#that house

[houserosaire]

Prompt #8: Visit (free choice)

He knew where he was before he topped the rise. Silvaineaux’s hands tightened on Joyeux’s reins, his fingers suddenly cold inside his gauntlets. The manor loomed up at him out of the snow ahead, square and dark where the storms had not hidden it. The window glass sparkled with frost and Silvaineaux was certain that something watched him from behind it.

He should not be here, Silvaineaux thought. As he had thought every time he saw that house since the first time. Yet there he was riding forward even as a sick feeling of dread crept the length of his spine. Years of snow had devoured the courtyard.  Once there would have been walls and outbuildings but now there were only little drifts and mounds, barely higher than the snow around  them so he  could  only guess at their shapes. 

The house remained, though, looming in defiance of Coerthas’ ice. And waiting. The layers of snow in the front court sloped gently down into a little pit before the door. A dimly yawning maw at the bottom of which he could make out the bare stone of the threshold and the waiting wood of the front door. 

His fingers drew on Joyeux’s reins, but the chocobo did not flinch or chirp, or even turn one bright eye back to look at him. Instead he stepped forward, between  the two small lumps of snow Silvaineaux thought must once have marked the gate.

The world rocked.

There was the sudden terrifying sensation of being untethered, swaying, falling. His vision swam and rippled. He was upright again, on his feet in the damp stone of a rainy courtyard. The air smelled of wet, and of the moldering leaves that lay in brown and orange drifts at the foot of the walls. 

A layer of water lay over the stone, giving it a thin silver sheen in which he could see the bare branches of trees reflected, and the dark square shadow of… He looked up at the house. Silvaineaux knew it for the same one by its shape even without its heavy cloak of snow.  

It loomed up over the wet courtyard like a waiting predator, dim lights gleaming behind its windows.

He was cold and damp and a little sick and those golden lights shining their invitation at him from behind the glass ought to have looked welcoming. Yet he wanted nothing more than to turn and walk back the way he had come. 

He took a step forward…

The front door closed behind him, the quiet squeak and thud of the wood jamming into its damp swollen frame made him jump. He was in a room he had seen before, though now a fire burned its hearth, cheery flames bravely standing up to the damp. Bright candles bathed the room in a golden glow, and in the chair beside the fire someone waited. Silvaineaux reached out and put his hand on the wall. ‘No,” a voice sounded suddenly in his ear. ‘Not here.’  He didn’t recognize that voice, a man’s, rough and urgent sounding.

The world lurched again.

He stood in the doorway of a small and unfamiliar chapel, moonlight shining through the glass onto a dim shape before the altar. It did not take long to make sense of that shape, long and rectangular. He lifted one hand and closed it slowly on the doorframe, gripping to keep himself from moving again. The wood was cold under his hand and growing colder. 

His breath made a small cloud in front of his face and the small hairs at the nape of his neck slowly rose. He could not hear anything, no whisper of breath, no sound of movement. Yet he was absolutely certain there was something behind him. If he turned he would see it. If he did not…

Something slammed into the center of his chest. A light pressure, like the sudden slap of a small hand. 

Silvaineaux gasped and jerked awake, heart pounding in his chest. He could still feel that pressure against his chest. Yet even as his right hand lashed out, reaching hastily for his sword at the edge of the bed, it mewed. Several small pinpricks followed, up over his collarbone and the top of his shoulder and then something small and warm curled up against the side of his neck. It started purring just under his ear.

He lifted a hand to run it over his face. His skin was damp with sweat and his heart was racing. The chuckle that escaped him sounded ragged and breathless, but the kitten purred louder. Silvaineaux sighed. “I know for a fact that you were not in here when I went to bed.” The only answer was a small stirring as the creature settled itself more comfortably.

[louisegluckpdf]

they won't tell you this in therapy but sometimes the best way to stop catastrophizing/anxiety is to interrupt your spiraling with "girl what the hell are you talking about"

[greghatecrimes]

House drugged that coffee btw

[verifiablebot]

'this property says it has nine acres but those neighbours look pretty clo-'

oh.

ohhhhhhhhh no

[piedpip3rrr]

What is this? A crossover episode???

[thankstothe]

folk hero really

[victusinveritas]

I love the idea of a roomba topography map being the jumping on point for a liminal horror story. House of Leaves II: Roomba.

[plaguedocboi]

I hate the “open floor plan” that everyone is obsessed with in houses now. I want nooks and crannies and bizarre floor plans. I don’t need to be able to see what someone is doing on the other side of the house. I want places to hide and lurk and dwell in the shadows. I am the beast who awaits in the labyrinth

[eliotquillon]

if house md were running in 2024 there would be an episode with a patient who identifies as an ‘online content creator’ (cagily) where house agrees to take the case primarily because when he offhandedly refers to her as an onlyfans model both cameron and cuddy get really offended and say it’s a sexist assumption so he doubles down and becomes committed to finding the patient’s onlyfans and proving it. at some point it would be revealed that chase actually is an onlyfans model and started doing it as a stopgap after his dad died and he suddenly got disinherited but he makes so much money off it that now medicine is basically just a hobby. cameron and foreman both disagree with the concept online sex work but it turns out they disagree for different reasons (cameron thinks it’s exploitative and not-feminist, foreman finds it distasteful and thinks people should get ‘real jobs’) and spend most of their scenes together arguing about this while chase gets continually more shifty. they break into the patient’s house and there’s a full ringlight and camera setup which seems to confirm house’s suspicions. while trying to find the patient’s onlyfans house accidentally finds chase’s onlyfans instead and considers publicly embarrassing him about it like he did with wilson’s sex tape but soon realises that most of the staff at the hospital are already subscribed to chase’s onlyfans so makes fun of him for that instead. it then transpires that the reason why the patient is so cagey about being a content creator is that she’s an ASMR artist and all the soap she’s been shaving on camera has irritated her lungs. cuddy is about to make house give her 20 extra hours of clinic duty as recompense but at last minute it’s revealed that the website the patient uses for some of her bonus commissions is, drumroll…onlyfans, because she’s been banned from patreon. how does house know this? wilson is subscribed to her because the soap videos sometimes soothe him to sleep. something by cigarettes after sex plays. roll end credits.

[dandylion-s]

Bastille was right. How am I gonna be an optimist about this. Also right about eh eho eho.

[fernsnailz]

i think we all need to complain about LED headlights more. please can we all complain about them more. night driving is nearly impossible for me to do now without having to white knuckle my way through a thousand evil suns. every time i see those headlights in my mirrors i take 2d6 radiant damage. i want to destroy every single LED headlight under my feet like they’re goombas

[politijohn]

Source

[sunfortune]

real

[shamebats]

[moringmark]