve been through together? Remember when I helped you get out of that room with the big fuckin’ pit in it?”

“Don’t recall.” Derrick’s grinning. Mike’s hiding his laughter behind his hand, at least, but it’s still clear as day; Jaylen shoves him, and gets an elbow to the side in return.

“Mike,” Jaylen says, biting her lip to keep from joining in on the laughter. This is serious. “Mike, come on, we gotta kill him. Teamwork. C’mon.”

“I dunno, Jay, he hasn’t done anything wrong yet. Seems a little hasty.”

“He literally just said he was gonna kill us.”

“Nope. You’re on your own. Every man for himself, or whatever.”

“Coward,” she says, but she’s laughing too, now, joining the chorus. She flicks an unused room tile at Mike’s head, and decides that even if she doesn’t win, the ow, what the fuck, Jaylen is almost as satisfying.

[haunthouse]

kenfinn + haunted house?

Finn isn’t sure if Kennedy can see the ghosts.

She can’t properly see them, herself; they’re hardly the see-through specters of the movies, just shadows against the wall or a glimpse out of the corner of her eye. There’s a chance they were always there, but she only started to notice them after Kennedy became Haunted. She’s grown careful of where she steps to avoid running into any of them; still, even being so close sends a chill through her, makes the townhouse feel full in a way so very different than the whole team over for dinner. It’s been a long time, with the Crabs’ diminishing lineup, since their house has been full of life. Now it’s full of something else.

Kennedy’s always been an earlier riser than her. When she wakes up, it’s to sunlight streaming through the curtains, his side of the bed empty, and a ghost’s shadow against the opposite wall.

“Good morning,” she says, once she catches her breath. The shadow’s hand raises, waves, and then dissolves back into the plain green-blue wall she and Ken had painted together their second year here. Sometimes she can tell who the ghosts are; this morning, they’re too blurred at the edges, not enough presence to make out any defining details.

“Mornin’,” Kennedy calls from the kitchen. Finn doesn’t have the heart to tell him she wasn’t talking to him, but to one of his ghosts. At home is the only place the distinction really matters, now that he spends most of his time on the field possessed; perhaps it’s selfish, to want to keep this for just the two of them, perhaps it is unkind to the ghosts who have been pulled into their orbit, but it’s too early in the morning for Finn to go down that particular spiral of thoughts. 

She’ll sit in the bay later and think through the ghosts issue. Figure out how she’s meant to act with them around, how worried she should be. For now, she can smell pancakes cooking, and those are for her and Ken and no one else.

[haunthouse]

superhero vi + wither?

superhero au! vi is a wyatt clone who’s escaped from the heroes league. beck whitney aka wither is a hero with energy draining powers. vi echoed her powers upon being created.

The first time Vi sees Wither after they leave is not, as they’d expect, in an actual villain-and-hero capacity. It’s not Wither coming to stop a bank robbery or Wither hunting down the trio and knocking on their apartment door and taking them back to the sterile cold rooms of the League. 

Instead, it’s the bread aisle of the grocery store.

Vi ducks into the next aisle over so quickly they trip over their own feet and wind up huddled on the ground next to the cheapest brand of pasta. Big neon stickers advertise $1.99 spaghetti at the corners of their vision. If Wither comes down this aisle, she’ll see them — they think one of the Wyatts echoed invisibility from someone and they spend a half-moment wishing fiercely it was them — they type out a guys withers here text to Roo and Ivy and just manage to hit send before —

“Six?”

For a moment, they wonder if they could shrink into their oversized sweater and disappear, or whether they look different enough now, with their hair dyed purple and tumbling into their face, to pass this off as a mistaken identity. (It’s stupid. They feel silly for even thinking it — obviously Wither knows what a Wyatt looks like, and a little hair dye isn’t gonna change that.) 

There’s about a million things they’ve thought about saying to her. None of them are what comes out when they open their mouth.

“I’m sorry,” they say, words slipping past a panicky gasp. They’re not looking at her. They’re looking anywhere else; she’s blocking one end of the aisle, and they’ve gotten good at running quickly but they can’t keep their gaze in one place for long enough to plan an escape. Their eyes dart around without really seeing any of it.

“That’s alright,” Wither says, voice smooth, quiet. Vi’s eyes land on her for a moment, and she’s smiling. They think it’s meant to be comforting. It’s just cold. “Just come back with me, alright?”

“I can’t,” Vi says, meaning I won’t. 

Wither takes a step forward, and Vi holds their hands out in front of them, exactly the way Wither taught them to. You’re going to be a hero, and that means taking down villains, when you have to. So hold your hands like this — no, like this, watch — and drain them. And later conversations: Six, it’s easy. You can’t just refuse to use your powers, that isn’t how this works. Come on, again: hold your hands out, practice.

“Don’t come any closer.” Vi pretends their voice isn’t shaking, pretends tears aren’t blurring the corner of their vision. It isn’t just tears, they realize; everything around them is wavering, all the clarity in the room collecting around their body. It’s not — they don’t want it, they don’t want to use their powers, but — if it keeps Wither away, maybe it’s worth it. 

They aren’t going to hurt her, but maybe scaring her a little is okay. They’re a villain now, after all, even if they aren’t a very good one.

Wither takes a step back, and Vi can breathe that much easier.

“You hate using your powers,” Wither says, voice pitching high. There’s a wrinkle between her brow like she’s trying to puzzle Vi out. No one at the ILB was ever very good at that; if they were, they’d have known from the beginning that Vi wasn’t cut out to be their cookie-cutter Wyatt.

