ghostsinthewindow

[ghostsinthewindow]

weapons of clairvoyance (are we running home or running free today?) - chapter three: government secret

description: conversations with webby

warnings: none

chapter one, chapter two

ao3 link

a few months after webby started talking to her, hannah was put into mandatory education. she liked her teacher, mrs. davidson, very much. mrs. davidson was kind and had a gentle voice when she read stories to the class, not like her mother.

"once upon a time, there was a little girl named goldilocks. she went for a walk in the forest."

hannah shook her head and looked down. she had heard this story before. lex used to tell it to her all the time.

"pretty soon, she came upon a house. she knocked, and when no one answered, she walked right in."

that was always a scary part of the story for hannah. the other kids around her giggled, but a stranger walking into her house without knocking? that was terrifying.

"at the table in the kitchen, there were three bowls of porridge."

hannah, tired of her teacher's storytelling, started to tune the classroom noise out and focus on another noise she heard. she focused on the static that played in the back of her mind.

"goldilocks was hungry. she tasted the porridge from the first bowl."

the static was quiet at first, but as hannah focused more on it, it seemed to get louder.

"'this porridge is too hot!' she exclaimed. so, she tasted the porridge from the second bowl."

the static was getting louder now. it was loud enough to drown out mrs. davidson's voice, then loud enough to drown out the whispers of the students beside her, then loud enough to drown out her own breathing. too loud for hannah's liking.

"'this porridge is too cold,' she said. so, she tasted the last bowl of porridge."

hannah tried to stop the static getting louder.

stop, stop, stop! webby, help!

don't worry, hannah.

"'ah, this porridge is just right,' she said happily and she ate it all up."

webby's voice was a great comfort to hannah. now she could listen to webby talk instead of listening to the story she had heard a hundred times before.

goldilocks.

yes.

i remember. too much, too little, just right.

you've heard this story too?

just as much.

-

a couple days after mrs. davidson was done reading the goldilocks story, she pulled hannah up to her desk while the class was working.

"hannah," she began, "i've noticed something recently. it always seems like you're not listening when i read stories to the class. is that true?"

hannah looked up at mrs. davidson. lex had always told her that lying was bad, so hannah bit her lip and nodded.

"why is that?"

"heard them before," hannah said, which wasn't entirely wrong.

"but it seems like your mind is on something else when i read. do you want to talk about that?"

hannah's eyes widened. she had never told anyone about webby before. should she now?

"her name is webby," she said.

"webby?"

"a spider."

"your pet?"

"no. she's from the black and white."

"the black and white? where is that?"

don't.

hannah's words and heart stopped at webby's sudden intrusion.

"webby says i'm not supposed to tell you."

"webby can hear me?"

hannah nodded slowly.

"well, i'm sorry that webby doesn't want me to hear her. but, i have to tell you, hannah, since you're not listening in class, i have to call your parents."

"no."

mrs. davidson blinked. she had expected screaming, crying, things she had seen from other students, not a strong, steady, one-word response from a six-year-old. "no?"

"call lex instead."

"lex?"

"my sister."

-

is mrs. davidson bad?

no.

then why didn’t you want me to tell her where you’re from?

black and white. secret.

how secret?

government secret.

[ghostsinthewindow]

weapons of clairvoyance (are we running home or running free today?) - chapter two: not like you can

description: conversations with webby

warnings: none

chapter one

ao3 link

she was about six when the voice started speaking to her.

hannah.

it would whisper in the night.

hannah. hear me.

“i hear you,” she would whisper back to a room filled with only herself and a sleeping lex.

no. think, don’t speak.

i hear you.

better.

“who-” hannah stopped herself from speaking. who are you?

the voice tried to say its name, but could not. from what hannah could hear, there was a “wuh” sound and a “buh” sound from somewhere in the garbled mess. wuhbuh… wuhbuh… wuhbuh?

hannah squinted her eyes in confusion. then, as if the moonlight shining through the window was casting a spotlight onto it, hannah spotted a spider crawling on the bedroom wall. the name popped into hannah’s mind. not sure of herself, she thought carefully to the voice.

webby?

a silence hung in the air. it wasn’t awkward. it seemed to hannah for some reason that the voice - webby, hopefully - was smiling to itself.

yes.

why do you speak so shortly?

my end. connection issues.

where are you from?

there was another silence from the voice. it was longer this time, and hannah feared that they had offended webby. she wondered if webby knew where she was from.

webby?

