Fic Post: Die Happily Ever After
Sep. 7th, 2009 12:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
harborshoreTitle: Die Happily Ever After
Rating: PG-13
Summary: MSI go to a mansion to do some writing for their next album. Unfortunately, this mansion has ghosts. Initially, Steve finds it interesting, but after a while, not so much. Otherwise known as my story about Lyn-Z and Steve being BFFs.
Warnings: Ghosts, general scariness.
Word Count: 4000
Author's Notes: For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thesamefire on her birthday. ♥, darling, I really, really hope you like it. This was not the birthday story I meant to write you, but these things happen.
This story is inspired by this interview, in which we learn that MSI once spent the night in a haunted Japanese hotel. This story is also what happens when I try to write horror: it comes out mostly like comedy. Thanks tocolouredmango and nokomis305 for helping with the horror-esque parts, and my undying gratitude to wasoncedelight and softlyforgotten for looking it over. Any remaining errors are not their fault.
Steve's not scared, exactly. This mansion's just fucking weird, is what it is.
From the outside, it doesn't look right. The statues in the garden are half angels, half modern and oddly shaped, and the house has clearly also been renovated by someone who wanted to stay with the times but were too lazy or stingy to update everything. Steve can see about half a dozen spots on the façade where the renovations aren't exactly melting into the old-fashioned brickwork of the original building.
When they enter through the heavy front door, it's like the house sighs, shakes for a second, and the hallways darken ahead of them.
Then Jimmy laughs.
"So, you guys, with the ghosts here, does it still count as indecent exposure if you're exposing yourself to someone who's technically invisible?"
Kitty raises an eyebrow at him. "Hey, do you think they could make you invisible? Because I'd be okay with that."
"Aw, come on baby, don't be like that," Jimmy says, reaching over and tugging on Kitty's pigtails. "I happen to know, fair Kitty, that you love looking at my naked ass."
Steve snorts. "Only because you Stockholm-syndromed her into it. Anyway, we all know I have a superior posterior."
"Pfft, you wish," Jimmy says, straighening up and eyeing Steve speculatively. It looks like they're gearing up for the Great Fight of the Week (Jimmy won the last one by managing to grab the whipped cream when they were making sundaes and getting both Steve and Lyn-Z in the eyes, and Steve has been looking forward to getting his revenge) when Lyn-Z interrupts them both.
"Shut up, motherfuckers. We all know I have the best ass in the band. About a million fanboys and girls on the internet say so."
Steve bows, mock-seriously. "I concede your point, mylady."
"If somebody wasn't so stingy about her fucking skirts, we could have a fair fight here," Jimmy mutters.
"Right, because our fans have never seen your ass," Lyn-Z says and Steve nods.
"I think the only ass they haven't seen at this point is Kitty's, man."
They all look at Kitty, who grins. "I promise, no, I solemnly swear, that if we keep going until we've been a band for twenty years, I'll play our anniversary show naked."
Lyn-Z whoops. "Damn, Kitty-Kat, I'm gonna play that whole show staring at you."
"Not fair," Jimmy exclaims, "how am I supposed to compete with that?"
"You're gonna have to get arrested again," Steve says solemnly, and Jimmy nods in agreement, equally serious.
"I guess I will."
Lyn-Z pulls on Steve's sleeve. "Alright, if you motherfuckers are finished planning a show we're playing in ten years, I want to check this place out, see if it's actually as haunted as they promised on the website."
Jimmy immediately calls, "I bet I can beat you up the stairs," and starts running.
While they race up the steps Steve stays behind, looking around the room where they came in.
Really, it isn't even that dark now. But there are all kinds of noises and shivers in the walls, tiny ones, quiet ones, but they're definitely there, he thinks, even if he seems to be the only one who has noticed them.
"Come on!" Lyn-Z is yelling for him, pulling at Jimmy's jacket to slow him down while Kitty's trying to sneak past them both. Zoid's laughing, like she does, and then swearing as Kitty takes the opportunity to pull her down so she can make it to the top first.
Jimmy vows revenge loudly and inventively as Kitty does her supremely dorky I-beat-your-ass dance, twirling and grinning.
Steve smiles, the air clearing. His fucking band, ladies and gentlemen.
So what if there are ghosts in the walls, it's a pretty sweet house, and it should be seriously inspirational. Plus, a haunted mansion. Above all, it calls for exploring.
He startles when he puts his hand on the banister and it creaks loudly. The creaks come with him all the way up the stairs, trembling ahead of his fingers and getting louder, and he keeps expecting to see actual cracks in the railing.
When he gets to the top, he's greeted by the sight of all his bandmates in various ridiculous poses—Jimmy has liberated a suit of armor of its helmet and picked up a stray mop, probably left behind by the cleaning ladies, Lyn-Z has stolen a sword off the wall, and Kitty's taken down one of the drapes and wrapped herself into it.
"Wooo, I'm a 19th century mummy," she intones, moving stiffly toward Steve, who reaches out and pulls on the fabric.
"I'm gonna unwrap you, motherfucker," he promises, and Kitty slaps at him.