“I do,” Vi agrees. “Leave me alone.”

There’s a long, awful moment of silence. Vi isn’t sure if their powers have muted everything or if the supermarket is deathly quiet on its own; their heartbeat pounds in their ears, and they could swear they can hear Wither’s breathing, stuttering out of its usual careful measure. If Wither doesn’t leave, Vi’s done for — the inconvenience their escape must have been weighs heavily enough on their shoulders, and they hadn’t hurt anyone, not directly. They can’t. Or: they could, so easily, and they can’t let themself.

And then Wither turns on her heel and walks down the aisle, leaving her grocery basket on the ground.

(When Vi runs from the store, it’s with their own basket of frozen meals in hand, ignoring the shouts about theft that trail after them. They don’t slow down until they reach the apartment and triple-check the locks behind them. Roo and Ivy leap up from the couch and get to worrying over them, and their voices are the first thing louder than the frantic beating of Vi’s heart.)

[haunthouse]

obligatory ghost prompt for a character and/or relationship of your choice

vaguely in continuity with this one; takes place early s17

Finn has gotten used to the ghosts, by now, by necessity — a season and a half and they show no signs of dispersing, though they don’t quite crowd the townhouse the way they used to. They give her and Kennedy moments of quiet. She’s not proud of the way she’d broken down and asked for the spirits to leave them alone, sometime around the end of last season, when Fish and Pedro had both been Elsewhere and the remaining Crabs had been spread thinner than ever before, but they’d listened, stopped startling her in mirrors and lurking in the corners of the bedroom. The shadows keep to the hallways, the living room, the half-distorted reflection in the fogged-up kitchen window.

It takes her a moment — exhausted after pitching a black hole game, the sort of exhaustion that only comes after a black hole, not just tiredness but the sense of missing some vital organ that you can’t quite remember the shape of — to notice the ghost sitting in the window nook, half-visible against the dark sky outside.

She squints to try and make out their features. Considers texting Ken about it, but — he can’t see them, when they aren’t possessing him, anyways, and it isn’t as if the ghost is doing any harm. “Um,” she says, brow furrowed. “Hello?”

And then the ghost looks up, and she can see their hair move glitch-choppy around their face, their eyes go wide, and suddenly Luis pops into crystal-clarity. More lifelike than any of the other ghosts have been — maybe because she hasn’t known any of the other ghosts, aside from Combs, who had already lived in hazy memory by the time Finn saw them burn. “Please don’t tell me you’ve forgotten me already!! I couldn’t take that!”

“Luis!” She’s launching herself at them before she thinks about whether it’s a good idea — whether they’ll be physical enough to do that, ghostly transparency emulating hardlight projection just enough that she forgets anything’s wrong, for a brief second. Wraps her arms around them, and —

She doesn’t go through, but it’s a near thing. Like they both have to put the effort in to imagine Luis’ form as actually present, to make it true. They’re uncomfortably warm, the same way they’d been on day one when Finn’d seen the instability hit them and had clung to them, just like this, for the rest of the game, like the umpires couldn’t set their sights on them if Finn was in the way, like that’d ever worked for anyone in the last sixteen seasons. They glitch around/through her arms where they press into their back, little pixels falling off like rainwater.

But they’re there.

Face pushed against Luis’ shoulder, Finn laughs despite the tears in her eyes. “Could never forget you, you know that. It’s only been — fifty-eight days!” The math isn’t exactly difficult — today’s date minus two — but it still feels wrong, after it’s been said. Too recent and too distant and something that, altogether, should not have been said. So Finn rushes onwards: “Was starting to think you wouldn’t show up, you know?”

“I — didn’t realize it had been so long,” they say, apologetic. “Time! It’s all weird, and — harder to keep track of, in the trench, than it was here, and that’s saying something! You know how bad I am at that!”

“I know, I know. I’ve just — I’ve just missed you!” She leans backwards enough that she can look at them properly — blurred, because she’s definitely still crying, and they’re still faded and indistinct around the edges, but as clear as she’s going to get. “I’ve missed you,” she says again. “Not the same here, without you. Everything’s so different.”

“Mm. I — I don’t want to know anything, about who replaced me, I don’t think! Not yet, at least.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything, don’t worry!” Finn leaves out that she’s barely said a dozen words to Jon in the weeks they’ve been on the team; she’s done her best to welcome Chorby’s replacement, the triplets, but — it’s too much, being around the person who’d stepped up to the pitching mound after Luis had burned.

“Good, okay! Perfect.” They’re fading. Finn can see through them to the buildings across the street and the streetlights’ warm glow, and she’s having to squint to properly make out their features, again. She can see her own hands through their shoulders; feels like she’s dipping them in the ocean in the summer, that not-quite-there warm feeling of waves lapping against skin. “I don’t think I can stay much longer? But — I missed you, too, and I’ll —”

“Come visit more? Please?”

“Of course! Now that I’ve figured out how, you’re not going to be able to get rid of me. Pinky promise.”

“I’m holding you to that!” She laughs as she loops her pinky in theirs, sealing the promise with a last bit of corporeality. By the time she looks up from their joint hands, Luis has vanished entirely.

Another empty spot opens up somewhere in her ribcage, a museum in her heart for commemorating lost things: one for the black hole’s song, one for Luis. A matching pair. She takes comfort in the knowledge that both will be back, if she only waits long enough. Finn’s good at waiting.