MAKE YOU MINE!
would you take someone else's hand if you had the chance?
fem reader
warning(s): fanon personality, fanon name, i'm writing this fic literally hours after the video dropped we deadass know nothing about this guy -🍝
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skelly, as much as he hates to admit it, has to come face-to-face with the fact that his little pumpkin patch has developed a bit of a trespasser issue. normally he wouldn’t mind—after all, what kind of pumpkin king would he be if he weren’t to share the spoils and wonders of his humble kingdom with the rest of his people—if it weren’t for the fact that whoever kept romping about his lovely abode wasn’t like the other pumpkin patch visitors.
see, skelly considers himself to be a gracious host. he is the pumpkin king, and the duty of any good ruler is to ensure that everyone within the gates, or in his case: sprawling fence, of his kingdom is enveloped in joy thanks to his wise governing. be they the resident mice or a lost passerby, his responsibility is to make sure they all leave with a wide grin. macabre perhaps, but his best dealings are in sparking happiness through the morbid.
but you.
each time you come to his pumpkin patch, you come ready to burst into tears. your eyes are watery and glossy, vision undoubtedly blurry as you stumble over the pumpkins through the pitch black dark of the night. the first few times you’d come to the safe haven of his pumpkin kingdom to sniffle your eyes out, he ignored it. he figured you came here after something sad to cheer yourself up and would want space more than the consolation of a pale, creepy lonesome man, but once it becomes a semi-routinely occurrence, he makes the sage decision that now your issues have fallen under his jurisdiction.
isn’t he such a benevolent ruler? he knows it’s wrong to find excitement in someone’s despair, but he can hardly remember the last time he’s had a proper, breathing human visitor. it’s like fate, like destiny itself has drawn you from whatever it is causing you this much sadness and into the soothing comfort of his soon-to-be embraces.
“don’t you worry ‘bout a thing, sweet darling. i’ll be right there,” he hums to no one in particular when the quiet sounds of your clumsy footsteps alert him to your reentrance into his pumpkin patch. he thinks that he looks rather dapper, dressed to the nines in his finest tattered suit and pulling on a matching pair of gloves decorated with bone motifs. “your dearest king is but your humble servant. soon enough, i shall turn that melancholy of yours into unabated joy for none other than me. a far better outcome than whatever is ailing you, don’t you agree?”
there’s no one to respond to him, but he still stretches his dry lips into a satisfied smile. the final touch is his trusty pair of dark sunglasses. a good king never shows his true emotions even during the simplest of diplomatic journeys. that, and he doesn’t want to scare you with his bright orange eyes from the get-go.
it doesn’t take him long to find you. you’re planted in the heart of the pumpkin patch, ensconced and hidden away in the comfort of the long shadows of the night, hunched over and wiping futilely at your eyes while big fat tears drip over your waterline. the sight of you crying makes skelly’s heart wrench inside of his chest. what in the world could possibly make such a sweet creature like you cry like this?
he clears his throat. he’s a gentleman, and he doesn’t want to scare away his lone guest. “my dear… what’s troubling you?”
his voice is soft and careful, but it still makes you gasp and jerk away reflexively. he doesn’t blame you: the last thing you’re expecting during your nightly trips to what you probably assumed was an abandoned pumpkin patch would be a tall, lanky man hovering over you while you cried. he stays in his place and holds his hands up in mock surrender as if to signal to you that he has no foul intentions.
you wipe at your eyes and peer up at him through your clumped lashes, the serene moonlight bouncing off of your wet cheeks. your voice wavers and cracks, “who… who are you?”
“oh! i’m so sorry,” he gasps, placing a hand over his heart. “where are my manners? you may call me skelly. i’m the ruler of this quaint pumpkin patch, so to say. some even call me the pumpkin king. a bit pompous, if i do say so myself. i’d say that maybe you’ve heard of me, but given how surprised you are… i’d wager that you haven’t.”
he flashes you an innocent smile. you know the smart thing would be to run and never look back, but when he squats down so that he’s eye level with you, some part of you can’t bring yourself to muster the strength to flee. you’re already this miserable, what’s the use in trying to wade off an inevitable end?