Behind her, Lyn-Z and Jimmy starts duelling, and Steve's grateful that no one gave Jimmy a sword and that Lyn-Z kept the scabbard on hers. Zoid is crazy as fuck, but at least she remembered the Don't-Play-With-Sharp-Objects lesson that Steve is man enough to admit he himself has a tendency to forget. Ignore. Whatever.
His distraction has given Kitty enough time to unwrap herself and get the fabric over his head, which leads to them deciding that a two-person mummy is a lot more fun.
There's a moment when they're pressed close together, the fabric covering them and clinging to Steve's face that he can't breathe, can't breathe at all, and he chokes with the panic until Kitty laughs.
"I wonder if the Egyptians ever played at being mummies, or if it was, like, something you just didn't do," she muses, and Steve get his breath back.
"Playing dead is always fun, right?"
Lyn-Z hears that one and calls out a "I'm gonna teach you to play dead alright," while Jimmy mutters in the background. It sounds like he's gotten the helmet stuck on his head.
Since their lead singer needs help, Kitty and Steve abandon their makeshift shroud.
"Hold on, this might hurt a bit," Steve says, and wraps himself around Jimmy while Kitty and Lyn-Z each take hold of one of the earpieces of the helmet.
"You're only—ow!—saying that to make me happy," Jimmy says, and he howls in protest when Lyn-Z accidentally pulls on his ear. "Woman, we work in music, I need those!"
"Stay the fuck still then," she responds, not bothered at all.
Kitty looks consideringly at the helmet. "Wait, if we twist it instead of trying to pull it straight off…I think that might work better."
She tries it, and sure enough, the helmet slides off, leaving Jimmy with some interesting marks on his forehead.
"Are those stigmata, James?" Steve asks, poking at Jimmy.
Jimmy raises an eyebrow. "Are you saying I'm your Lord and Savior, Steven?"
"Nah, you're just one of those crazy saints," Steve replies, dodging Jimmy's swing.
Kitty rolls her eyes at them both. "Come on, let's see more of this fucked-up house before any of the three of you end up in a hospital again. Save it for, like, Thursday."
So they continue down the hallway, peeking into the rooms they pass. Most of them are boring, like the study and the tiny sitting room, but there are some interesting ones.
Everyone agrees the portrait gallery is creepy as shit but great, because some enterprising soul has actually gone through and put up little placards for all the so-called aristocrats, full of useless information mixed with details of their gory ends. Presumably whoever did it meant it to increase the eerie feel of the mansion.
For instance, Mrs Constance Bluebell enjoyed embroidery but fell to her death from her bedroom window on the second floor. She's one of the advertised ghosts; Steve remembers her portrait from the webpage. It's paler in person, though.
There's also Baron von Smith, who despite his haughty smile, was a great favorite of the children of the neighborhood. That one might be the creepiest placard, because that's all it says: "Great favorite of the children of the neighborhood". Steve shudders.
When he turns away, he feels a hand on his shoulder. It's just a touch, swift and soft, but when he turns, his band is at the other end of the gallery. He shivers and scratches at his neck, but shakes it off when he gets call him over to decide whether Lyn-Z or Kitty is right about the third painting from the door: Lyn-Z thinks it's a man in woman's clothing, Kitty's pretty determined that it's not. Steve refuses to say, because Kitty and Lyn-Z in a debate is hilarious, he's not breaking that up before he has to. Sure enough, they argue for half an hour, until they find the music room.
----
Exploring is hungry work. Eventually they all agree to return to the kitchen and see what the nice and friendly retainers left for them, and also to see if there's anything strong they can wash down all the dust with, as Lyn-Z puts it.
There is, luckily, and it's wine, which certainly goes with their aristocratic surroundings. So they get out the fixings for a salad and start chopping them together, nuts and avocados and tomatoes and fuck, but it's looking good.
Steve goes over to the ancient radio, just to see. It works, but turning the dials is sluggish work, almost like something is fighting him, dragging at his shoulders and arms. He frowns and keeps twisting his hand, wincing at the strain in his muscles
Once he stops at the first classical channel he can find, which is playing the smoothest, easiest piano sonata ever, the resistance disappears entirely. This, with how he was bracing himself to pull against it, makes him fall on his ass.
"Fucking goddamn piece of shit, you want me to play pussy music, I'll play pussy music!"
Yelling at the radio, that's great. Maybe that's what the house does, drives nuts. And shit, thinking a radio is actually alive enough to fuck around with you, well. It's not the most sane thought he's ever had, by any means.
Steve breathes and tries to will his heartbeat to go slower, before he looks over to the counter to see them all staring at him.
"What?" He knows he's sounding defensive, which is practically an open invitation to be made fun of.
"Are we feeling a little cranky today?" Lyn-Z asks in the most patronizing voice he's ever heard her use.
"They're so imaginative at this age, the little devils," Jimmy adds, chin in his hand.
"I'm getting him a toy car for his next birthday," Kitty announces. "It's gonna be bright red and he can crash it into the walls when he's feeling peevish."
Steve musters up some sass and saunters over to the counter. "You should all shut up, or I'll pull out some moves that show you just how much of a toddler I'm not." Weak, but possibly effective, as long as he can back it up.