...black and white. between places.

how do you talk to me? lex and mom can't think to me like you.

gifted. lex is same but different.

and mom?

not mom.

hannah began to think. not to webby, but to herself. truthfully, she didn't know if webby could hear her or not. how do lex and i have things mom doesn't? mom has everything. even the house. why does webby talk to her instead of lex? lex was older and knew a lot more because of it.

older, not definitely wiser. lex cannot.

lex can't talk to you?

not like you can.

[ghostsinthewindow]

weapons of clairvoyance (are we running home or running free today?) - chapter one: family

description: conversations with webby, title from maya the psychic by gerard way

warnings: none

content: nonbinary ethan green (because i said so)

ao3 link

author’s note: i hope you like this!

"hey, banana? i want you to meet someone, okay?"

hannah nodded her head.

"alright, i'll bring them in."

"them? more than one?"

"no, i-i'll explain when they get in here."

webby?

yes, hannah?

is it more than one?

no.

but lex said they.

understood.

"uh, hi. hannah, right?"

hannah's eyes shot up at the stranger.

"hannah, this is ethan. ethan, this is hannah."

"you said they."

"i did, banana! but ethan's just the one person." lex kneeled down to explain to the sitting girl. "ethan's non-binary, so they're not a boy or a girl. when you talk about them, you don't say he or she, you say they."

"they."

"right!"

hannah looked at ethan. they wore a leather jacket that was a little too big on them. they had curly brown hair. their smile was uncomfortable, but hopefully, that would change. and they were tall. much taller than lex. hannah leaned away from the stranger. 

"is something wrong, banana?"

ethan is good. trust them.

i will.

"no," hannah said, smiling at the stranger - not the stranger anymore - ethan. "webby says ethan is good. to trust them."

"who's webby?" ethan asked, tilting his head towards the side.

"my friend," hannah said, speaking to ethan for the first time. "she likes you."

"and that's good?"

hannah nodded.

"well, i hope you like me as much as webby does."

hannah smiled knowingly at ethan. "i will."

"so hannah, ethan is going to watch you while i work my first shift tomorrow at the toy store, is that okay?"

hannah's eyes widened. she'd only met them today. now lex wanted her to spend a day with him? tomorrow?

ethan is safe.

"don't worry, banana-split. i won't hurt ya."

hannah smiled again.

banana-split. that's new.

kind. ethan is kind.

"yes, that's okay."

lex smiled.

ethan smiled.

hannah smiled wider.

family.

[ghostsinthewindow]

what’s shakin’, lexie? (other than you?)

description: 

“hey, ethan?”

“what’s shakin’, lexie? other than you, holy shit, you okay, lex?”

“can me and hannah come over tonight?”

“uh, coming over’s not really the best idea tonight, lexie, dad’s kinda…” ethan made a noise that mirrored the way they felt about their father. “but we could do somethin’ else? hangout at the mall, at beanie’s maybe?”

“yeah, yeah, that works. anything to get away from my mom.”

warnings: swearing, mentions and descriptions of abuse

content: nonbinary ethan green (because i said so)

ao3 link!

notes: i love ethan green with my whole life

mr. houston, after giving his lecture on power drills and when to use them, was walking around the classroom, making sure that no one would hurt their fingers when drilling into the pieces of scrap wood.

it was the perfect time for lex to “accidentally” bump into ethan green. 

“hey, ethan?”

“what’s shakin’, lexie? other than you, holy shit, you okay, lex?”

“can me and hannah come over tonight?”

“uh, coming over’s not really the best idea tonight, lexie, dad’s kinda…” ethan made a noise that mirrored the way they felt about their father. “but we could do somethin’ else? hangout at the mall, at beanie’s maybe?”

