#odysseys like “if you guys are for real about leaving do NOT go straight south. dont. dont. dont. youre like 2 feet tall you WILL die”

[druidshollow]

"what would your character be like without their trauma?" is such a hard question for me because it makes me feel like a massive asshole LMAO

(im attaching a picture of a tundra literally to add context to my ramble in the tags because my posts are structured by a sane person) (you should read the ramble in the tags i talk so much about rivers fsr)

[royalrastafariannaynays]

(It’s a) MYSTERY (why they call themselves a) GANG

hey!!! this is a short gift fic for my pal @destyni-is-me AKA homeiswherethestuckis! this is a mystery gang beta kids, merry christmas and i hope everyone is having a good week! 

“It’s nine twenty-seven pm,” Dave whispers into the camera. “And we are headed into the most haunted mansion in the south-eastern United States.”

“What are you doing?”

“I told you to stop with the found footage crap.”

“Dave…”

“We’re on the hunt for not one, but maybe even…” Dave has to cover his mouth for a second, stifling his laughter. “Two. Ghosts.”

“Dave!” Jade laughs, slapping his shoulder. Dave looks way too proud of himself , elbowing John in the ribs and dodging Rose’s mildly pissed glare.

“C’mon man,” John complains as he parks his beat up Honda Odyssey in the drive up to the mansion. “Please take this seriously. We’re not even hunting ghosts.”

“I have to keep it interesting for myself,” Dave replies. He got past the need for irony a long time ago, right after the crew killed his brother’s ghost and asked him to tag along. But in the last year or so, in the midst of the many odd-jobs befitting this good ol’ mystery gang, he’s taken to taking the piss out of it.

Mostly because they haven’t found a job in… a good while.

It’s almost convinced him that his brother’s ghost was a total fluke.

Like, Rose got into the ‘biz because she thought she contacted beings from a nether realm, and John got into it to find ‘whatever killed my grandmother.’ (probably a bear tbh, she was an old lady hiking in the woods?)

Jade is in it for pure sport.

She also funds the ‘gang’ when they can’t get paying work.

“What was the deal with this place, anyway?” Dave asks, as they hoist bags of equipment and talismans and some sorts of ‘magic’ stuff onto their shoulders. (Rose has like a million focusing crystals) “Like all of our stuff so far has just been crazy guys in bad masks terrorizing children.”

“Still valuable work,” Rose puts in, as she straightens her fishnets. Cybergoth until she runs out of teeth to beat out of that dead horse she’s riding.

“Sure,” Dave snorts derisively. “Cause a guy running around in a George Bush mask is really harmful to our local communities.”

“Hey,” John says, waving a hand in front of Dave’s face, halting his progression up the front steps of the mansion. “We got paid pretty well for catching those murder clowns.”

“The leader walked right into your car because he was too high to run!” Dave protests.

Jade laughs at that. Even Rose snorts.

John looks mildly embarrassed, but waves it off and stomps into the house.

Dave stumbles right after him, quickly followed by Jade and Rose.

And the door clicks shut behind the four.

Time for another night like all of the others.

“No, this way!” John says urgently. His hands are shaking on his flashlight.

“What are you talking about, that just leads to the attic,” Rose scolds him. But she’s also shaking.

That click of the door that Dave heard earlier?

That was every single external door and window of the house locking, all at once.

A fact no one figured out until the cabinets started shaking violently, the lights exploded in their bulbs, and the candles blew to dark. Shortly after that, Rose held up her (iron) tire iron, whispered an incantation, and then looked extremely troubled when it failed.

John managed to throw a hex bag into both the north and south corners of the house, to no avail. Dave had forgotten the east and west bags in the car.

And Jade?

Jade saw a flicker of a person’s face, white and ghostly.

And she shouted with joy.

And she sprinted off into an abandoned hallway, salt in her shotgun and glee in her eyes.

Dave and Rose tried to go after her, but were met with another ghost.

This one had seven pupils swirling in one of her eyes.

And John’s face swelled with a bright pink blush.

The spectre grinned devilishly, and then disappeared.

With her vanishing, everything else in the house stilled. And the light bulbs in their flashlights started to work once more. Which brought the three remaining kiddoes back to the present.

“Dude, I thought you said you knew the layout of this place!” Dave complains. “But now Jade’s missing and we can’t even think about finding her!”