He commandeers one of Kitty's chopping boards and starts cutting up bread very emphatically. They laugh at him but keep working instead of continuing to give him shit, which counts as half a win.
Jimmy is pouring them all their third glasses of wine when it happens. Lyn-Z draws a sharp breath and points behind Steve, who spins to look at the stove. There's a shadowy figure who grows more distinct the longer they look; it's a woman who is stirring something in a pot, slowly, slowly, her long skirt brushing the ground. The radio's gone dead quiet. None of them move.
Kitty's got one hand on Steve's arm, gripping so hard he can feel every single goddamn drumming muscle she has. Lyn-Z's breathing fast, little stuttering breaths, and Steve hasn't heard her sound like that since the night their tiny-ass pub show ended up being for an audience who took serious objection to Jimmy's skirt.
Finally Jimmy says, "What the fuck?" in a shaky voice that Steve is going to make fun of him for, as soon as he can remember how to make his own vocal chords work. But at Jimmy's voice, the woman disappears, fades away, almost like a grainy pixellated image that dissipates, square by square.
"What the fucking fuck?" Jimmy says again, after a long moment where all they can do is stare at the stove, then stare at each other, then stare at the stove again.
Then they all start talking at once, because seriously, what just happened? That was a—that was a ghost, that was. Or they all had a collective hallucination, which definitely happens sometimes, but, no, Steve's pretty damn sure.
"Dammit, I wish I'd brought my Ouija board," Lyn-Z says suddenly, and Kitty looks skeptical.
"You really believe in that shit?"
"Well, normally I wouldn't, it's for fun, but, I mean, look at what just happened." Lyn-Z flaps her hand helplessly, gesturing at the stove.
"We could have a séance," Steve suggests, and then he realizes he's still gripping the counter so tightly his fingers are cramping.
Jimmy grins. "As long as I get to wear the turban."
"We wouldn't dream of having anyone else channeling mystical vibrations," Kitty says drily and resumes shredding salad.
Some of the tension leaks out of the air at her matter-of-fact tone, and they go all go back to their respective vegetables. Steve pulls his bread closer again.
"But not before we fucking eat, though. No mystical vibrations before dinner," he feels compelled to add, even though the séance was technically his idea, because he's really goddamn hungry and he should finish the garlic bread so they can eat at some point.
--
When they've finished off the salad and the three loaves of garlic bread, Jimmy clears his throat noisily and wraps two kitchen towels around his head.
"Candle," Kitty prompts, and Lyn-Z lifts the candle stick that was on the table, lighting it as she passes it to Kitty, who takes it with a flourish and then motions at Jimmy. "Take it away, maestro."
Despite Jimmy's very lively hand-waving and admonishments of the spirits, nothing else happens. The kitchen remains dull, flat, almost homey except that it's clearly not a kitchen that is used by a family anymore, what with the gleaming counters. They all make disappointed noises, but truthfully Steve thinks they're all a little relieved. It was pretty fucking cool, seeing a ghost, and he's got some corroborative evidence that his earlier spooks weren't just something he made up, but it's not like he hasn't seen enough horror films to know that ghosts tend to equal bad shit happening. At least now they can polish off the rest of the wine (they're on their fifth bottle) and sleep some. Who knows, maybe they'll even get some work done tomorrow.
Steve and Lyn-Z already decided they were rooming together before they came here. He hasn't really seen Zoid much during this break, and he's really missed her. When they finish a tour, everyone's always so relieved and vowing to do nothing and to hang out with other people, but it tends to take about a week before him and Lyn-Z are calling each other up. Seeing her is different than phone calls though, it's better.
They wave at Kitty and Jimmy, who both picked rooms on the first floor, and walk back up the stairs. Lyn-Z hits the switch for the electric lights and they make their way to the sweet, sweet room they'd both fallen in love with while exploring.
It's cozy-looking, with its soft-colored walls and huge beds with about eighteen pillows each, and it feels like someone actually loved that room, once upon a time. Steve said that to Zoid, earlier, and she laughed at him, but he caught her grinning at a tiny porcelain dog and called her on it, and then she'd admitted she felt it too.
So they crawl into their old and fancy beds, and Steve pulls the down comforter up to his chin. Cozy or not, it's pretty fucking cold in this room.
"This is nice, right?" Lyn-Z grins from the other bed and Steve nods.
"I kind of feel like I'm going to sink through the bed, but I think I like it."
"Mmm, I know. Like sleeping on fucking clouds, or something."
"Nah, I think it's more like quicksand, but in a good way," Steve says thoughtfully, squirming against the pillows. Laughing, Lyn-Z copies him, and they start making up stories for all the ugly-ass artwork in the room.
There's Count Sneers-A-Lot, who murdered his wife, "In the library! With a candlestick!" Steve insists, but Lyn-Z claims that's a much more butler-esque method, and far too brutish for someone so flashy.
"He's a poisoner, I can sense these things. Look at that eyeglass, man, I can't believe he'd be that violent. Nasty motherfucker, though, he was into the painful poisons. Now she, on the other hand—" Lyn-Z gets one arm out from under the covers and waves at a pointy-faced lady wearing the ugliest pink dress Steve has ever seen, "I think she pushed her husband out of the window on the second floor. Crippled him for life."