“yeah, yeah, that works. anything to get away from my mom.”

ethan put a hand on their girlfriend’s shoulder, softening their voice. “sunshine, is everything okay?”

lex flinched away. “y-yeah, i’m fine. can we meet you after school?”

ethan backed off, trying to give lex some space, but still staying close. “of course, sunshine. i’ll be in my car, the spot i normally park it.”

“oh, no, it’s fine. hannah and i can walk.”

“walk? no. it’s pouring out there. i’m not making you walk, you’ll get sick!”

“okay.” lex said as she turned away from ethan, her voice shaking.

“so, after school, we drive to beanie’s and hang out there for a while? sound good to you, sunshine?”

“perfect.”

---

“hey, banana,” ethan said to hannah as she climbed in the backseat of his car. “you ready to go to beanie’s?”

“yeah,” she said, not making eye contact with ethan through the mirror. she never did normally, of course, but this felt like a different kind of not making eye contact. this wasn’t uncomfortable looking-away, this was terrified looking-away. 

“hey, everything okay with you, banana?” ethan said, putting their arm behind the seat next to them, turning so they could see hannah better. they couldn’t miss the look in hannah’s eyes. petrified, staring at ethan’s arm, at the back of their hand.

“where’s lex?” hannah said, trembling, her eyes squeezing shut.

“probably got held up by mrs. stenson,” ethan said, their voice filled with concern. “did something-”

“hey, banana.” ethan was startled by lex closing the car door. “ready to go to beanie’s?”

ethan looked back at hannah. she had seemed to relax more since lex had gotten in the car. she nodded her head at lex. ethan turned to face their girlfriend.

“you ready to go, sunshine?” they said.

“yep.”

---

ethan’s old car pulled into the beanie’s parking lot. when ethan got out, they made sure to close their car door as quietly as possible. when they opened the door for the sisters, they watched as hannah’s eyes shot up to the loud ding of the bell. 

“do you want something to drink, banana?” they asked the girl.

“just hot chocolate, please.”

“will do. and for you, sunshine?”

“oh, i’m gonna get a black coffee.”

“do you wanna go pick a seat, and i’ll order for you?”

“sure.” lex said, following hannah as she walked to the booth by the window.

ethan stood in the line, which wasn’t moving very fast because it was packed with students trying to get an energy boost before their study sessions tonight. they looked back at lex and hannah, sitting in the booth. hannah was leaning against lex’s shoulder and lex rested her head on top of hannah’s. they both looked exhausted. it was weird seeing them both so tired. hannah would normally be swaying around, telling lex about her day and whether it was good or bad, about what webby said, about something her teacher or classmate said. if hannah wasn’t talking, then lex was asking her about her day or talking about her own.

but neither were moving. they were just lying there, almost asleep. the only reason ethan could tell that they weren’t was lex’s eyes staying open and moving.

they wondered why the girls were so tired. maybe both had really long days and just wanted to go to bed. maybe they had stayed up late doing homework. maybe… no, ethan didn’t want to think about that.

but lex flinching when they put their hand on her shoulder in shop class?

hannah staring at his hand then shutting him out when he turned around in the car?

no.

no.

no. 

stop thinking about it. 

just move up in the line and order.

“how can i help you?”

“uh, hi, can i just get two black coffees and a hot chocolate, please?”

“of course, anything else i can get for you?”

“no, no, that’s it.”

“can i get a name for the order?”

“ethan.”

“alright, ethan, your order will be out in a few minutes!”

“thank you.”

they walked over to the table that hannah and lex were sitting at. “lexie?”

hannah’s eyes fluttered open. she nudged lex. “lexie, wake up, ethan’s back.”

lex’s eyes snapped open as she gasped. “oh, shit, sorry, babe, you scared me.”

ethan reached across the table to hold lex’s hand. their voice shook as they spoke. “you’re okay. did something happen last night?”

“what?”

“did something happen last night? you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but…”

hannah looked towards lex for an answer.

“how could you tell?” lex said, her voice dropping in volume.

“lex…”

“yes, something happened last night,” lex said, her voice breaking. 

ethan held her hand tighter.

tears started streaming down hannah’s face.