“so what brings you here? this isn’t the first time i’ve heard you sobbing your heart out. it makes me rather upset to see you this distraught. i’ll lend you an ear, so tell me your troubles.” you can make out the slight glint of his eyes past the dark lenses of his glasses. “maybe i can help you out.”
you bite the inside of your cheeks. your mind is frankly too frazzled to think things through too thoroughly, but you still know better than to spill your deepest darkest secrets to some stranger that crept up on you in the dead of the night in the middle of nowhere. but at the same time, you’re only here because you’re at your wit’s end with nobody to turn to, and a chance encounter like this with a seemingly benevolent being might be your last straw to grasp at desperately.
you suck in a nervous breath. “it’s… it’s silly, really. nothing that the- uh- pumpkin king needs to concern himself over. i’m being dramatic.”
his dry lips twist into a frown as he peers at you. “i doubt it’s anything silly if it’s enough to make you cry like this. you can tell me everything. i promise it. take a chance on me, why don’t you?”
you gaze up at him. his white skin, the strands of his snow white hair, the outline of his body, the silhouette of dark suit and all of the pale ribbons cascading from his chest all seem to glow under the illumination of the night. every part of his man, from his painted smiles to his practiced words, are too good to be true. it makes him look almost deceptively angelic, poised perfectly so that you have no choice but to hand over yourself to him. you should know better than to gamble on something that’s not guaranteed, but you’ve chosen security before only to be stabbed in the back mercilessly.
you swallow back whatever fear bubbles up from the depths of your heart.
“um… i go to a school nearby. night raven college. it’s an all boys school. maybe you’ve heard of it,” the words tumble from your lips clumsily. your heart thunders inside of your chest. “i’m from… somewhere really far away. i can guarantee you haven’t heard of it. no one ever has. the headmaster promised me that he’d help me go home in time, but it’s been so long without any progress. i’m starting to think i’ll never go home.”
you sniffle and hang your head, wanting to bury your face back in your arms. you mumble under your breath, “and… i don’t want to speak badly of anyone… but i’m sick of the students at the school too. they’re all mean and selfish, and i’m just tired. i’m tired, skelly.”
something in his unmoving dead heart stirs slightly when you sigh out his name. he reaches over and places a soothing hand on your shoulder, and a shudder creeps down your spine when you feel just how cold his body is even through the layers of his gloves. it’s like ice against your skin, the grips of frost tracing your body.
“homesickness, is it? i don’t think your sadness is silly at all. it must have hurt you so badly to have to endure everything in such an unwelcoming place. poor thing,” he coos. “no wonder you come here so often. you must have suffered so much if you preferred being alone like this over spending another night in that awful school… if only i knew sooner! i would have done so much more to make you feel welcome.”
you shake your head. “it’s not your fault. i was the one who was too trusting from the beginning. i… i should have never taken the headmaster’s hand through the mirror.”
you feel pitiful under his gaze, but at the same time, you can’t help but feel a knot deep inside of you loosen slightly at his honeyed words. it’s childish, to want to be pitied and cared for, but simultaneously, this was the bare minimum of everything you wanted. all you had asked was for a place to make your own while you waited for a way to return home, and even that much was too much to ask for from the incompetent schoolmaster and his equally intolerable students.
skelly smoothes down the fabric of your clothes on your shoulder, each stroke of his long fingers like the unforgiving touch of winter. it’s like he’s trying to comfort you, but you fight off the urge to shiver under his hand.
“say…,” he starts after a pause of silence, “i know a pumpkin patch is a far cry from the amenities of a school, but if you don’t want to go back… you don’t have to. i know it’s sudden, and you surely don’t have to give me an answer right away if you don’t want to. but what if you were to stay here with me?”
you freeze. you blink slowly, twisting your head so that you’re looking at skelly again. he offers you a placid grin, shrugging his shoulders slightly.
“stay here…?” you mumble. “with you?”
“precisely, my dear. i’ve been growing quite lonely all by myself too. i think we have a perfect deal! a pumpkin queen to a pumpkin king,” his words take on a more lively note. your stomach churns, and skelly claps his hands together. “i would never mistreat you the way those silly boys do. i’m a gentleman, first and foremost. i’ll make you feel at home right away. you won’t even have the time to miss that school and all of the misery it's put you through.”
temptation. you wish you were smarter. more resilient. more grounded to know better than to be swayed by the offer of a total stranger. but you’re at your rope’s end, and anything sounds better than the gilded cage that night raven college has become to you. would it be so bad to take a chance elsewhere? to follow a man who solemnly swears that you can put all of your suffering behind you if you only have the faith to look towards him without any regrets or doubts?
as if he can read your mind, skelly stands up and turns back towards you. he crouches down slightly, dipping forward into a subtle bow, and he holds out a gloved hand towards you.
this scene is all too familiar to you. it harkens you back to the first night you landed in this universe, everything warped and unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. the all knowing moon, the darkness threatening to swallow you whole, a dark robed stranger with promises of salvation dripping from their lips, and a chance to take back some semblance of control of your life that’s jumped from your reach. instead of a mirror, your reflection stares back at you with a lifelessness from the wide glass lenses hiding skelly’s eyes.
it’s like you never learn, and a sense of foreboding washes over you as the pumpkin king’s disarming smile widens.
a hand extended to you. a hand taken.
this time around, you hope you’ve chosen correctly.
x
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