"Defenestrated him, is what you're saying," Steve agrees. "Don't you think Jimmy would love that dress, though?"
Lyn-Z laughs. "Fuck yes, he would. We should see if we can find him one like that for his birthday."
"And matching shoes."
"Obviously."
They look at each other and grin, and Steve thinks about Jimmy wearing that dress on stage and the shit they could pull. Fucking perfect, really; it had been a good idea to come here, if they're already getting ideas for stage stuff.
They talk for a good while longer, Lyn-Z making fun of him for claiming to like the painting of Mrs Warden, "just because you think she looks like an English duchess, Steve, god," but the long day eventually gets to them both. Lyn-Z makes the snuffly noises she always makes before she falls asleep, and Steve sighs and waits for the snoring to start. It only happens in actual beds, never on the bus, but, yeah—there she goes. At this point, he's used to it; it's easy to fall asleep to the soft, even noises.
He's woken up by her voice, sounding—huh, she sounds scared—"Steve? Is your bed shaking?"
And he has to take a second to respond, because he just woke up, and it's not all that easy to sort out what's going on, but, "…yeah, that's shaking. Shit."
Suddenly the quicksand-like quality of this here fine bed is a bit more bothersome. He tries not to feel like the covers are weighing him down, but he's definitely having trouble moving, especially with the bed setting his bones on vibrate, getting them rattling around.
It's hard to breathe; he's wishing they'd opened the window earlier, the air is really goddamn heavy in here, even if it's still freezing. Shit shit shit. He should have realized all the little shit he noticed today was just the house warming up.
"Zoid?"
"Yeah?" She sounds shaky and like she's about to start giggling, which is standard protocol for her (she laughs when she's on roller-coasters, too), so Steve doesn't feel too embarrassed about his next question.
"Uh, wanna come over here? I think my bed's maybe shaking a little less than yours. And, uh, I'm not moving too good, either."
Lyn-Z takes a breath, he can hear her, and says, "Yeah, you know—yeah."
She moves fast; he barely has time to lift up one corner of the covers before she's squirming into the bed next to him. They both reach for each other's hand at the same time, and end up clutching at each other.
"This is fucking crazy," she breathes, and he nods intently.
"I kind of feel bad for making fun of all these people now," he admits, and she makes a choked noise.
"God, you're right. Um, sorry?" she says, directing it to the room.
"Sorry," Steve echoes her, and feels really silly for doing so, but fuck dignity, his bed is still shaking beneath them.
The rattling picks up even more, and suddenly everything in the room is shaking along with the bed. The room was already dark, but now it looks like the air is filled with sooty patches, blooming outwards until Steve can barely see Lyn-Z on the pillow next to him.
Lyn-Z draws a sharp breath. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck, holy shit."
"Quite the show we're getting," Steve says, aiming for levity and missing by a mile. He squeezes her hand tighter. "Can you move?"
He feels rather than sees her shake her head. "At least I'm not in my bed anymore, I think—" and there's a crash, "yeah, there it went."
Wait. "Do you hear that?" Steve says.
It sounds like whispers, rustling out of the corners, and it's gaining in strength.
"Yeah, yeah, I do, shit," Lyn-Z says.
The whispering is more like howling now, and nothing in the room has stopped moving. They clutch tightly at each other, and Steve is man enough to admit to himself that the noises they're making sound a lot like the most victim-like of horror movie victims. He really hopes their fear level won't be held against them.
But then, suddenly, the air stills and turns lighter; not a lot but enough, and the howling dies down. The only thing that keeps moving is the bed, and it's definitely slower than before.
"Thank fuck," Steve whispers.
They lie there for a while, just staring at the ceiling.
"So," Lyn-Z says, "we're going to have the best stories to tell about this, right?"
Steve nods. "I don’t actually care that they'll all include me whimpering like a little girl. As long as we, you know, live to see the morning."
"Helpful, helpful." She grips his hand tighter and he squeezes back, and they keep lying there, listening to each other's breathing and feeling the bed rock gently underneath them. At any other time, Steve would have made a joke about rocking beds, but, you know, the people in the paintings are all old. Maybe they'd be offended.
"Hey Steve," Lyn-Z says after a while.
"Yeah?"
"If any motherfucking ghosts show up, I'm going to feed you to them and run."
"Wouldn't expect anything less," he replies, grinning in the dark. "They can choke on the metal in my hip." She giggles.
"That's right," he continues, addressing the rest of the room, "You may be ghosts, but I broke my hip when serving my, uh, masters, and it was fixed, and now I have a mighty metal hip, and you will all go down."
"I shall avenge your death," Lyn-Z promises solemnly. "You won't die in vain."
"I expect you to burn the house with me still in it, like a pyre."
"But of course! Nothing less would serve."
"Hell yeah," and he squirms out of the blankets enough to hug her. She looks sort of surprised but smiles back at him in the gloom and hugs him back.
"I'd rather be stuck here with you than with anyone else," she says after a while, and he nods sleepily.