“mom got high. she smacked me. really fuckin’ hard. told us to get the hell out of her trailer. i tried to talk her down, but then,” lex started to cry alongside her sister. 

“she hit me.” hannah whispered.

ethan felt their whole body tense. “what?” they whispered, not as a question, but in disbelief.

no.

no. 

no.

“two black coffees and a hot chocolate for ethan!”

great timing, thank you so much, barista.

ethan slipped out of the booth, grabbed the drinks, and came back.

they handed the drinks to lex and hannah.

there was a few minutes of silence at the table before anyone spoke again. each sipped their drinks, thinking about what had just been said.

“you can’t go back,” ethan said.

“i’m sure it was just another one of her ramblings, she won’t even remember tonight, i’m sure of it, i just needed to get away for a while.”

“no, lex, you can’t go back. you and hannah aren’t safe there.”

“where else are we supposed to go? your house?”

“no, no, no, i have this uncle. uncle henry, he’s my mom’s brother, he’s great. he’s a professor at a college somewhere across the bridge, you’ll love him.”

lex looked towards hannah for an answer.

hannah seemed to contemplate this for a moment.

“webby says henry is good.”

lex looked ethan in their eyes. “who am i to disrespect the wishes of an imaginary spider from outer space?”

---

the car pulled up to the gates of ethan’s uncle’s house. ethan buzzed the intercom thing.

“who is it?” the static voice said from the speaker.

“uh, uncle henry, it’s me. ethan green.”

“oh. ethan! i’ll let you in!”

the gates creaked open and ethan drove his car forward.

“alright, i gotta warn you guys, he’s a biology professor, so you might see some weird stuff.”

“ethan!” henry called from the door of his home. “come in, come in!”

“i brought some friends, i hope you don’t mind.”

“no, no, not at all, ethan, come in!”

the three walked through the front door. lex and hannah marveled at the vastness of the professor’s living room. 

“uh, make yourselves at home, girls, i’ll be right back. ethan, can i talk to you?” the professor said, pulling ethan into a side room.

closing the door, henry sat down on the bed and raised his eyebrows. “well, ethan?”

“...well?”

“are you going to explain why you’ve shown up on my doorstep with no prior warning and explicit directions from your mother to stay away from me or are you just going to stand there?”

bursting into a flurry of words, ethan rambled. “i-i’m sorry, i didn’t know where else to go, lex is my girlfriend and hannah’s her little sister, their mom is a bitch, and i couldn’t just let them go back to that trailer, that fucking trailer, they deserve so much better, and i couldn’t take them back to my house, ‘cause y’know, my parents would lose their shit, and you accepted me when i came out, and you don’t have to, but please, uncle henry, please, let them stay here, just for tonight, please.”

“ethan, calm down. it’s okay. i’m not mad. i’ll let them stay.” henry spoke calmly, letting ethan cool down before they spoke again. 

caught up in the rush of their talking, ethan looked at his uncle shocked. “you will?” 

henry nodded, wiping a stray tear from ethan’s face that neither had noticed before. “as long as all of you need.”

“all of us?”

“you don’t actually believe i’d let them stay and make you leave? absolutely not, that won’t do at all. you’ll stay here until you can find somewhere else to live.”

“henry, i can always go back to my parents’ house.”

“somewhere else safe to live, ethan.”

that shut ethan up really quick.

---

ethan settled into the comfortable bed that henry had let them and lex sleep in. it was much softer than any bed that the two had previously slept in.

“he really said all of that?” lex said, still surprised that henry had accepted so quickly.

“every word, lex.”

“as long as we need?”

“as long as we need.”

“what does he think about, um, hannah?”

“loves her to pieces already.”

“and webby?”

“i don’t think he knows yet, but i think he’ll love webby.”

“...and me?”

“sunshine, go ask him yourself.”

“not right now. i‘m too tired.”

the pair snickered at that.

“i… i know it’s not california, sunshine, but it’s the best i can do right now.”

“anywhere feels like cali as long as i’m with you.”

and with a smile and a kiss, the two went to sleep.