John winces. He strides forward instead of answering, throwing down another door. He’s never the one to admit he’s absolute shit at any actual monster hunting.

“I’m sure she’s fine, Dave, she’s a very capable hunter,” Rose tries to reassure him, as she peers carefully around a corner.

Dave thought tonight was just going to be another annoying and vaguely creepy stakeout in an old and smelly house. But what do they encounter? Actual, real, ghosts. Ghosts who have locked every single fucking door in the place. Ghosts who don’t want them to escape.

“Holy shit, they’re gonna pick us off one by one,” Dave tries to say with an even voice.

The next door that John throws open, he freezes.

“Jade?” he asks. And Dave and Rose stop their steps.

John’s face is illuminated by a sickly green light. His eyes are wide, and filled with wonder and excitement.

“What?” Rose asks. And John leaps forward.

“Jade!” he exclaims.

Dave tries to stop him, tries to grab his arm or something useful. But he can’t seem to get a hold on him before the wooden door is slamming shut.

And Dave and Rose are alone.

Rose starts breathing a little fast, and scrambles for the doorknob. It’s so dark in that cramped little hallway, and the air is still and old. The handle won’t turn for her, and her movements become jerky and desperate.

Dave slams a fist against the doorway.

“John!” he calls. “John!!!”

But it’s to no avail.

Not even the bottom of the door shows any light.

Dave turns his flashlight to shine back down the hallway from whence they came.

“Maybe if we wait at the entrance, they’ll come by the end of the night?” he says.

Rose just nods. She doesn’t know what to do, either.

“We can make a circle to keep safe in,” she agrees,

And Dave nods, and with a gulp, allows Rose to lead the way.

At the entrance, Dave notices something. An odd green glow, not unlike the one that took John. He bristles, and grips Rose’s arm. Her LED dreadlocks shine on his hand, and she looks back at him with disdain.

“What?” she asks.

Dave points to the foyer.

“It’s that green again,” he tells her.

Rose flips the switch on her headdress, and gasps. She can see it, too.

“It’s coming from that door!” she exclaims.

Dave races with her, and they both trip through the open ballroom… into a scene unlike anything they’ve ever seen before.

What they see here is a beautiful, well-lit ballroom.

Its walls are filled with paintings of angels and flowers, mirrors taking up every available space. The floors are polished golden and cream tile, and the ceiling is draped with candle-lit chandeliers and sconces.

The whole room is bright, and the trickle of a concertina’s reedy notes emanate seemingly from the very air.

And as Dave and Rose wander further into the room, they see them.

Illuminated by moonlight and candles, on the far end, are John and Jade dancing arm in arm. Their clothes almost morph as they move, forming the tresses of a suit and ballgown.

“A waltz?” Rose wonders aloud, and… Dave is just confused.

John and Jade have yet to notice them.

“Guys?”

And Dave thought too soon.

When he and Rose reach the middle of the ballroom, Jade turns to them, one eye spinning with dots.

And she holds up her rifle.

Pointed straight for Dave’s face.

And then the room fills with red.

“OKAY, OKAY, STOP THIS NONSENSE,” A booming voice shouts.

Jade and John fall limp to the ground in a startling way, and the evil spectre from before appears between their bodies. She scowls at the ceiling, making maybe the ugliest cranky face Dave has ever seen.

And as she does, another figure floats through the wall.

“I just can’t have any fun anymore!” The spectre nearly shrieks, and the newcomer’s brow stitches together as he covers his ears.

“Shut the fuck up! Can’t you see how much they suck at their job?!” he says, in that same booming voice from before, but with a little less godlike echoing.

The first ghost sticks her tongue out at him, and sinks through the floor with a wail.

And the new ghost walks right up to Dave and Rose, holding his finger out to them and scolding. He’s shorter than Dave, floating off of the floor in order to be at eye level.

“Listen here you good for nothing asswipes!” he yells, getting right up to them. “I don’t know who hired you to come here but you’re not good enough at it to not get yourselves killed! Like a bunch of rocksucking idiots still on their mother’s left teat! What the fuck!”

He turns to Rose, briefly, and then looks Dave up and down and grimaces.

“Grab your friends and get the fuck out of my house!” he shouts. And disappears.

The illusion of the ballroom and the garb disappears, leaving a dusty old dining room in its place.

And Dave and Rose do just as they’re told.