"Me too," he says, and they finally fall asleep again.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: MSI go to a mansion to do some writing for their next album. Unfortunately, this mansion has ghosts. Initially, Steve finds it interesting, but after a while, not so much. Otherwise known as my story about Lyn-Z and Steve being BFFs.
Warnings: Ghosts, general scariness.
Word Count: 4000
Author's Notes: For
thesamefire on her birthday. ♥, darling, I really, really hope you like it. This was not the birthday story I meant to write you, but these things happen. This story is inspired by this interview, in which we learn that MSI once spent the night in a haunted Japanese hotel. This story is also what happens when I try to write horror: it comes out mostly like comedy. Thanks to
colouredmango and nokomis305 for helping with the horror-esque parts, and my undying gratitude to wasoncedelight and softlyforgotten for looking it over. Any remaining errors are not their fault.Steve's not scared, exactly. This mansion's just fucking weird, is what it is.
From the outside, it doesn't look right. The statues in the garden are half angels, half modern and oddly shaped, and the house has clearly also been renovated by someone who wanted to stay with the times but were too lazy or stingy to update everything. Steve can see about half a dozen spots on the façade where the renovations aren't exactly melting into the old-fashioned brickwork of the original building.
When they enter through the heavy front door, it's like the house sighs, shakes for a second, and the hallways darken ahead of them.
Then Jimmy laughs.
"So, you guys, with the ghosts here, does it still count as indecent exposure if you're exposing yourself to someone who's technically invisible?"
Kitty raises an eyebrow at him. "Hey, do you think they could make you invisible? Because I'd be okay with that."
"Aw, come on baby, don't be like that," Jimmy says, reaching over and tugging on Kitty's pigtails. "I happen to know, fair Kitty, that you love looking at my naked ass."
Steve snorts. "Only because you Stockholm-syndromed her into it. Anyway, we all know I have a superior posterior."
"Pfft, you wish," Jimmy says, straighening up and eyeing Steve speculatively. It looks like they're gearing up for the Great Fight of the Week (Jimmy won the last one by managing to grab the whipped cream when they were making sundaes and getting both Steve and Lyn-Z in the eyes, and Steve has been looking forward to getting his revenge) when Lyn-Z interrupts them both.
"Shut up, motherfuckers. We all know I have the best ass in the band. About a million fanboys and girls on the internet say so."
Steve bows, mock-seriously. "I concede your point, mylady."
"If somebody wasn't so stingy about her fucking skirts, we could have a fair fight here," Jimmy mutters.
"Right, because our fans have never seen your ass," Lyn-Z says and Steve nods.
"I think the only ass they haven't seen at this point is Kitty's, man."
They all look at Kitty, who grins. "I promise, no, I solemnly swear, that if we keep going until we've been a band for twenty years, I'll play our anniversary show naked."
Lyn-Z whoops. "Damn, Kitty-Kat, I'm gonna play that whole show staring at you."
"Not fair," Jimmy exclaims, "how am I supposed to compete with that?"
"You're gonna have to get arrested again," Steve says solemnly, and Jimmy nods in agreement, equally serious.
"I guess I will."
Lyn-Z pulls on Steve's sleeve. "Alright, if you motherfuckers are finished planning a show we're playing in ten years, I want to check this place out, see if it's actually as haunted as they promised on the website."
Jimmy immediately calls, "I bet I can beat you up the stairs," and starts running.
While they race up the steps Steve stays behind, looking around the room where they came in.
Really, it isn't even that dark now. But there are all kinds of noises and shivers in the walls, tiny ones, quiet ones, but they're definitely there, he thinks, even if he seems to be the only one who has noticed them.
"Come on!" Lyn-Z is yelling for him, pulling at Jimmy's jacket to slow him down while Kitty's trying to sneak past them both. Zoid's laughing, like she does, and then swearing as Kitty takes the opportunity to pull her down so she can make it to the top first.
Jimmy vows revenge loudly and inventively as Kitty does her supremely dorky I-beat-your-ass dance, twirling and grinning.
Steve smiles, the air clearing. His fucking band, ladies and gentlemen.
So what if there are ghosts in the walls, it's a pretty sweet house, and it should be seriously inspirational. Plus, a haunted mansion. Above all, it calls for exploring.
He startles when he puts his hand on the banister and it creaks loudly. The creaks come with him all the way up the stairs, trembling ahead of his fingers and getting louder, and he keeps expecting to see actual cracks in the railing.
When he gets to the top, he's greeted by the sight of all his bandmates in various ridiculous poses—Jimmy has liberated a suit of armor of its helmet and picked up a stray mop, probably left behind by the cleaning ladies, Lyn-Z has stolen a sword off the wall, and Kitty's taken down one of the drapes and wrapped herself into it.
"Wooo, I'm a 19th century mummy," she intones, moving stiffly toward Steve, who reaches out and pulls on the fabric.
"I'm gonna unwrap you, motherfucker," he promises, and Kitty slaps at him.
Behind her, Lyn-Z and Jimmy starts duelling, and Steve's grateful that no one gave Jimmy a sword and that Lyn-Z kept the scabbard on hers. Zoid is crazy as fuck, but at least she remembered the Don't-Play-With-Sharp-Objects lesson that Steve is man enough to admit he himself has a tendency to forget. Ignore. Whatever.