[ghostsinthewindow]

a hypothetical d&d party

The bard is mute.

It’s not the first thing people notice about her, usually.  The first thing is generally that she’s young, and female, and lovely–the first thing people notice about their entire party is that they’re all young, and female, and lovely, and that’s gotten more than one would-be thief or mugger in far over their head when they haven’t noticed the the paladin’s hammer or the ranger’s axe.  It comes up rather quickly though, often enough.  Whoever heard of a bard who can’t sing?

She plays a lute, mostly, or a lap-harp made of shell and sinew, string instruments she can pluck while she smiles in secret and watches everyone around her.  She dances quick, except when she’s tired, when she’s scared, when she forgets to remember the feet at the ends of her legs.

She doesn’t tell her story to strangers, but enough of the other girls have learned to sign by now, and it’s easy enough to sketch out the outlines of the old bargain: the voice, the prince, the witch, the thousand shards of glass she walked upon on her way up the beach, the look in her sea-green eyes when they travel too near water.  The thousand shards of glass she walked upon when she left the palace, and turned back towards the sea to throw herself upon the rocks, and then made her way up the road inland, and kept walking.

.

The warlock is beautiful and mild and self-effacing and shy, is tidy and generous and charming.  She’s small with herself in exactly the right way to shout abuse to the half of her party who knows how to recognize that same look in the mirror in the morning.  The bird on her shoulder is too small, too bright, too sweet for a real warlock’s familiar.  The knife at her belt is sharp enough for anything that needs doing, though, cooking or otherwise.

Her fae patron visits sometimes, in the quiet hours between dusk and midnight, a sweetly old godmother made of moonlight and shadow.  She’s kind to the whole lot of them in her own chaotic way, free-handed with transmutations and illusions that break halfway through the evening, for better or worse.  She once spent three hours around their campfire drinking brandy and gossipping outrageously about the Feywild and teasing the wizard into fits of laughter.

She’s never told the story of how she met the warlock’s mother, or what debt was owed there, and the warlock doesn’t know herself.  It was never meant to be a debt paid in power and violence and the deft will-sapping enchantments the warlock weaves now, but, well.  The prince wasn’t meant to be cruel, the warlock says.  The palace was meant to be warmer than the fireplace cinders in her stepmother’s house.  The faerie was meant to be saving her from her lot, not throwing her into something worse.  The power’s an apology of sorts.

.

The wizard is awkward and joyful and nervous.  She has no fear of heights or small places, which just stands to be expected, she says, after all those years in that little tower, and she’s got no skill at lying or even edging around the truth at all, which is why she isn’t in the tower any more in the first place.  She says too much or too little or the wrong thing entirely, always, but the most well-socialized member of the whole party is the ranger who walks around with a dire wolf at her hip, or maybe their mute bard, so who are any of them to judge.

There was nothing to do in that tower but read, and brush her hair, and sort through the witch’s endless stockpile of dried herbs and potions ingredients, and watch out the window as woodcutters and hunters and princes rode by, and dream.  The reading was more interesting than the dreaming, most of the time, and the witch didn’t mind it as much when she talked about it.  She never bothered to actually use any of the magic in the witch’s books until the thing with the prince and the haircut and the desert, which she’s told them all about in all the detail they could ever ask for, but most of the girls get uncomfortable when she starts talking about princes.  It’s a little easier if she just starts rambling about conjuration and abjuration and illusion theory, about the 400-year-old history of a city that doesn’t exist any more, about the proper grammatical structure of Celestial, until maybe one of the quiet ones finally answers back.

Her hair is too short.  She keeps an illusion up over it whenever she can, while it grows back slowly, tickling the side of her face and the back of her neck and leaving her head too light and unbalanced.  

.

The ranger doesn’t care about princes, which makes one of them at least.  Then again, the ranger doesn’t trust anyone, really, prince or no, not wolves or monsters or the men who kill them.  She more or less trusts the rest of them by now, mostly, when the wind blows in the right direction.