His distraction has given Kitty enough time to unwrap herself and get the fabric over his head, which leads to them deciding that a two-person mummy is a lot more fun.
There's a moment when they're pressed close together, the fabric covering them and clinging to Steve's face that he can't breathe, can't breathe at all, and he chokes with the panic until Kitty laughs.
"I wonder if the Egyptians ever played at being mummies, or if it was, like, something you just didn't do," she muses, and Steve get his breath back.
"Playing dead is always fun, right?"
Lyn-Z hears that one and calls out a "I'm gonna teach you to play dead alright," while Jimmy mutters in the background. It sounds like he's gotten the helmet stuck on his head.
Since their lead singer needs help, Kitty and Steve abandon their makeshift shroud.
"Hold on, this might hurt a bit," Steve says, and wraps himself around Jimmy while Kitty and Lyn-Z each take hold of one of the earpieces of the helmet.
"You're only—ow!—saying that to make me happy," Jimmy says, and he howls in protest when Lyn-Z accidentally pulls on his ear. "Woman, we work in music, I need those!"
"Stay the fuck still then," she responds, not bothered at all.
Kitty looks consideringly at the helmet. "Wait, if we twist it instead of trying to pull it straight off…I think that might work better."
She tries it, and sure enough, the helmet slides off, leaving Jimmy with some interesting marks on his forehead.
"Are those stigmata, James?" Steve asks, poking at Jimmy.
Jimmy raises an eyebrow. "Are you saying I'm your Lord and Savior, Steven?"
"Nah, you're just one of those crazy saints," Steve replies, dodging Jimmy's swing.
Kitty rolls her eyes at them both. "Come on, let's see more of this fucked-up house before any of the three of you end up in a hospital again. Save it for, like, Thursday."
So they continue down the hallway, peeking into the rooms they pass. Most of them are boring, like the study and the tiny sitting room, but there are some interesting ones.
Everyone agrees the portrait gallery is creepy as shit but great, because some enterprising soul has actually gone through and put up little placards for all the so-called aristocrats, full of useless information mixed with details of their gory ends. Presumably whoever did it meant it to increase the eerie feel of the mansion.
For instance, Mrs Constance Bluebell enjoyed embroidery but fell to her death from her bedroom window on the second floor. She's one of the advertised ghosts; Steve remembers her portrait from the webpage. It's paler in person, though.
There's also Baron von Smith, who despite his haughty smile, was a great favorite of the children of the neighborhood. That one might be the creepiest placard, because that's all it says: "Great favorite of the children of the neighborhood". Steve shudders.
When he turns away, he feels a hand on his shoulder. It's just a touch, swift and soft, but when he turns, his band is at the other end of the gallery. He shivers and scratches at his neck, but shakes it off when he gets call him over to decide whether Lyn-Z or Kitty is right about the third painting from the door: Lyn-Z thinks it's a man in woman's clothing, Kitty's pretty determined that it's not. Steve refuses to say, because Kitty and Lyn-Z in a debate is hilarious, he's not breaking that up before he has to. Sure enough, they argue for half an hour, until they find the music room.
----
Exploring is hungry work. Eventually they all agree to return to the kitchen and see what the nice and friendly retainers left for them, and also to see if there's anything strong they can wash down all the dust with, as Lyn-Z puts it.
There is, luckily, and it's wine, which certainly goes with their aristocratic surroundings. So they get out the fixings for a salad and start chopping them together, nuts and avocados and tomatoes and fuck, but it's looking good.
Steve goes over to the ancient radio, just to see. It works, but turning the dials is sluggish work, almost like something is fighting him, dragging at his shoulders and arms. He frowns and keeps twisting his hand, wincing at the strain in his muscles
Once he stops at the first classical channel he can find, which is playing the smoothest, easiest piano sonata ever, the resistance disappears entirely. This, with how he was bracing himself to pull against it, makes him fall on his ass.
"Fucking goddamn piece of shit, you want me to play pussy music, I'll play pussy music!"
Yelling at the radio, that's great. Maybe that's what the house does, drives nuts. And shit, thinking a radio is actually alive enough to fuck around with you, well. It's not the most sane thought he's ever had, by any means.
Steve breathes and tries to will his heartbeat to go slower, before he looks over to the counter to see them all staring at him.
"What?" He knows he's sounding defensive, which is practically an open invitation to be made fun of.
"Are we feeling a little cranky today?" Lyn-Z asks in the most patronizing voice he's ever heard her use.
"They're so imaginative at this age, the little devils," Jimmy adds, chin in his hand.
"I'm getting him a toy car for his next birthday," Kitty announces. "It's gonna be bright red and he can crash it into the walls when he's feeling peevish."
Steve musters up some sass and saunters over to the counter. "You should all shut up, or I'll pull out some moves that show you just how much of a toddler I'm not." Weak, but possibly effective, as long as he can back it up.
He commandeers one of Kitty's chopping boards and starts cutting up bread very emphatically. They laugh at him but keep working instead of continuing to give him shit, which counts as half a win.
Jimmy is pouring them all their third glasses of wine when it happens. Lyn-Z draws a sharp breath and points behind Steve, who spins to look at the stove. There's a shadowy figure who grows more distinct the longer they look; it's a woman who is stirring something in a pot, slowly, slowly, her long skirt brushing the ground. The radio's gone dead quiet. None of them move.
Kitty's got one hand on Steve's arm, gripping so hard he can feel every single goddamn drumming muscle she has. Lyn-Z's breathing fast, little stuttering breaths, and Steve hasn't heard her sound like that since the night their tiny-ass pub show ended up being for an audience who took serious objection to Jimmy's skirt.
Finally Jimmy says, "What the fuck?" in a shaky voice that Steve is going to make fun of him for, as soon as he can remember how to make his own vocal chords work. But at Jimmy's voice, the woman disappears, fades away, almost like a grainy pixellated image that dissipates, square by square.
"What the fucking fuck?" Jimmy says again, after a long moment where all they can do is stare at the stove, then stare at each other, then stare at the stove again.
Then they all start talking at once, because seriously, what just happened? That was a—that was a ghost, that was. Or they all had a collective hallucination, which definitely happens sometimes, but, no, Steve's pretty damn sure.
"Dammit, I wish I'd brought my Ouija board," Lyn-Z says suddenly, and Kitty looks skeptical.
"You really believe in that shit?"
"Well, normally I wouldn't, it's for fun, but, I mean, look at what just happened." Lyn-Z flaps her hand helplessly, gesturing at the stove.
"We could have a séance," Steve suggests, and then he realizes he's still gripping the counter so tightly his fingers are cramping.
Jimmy grins. "As long as I get to wear the turban."
"We wouldn't dream of having anyone else channeling mystical vibrations," Kitty says drily and resumes shredding salad.
Some of the tension leaks out of the air at her matter-of-fact tone, and they go all go back to their respective vegetables. Steve pulls his bread closer again.
"But not before we fucking eat, though. No mystical vibrations before dinner," he feels compelled to add, even though the séance was technically his idea, because he's really goddamn hungry and he should finish the garlic bread so they can eat at some point.
--
When they've finished off the salad and the three loaves of garlic bread, Jimmy clears his throat noisily and wraps two kitchen towels around his head.
"Candle," Kitty prompts, and Lyn-Z lifts the candle stick that was on the table, lighting it as she passes it to Kitty, who takes it with a flourish and then motions at Jimmy. "Take it away, maestro."
Despite Jimmy's very lively hand-waving and admonishments of the spirits, nothing else happens. The kitchen remains dull, flat, almost homey except that it's clearly not a kitchen that is used by a family anymore, what with the gleaming counters. They all make disappointed noises, but truthfully Steve thinks they're all a little relieved. It was pretty fucking cool, seeing a ghost, and he's got some corroborative evidence that his earlier spooks weren't just something he made up, but it's not like he hasn't seen enough horror films to know that ghosts tend to equal bad shit happening. At least now they can polish off the rest of the wine (they're on their fifth bottle) and sleep some. Who knows, maybe they'll even get some work done tomorrow.
Steve and Lyn-Z already decided they were rooming together before they came here. He hasn't really seen Zoid much during this break, and he's really missed her. When they finish a tour, everyone's always so relieved and vowing to do nothing and to hang out with other people, but it tends to take about a week before him and Lyn-Z are calling each other up. Seeing her is different than phone calls though, it's better.
They wave at Kitty and Jimmy, who both picked rooms on the first floor, and walk back up the stairs. Lyn-Z hits the switch for the electric lights and they make their way to the sweet, sweet room they'd both fallen in love with while exploring.
It's cozy-looking, with its soft-colored walls and huge beds with about eighteen pillows each, and it feels like someone actually loved that room, once upon a time. Steve said that to Zoid, earlier, and she laughed at him, but he caught her grinning at a tiny porcelain dog and called her on it, and then she'd admitted she felt it too.
So they crawl into their old and fancy beds, and Steve pulls the down comforter up to his chin. Cozy or not, it's pretty fucking cold in this room.
"This is nice, right?" Lyn-Z grins from the other bed and Steve nods.
"I kind of feel like I'm going to sink through the bed, but I think I like it."
"Mmm, I know. Like sleeping on fucking clouds, or something."
"Nah, I think it's more like quicksand, but in a good way," Steve says thoughtfully, squirming against the pillows. Laughing, Lyn-Z copies him, and they start making up stories for all the ugly-ass artwork in the room.
There's Count Sneers-A-Lot, who murdered his wife, "In the library! With a candlestick!" Steve insists, but Lyn-Z claims that's a much more butler-esque method, and far too brutish for someone so flashy.
"He's a poisoner, I can sense these things. Look at that eyeglass, man, I can't believe he'd be that violent. Nasty motherfucker, though, he was into the painful poisons. Now she, on the other hand—" Lyn-Z gets one arm out from under the covers and waves at a pointy-faced lady wearing the ugliest pink dress Steve has ever seen, "I think she pushed her husband out of the window on the second floor. Crippled him for life."
"Defenestrated him, is what you're saying," Steve agrees. "Don't you think Jimmy would love that dress, though?"
Lyn-Z laughs. "Fuck yes, he would. We should see if we can find him one like that for his birthday."