She wears bright red in the middle of the woods and it shouldn’t help her slip into the shadows half as easily as it does, but most beasts can’t see color and red’s just another shade of gray if the light’s low enough.  She never uses her axe against trees.  She doesn’t need to.  She can find a path through any brush without it.  She picks flowers when she finds them, and tucks them into the other girls’ hair.

Her wolf’s mother killed the man who taught her to use the axe, and the man who taught her to use the axe killed that wolf’s mate before that, and the mate had an old woman’s blood on his teeth when it happened.  The ranger’s blade found the wolf’s mother’s throat.  The ranger’s mother sent her out into the woods in the first place.  It’s not as though anywhere is really safe, cottage or forest, axe or teeth.  One of these days maybe her wolf will turn and go for her in return, and maybe one of these days her axe will be faster and maybe it won’t.  In the mean time, there’s flowers and berries and pastries and enough game to keep everyone sated, for a little while.

.

The paladin’s hair is raven black and her skin is chalky as a corpse.  She’s not undead, mostly.  The undead are her job.  She knows that much.

She was sweet, once (they were all sweet, once) but apples are bitter now and so is she, and there’s judgment to lay out in the world.  Her grip on her warhammer’s all wrong–she holds it like a mining hammer, but it hits as hard as it needs to.  Her armor’s all dwarven make, and her shield’s black and red and white like snow.

She was sweet once, and frightened, and when she says it quietly around the campfire in the night when none of them can quite make out the glimmer of understanding on each others’ faces, everyone still nods.  She took a bite of poison and somebody left her a full year in a glass coffin of Gentle Repose, dangling on the edge of the Raven Queen’s domain while all the other newly-arrived dead passed by and faded away.  She woke up to somebody’s lips and hands and skin on her lips and her hands and her skin.  She doesn’t like princes.  She doesn’t like necromancers.

She likes sunlight, and summer, and colors that aren’t black and white and red.  She likes the way the bard grins when she whirls into a dance, and the look in the warlock’s eye when she sets her feet to say no, and the wizard’s laughter on high with a Fly spell, and the ranger’s gentle fingers braiding flowers into everything she can touch.  

[ghostsinthewindow]

Hearts Of A Kind: Prologue

The Rusted Heart

The small boy followed the man through the pristine white laboratory. He had never seen a place so clean. He felt out of place standing in his paint-stained, dirt-covered clothes. The men around him were dressed in dark black velvet: looking like the chocolate truffles he had seen in the window of the store. He had no clue where they were going, as when he asked, they all stopped, and the man behind him turned him around, slapped him harshly across the face and told him to keep quiet.

So he followed along silently, hands in the pockets of his overalls that had been splattered with paint again and again. The men stopped. The man in front shoved him into an opened door. His body slammed into the floor; his head landed next to a chair, knocking him into unconsciousness.

The Clockwork Heart

The young girl followed the pretty lady through the hallway of what she thought was a hospital. She didn't know where she was, but she couldn't ask, as she had been hit across the face for speaking earlier,. The lady in front of her was dressed in a dark corduroy, looking like the chocolate truffles her father had given her a few years ago. The lady stopped in front of an opened door and was handed a needle full of clear liquid. The lady told her not to worry, it wouldn't hurt a bit.

But she was filled with the most agonizing pain she had ever felt in her life, not when she was pricked with the needle, but when her small head hit the ground, splattering a bit of blood on her pretty grey sweater.

[ghostsinthewindow]

The Heist

The thief pieced together all the things in his head

If what he believed was wrong, then he’d surely be dead

He refused to yield until, from ceiling to bed,

The receipts that he was reading could be thicker than lead.

The cash he was receiving was perceived as wrong

Stealing from foreign neighbors like France and Hong Kong

Ancient wealth stacking up, stealing all day long

His conscience long gone, his greed headstrong

Achievements aside, his mischief reigned

Emeralds shined, diamonds being weighed

With beige and red on his skin, gold in his veins

He hoped every time, he’d live another day

One day, he tripped, while he was giving his all

Neither way he could go, forfeiting with a final call

His height was being measured against a black and grey wall

And now, watch his criminal empire fall.