"And matching shoes."
"Obviously."
They look at each other and grin, and Steve thinks about Jimmy wearing that dress on stage and the shit they could pull. Fucking perfect, really; it had been a good idea to come here, if they're already getting ideas for stage stuff.
They talk for a good while longer, Lyn-Z making fun of him for claiming to like the painting of Mrs Warden, "just because you think she looks like an English duchess, Steve, god," but the long day eventually gets to them both. Lyn-Z makes the snuffly noises she always makes before she falls asleep, and Steve sighs and waits for the snoring to start. It only happens in actual beds, never on the bus, but, yeah—there she goes. At this point, he's used to it; it's easy to fall asleep to the soft, even noises.
He's woken up by her voice, sounding—huh, she sounds scared—"Steve? Is your bed shaking?"
And he has to take a second to respond, because he just woke up, and it's not all that easy to sort out what's going on, but, "…yeah, that's shaking. Shit."
Suddenly the quicksand-like quality of this here fine bed is a bit more bothersome. He tries not to feel like the covers are weighing him down, but he's definitely having trouble moving, especially with the bed setting his bones on vibrate, getting them rattling around.
It's hard to breathe; he's wishing they'd opened the window earlier, the air is really goddamn heavy in here, even if it's still freezing. Shit shit shit. He should have realized all the little shit he noticed today was just the house warming up.
"Zoid?"
"Yeah?" She sounds shaky and like she's about to start giggling, which is standard protocol for her (she laughs when she's on roller-coasters, too), so Steve doesn't feel too embarrassed about his next question.
"Uh, wanna come over here? I think my bed's maybe shaking a little less than yours. And, uh, I'm not moving too good, either."
Lyn-Z takes a breath, he can hear her, and says, "Yeah, you know—yeah."
She moves fast; he barely has time to lift up one corner of the covers before she's squirming into the bed next to him. They both reach for each other's hand at the same time, and end up clutching at each other.
"This is fucking crazy," she breathes, and he nods intently.
"I kind of feel bad for making fun of all these people now," he admits, and she makes a choked noise.
"God, you're right. Um, sorry?" she says, directing it to the room.
"Sorry," Steve echoes her, and feels really silly for doing so, but fuck dignity, his bed is still shaking beneath them.
The rattling picks up even more, and suddenly everything in the room is shaking along with the bed. The room was already dark, but now it looks like the air is filled with sooty patches, blooming outwards until Steve can barely see Lyn-Z on the pillow next to him.
Lyn-Z draws a sharp breath. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck, holy shit."
"Quite the show we're getting," Steve says, aiming for levity and missing by a mile. He squeezes her hand tighter. "Can you move?"
He feels rather than sees her shake her head. "At least I'm not in my bed anymore, I think—" and there's a crash, "yeah, there it went."
Wait. "Do you hear that?" Steve says.
It sounds like whispers, rustling out of the corners, and it's gaining in strength.
"Yeah, yeah, I do, shit," Lyn-Z says.
The whispering is more like howling now, and nothing in the room has stopped moving. They clutch tightly at each other, and Steve is man enough to admit to himself that the noises they're making sound a lot like the most victim-like of horror movie victims. He really hopes their fear level won't be held against them.
But then, suddenly, the air stills and turns lighter; not a lot but enough, and the howling dies down. The only thing that keeps moving is the bed, and it's definitely slower than before.
"Thank fuck," Steve whispers.
They lie there for a while, just staring at the ceiling.
"So," Lyn-Z says, "we're going to have the best stories to tell about this, right?"
Steve nods. "I don’t actually care that they'll all include me whimpering like a little girl. As long as we, you know, live to see the morning."
"Helpful, helpful." She grips his hand tighter and he squeezes back, and they keep lying there, listening to each other's breathing and feeling the bed rock gently underneath them. At any other time, Steve would have made a joke about rocking beds, but, you know, the people in the paintings are all old. Maybe they'd be offended.
"Hey Steve," Lyn-Z says after a while.
"Yeah?"
"If any motherfucking ghosts show up, I'm going to feed you to them and run."
"Wouldn't expect anything less," he replies, grinning in the dark. "They can choke on the metal in my hip." She giggles.
"That's right," he continues, addressing the rest of the room, "You may be ghosts, but I broke my hip when serving my, uh, masters, and it was fixed, and now I have a mighty metal hip, and you will all go down."
"I shall avenge your death," Lyn-Z promises solemnly. "You won't die in vain."
"I expect you to burn the house with me still in it, like a pyre."
"But of course! Nothing less would serve."
"Hell yeah," and he squirms out of the blankets enough to hug her. She looks sort of surprised but smiles back at him in the gloom and hugs him back.
"I'd rather be stuck here with you than with anyone else," she says after a while, and he nods sleepily.
"Me too," he says, and they finally fall asleep again.
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Date: 2009-09-08 09:21 pm (UTC)And it was kind of the thing I wanted to get right, too, the way they are as a band--the banter was obviously crucial, but I really wanted to demonstrate how they weren't locked into stereotypes (it'd be so easy to make Kitty the band mom all the time, for example). Anyway, enough rambling, I'm so glad you liked it!