#so im almost at the same learning level for both languages on duo

[lookwhatyoumademelou]

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[pipesflowforeverandever]

Stars

Hey so I regularly harass @thebutchergang and we accidentally got??? Really deep? So I wrote a drabble based on it. Also a bit of a test run if I want to write Edgar into my fic series or not.

It was completely and utterly ridiculous what she had to put up with for the past few days.

Finally the woman trapped in the studio had a moment to sit down, dismayed by the sound of a slight, sloppy noise as the bottom of her soaked pantlegs hit against the wall. Dangling her weary legs over the ledge where this unreasonably tall structure the elevator was situated, the stranger had to actively remind herself she was safe as a firm thud landed recklessly by her side.

Well, she was probably safe.

Indeed, as she looked over Level 14, as of late a monster had joined her as a traveling companion.

What a bizarre story. She hardly believed it herself. How did this happen again?

Tired eyes glimpsed over to the round, multiarmed fiend without turning her head; she had learned from experience that movement around this one only brings about chaos. All the same, the Striker caught sight of her irises flashing his way, and she soon found her shoulders raise and stiffen with a light but disturbed gasp, the creature having leaned that bulbus head of his into her personal space as far as he could stretch.

And as two beings strange in this world in totally different ways observed each other’s inexplicable response- his invasiveness and her discomfort- a flash of recollection swarmed the woman alongside a shiver.

Whether the little gremlin found her or if she found him earlier might as well have been a coin toss. Realistically, they just…bumped into each other. Just as the woman turned a corner, she felt a solid but corpselike cold hit her torso, sending her to the floor. God, that was an unforgiving fall- she could still feel it now as an ache in her lower back- but the pain in her chest from a pounding heartbeat was soon the most prominent feeling to pulse through her.

Because just as she had fallen, the intruder found that she brought someone down with her. One painted cartoon eye stared back alongside a strained human eyeball, seemingly dipping into its eye socket to tie it to its own skull.

A skid along the floor. Her phone- she had been using it for a flashlight-!

They looked at each other for one dreadful second. Shock still wanted to immobilize her, but she had to make a choice. Dive for the phone or turn tail and run. And in the end…yes, neither of them had chosen to meet the other. Definitely, however, it was the monster’s decision to snatch her cell phone right out of her hands as soon as she held it once again.

“H-HEY!” she had screamed. It was a yell intended as a demand this thing return it to her, but her word could have probably better served as a warning. As the twisted human spider investigated the device, its gloved hands jerked the back of the phone towards itself- a flashlight fully shining into that lone real eye. Once again- almost comedically- the cartoony gargoyle fell back on its bottom, leaving the woman standing over the beast in both wonder and disbelief.

Her eyes flashed down to the phone. Yup. She was going to do this. She really was. Alright then.

And so the woman lunged for the device even as it was still in its grasp, hoping against hope it was stunned enough to let her just take it back already-

She saw and felt a dirtied white glove grip her forearm just long enough to allow her eyes to go wide in fear. An eyeball rolled around in that hole in its head. It didn’t seem to blink. Didn’t seem capable to.

She wasn’t sure she could read its emotions anyway.

But instead of tightening its strange, fidgety grip- instead of pulling her down to the ground with it- instead of using this moment to its advantage to attack…the being’s stare fell down to the phone once more. Hesitantly and despite the flashlight shining over half of her face, she looked too. Under it’s abnormally large thumb was a shining screen, turned on sometime in between the two falls it had taken; the lower portion was grey with…keys. Typing keys. Its finger lifted and somehow, some way, the creature’s totally bare eye seemed to widen even more as a smear of the hand allowed letters to appear.

Language.

And they stayed like this for a long time it seemed, that terrible pain in her back only worsening as the intruder of the studio was forced in place, an incredibly uncomfortable lean over the little monster as one hand refused to let go and the other two were pressing at her phone.

Well, maybe “mashing” and “assaulting” would be better words. It even smacked the screen at one point, and she wondered if it was the dread of its life in her hands or the possibility of this violence cracking the screen that made her feel sick.

But eventually, eventually…-

…

“’E…Edgar?’” she read, the monster thrusting the screen into her face.

And he hadn’t left her since.

So that’s how it had been. The quirky walking corpse had figured out just like that that he could, in fact, speak after all these years of silence. Ironic for someone with two mouths. It took a bit to figure out- a few pleading, puppylike gazes and a dash of anxiety that the violence towards the phone to turn towards her instead- but there came to be a unique sort of agreement between the two. He’d follow her around and yell nonsense through text and she’d put up with it or else god knows what. Pretty fair deal, in the end.

And boy was it some sort of nonsense.

“DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE”

“I WILL EAT YOUR TEETH”

“Your liver will be shaped like a carrot when I’m done with it”

It’s understandable that each time Edgar handed the phone back to her to read what he had proudly authored, a nerve-wracked grin of dread fell upon her face like the darkness of death itself.

But that seemed to be…the extent of it. As she walked along these haunted halls, the little thing would tug on her hand every so often like a young boy that needs a bathroom break- sometimes with huge 20-minute gaps of time in between and sometimes beseeching her so frequently the bones in her wrist started to ache. And then-

“!!!!!!!!!!!! YES!!!!”

This verbalization was…different. Still not comprehendible but…not a threat. The surprise of it made her stop in her steps, a cautious but still curiously raised eyebrow facing down at her new shadow. The gremlin almost seemed…proud? Something in its expression; it stayed in place so much that any sort of change was noticeable in a snap. Yes, “Edgar’s” human eye seemed to wrinkle just a tiny bit.

Another glance towards her hand explained why.

“cucumber”

“Oh my god,” she said out loud but to no one, realizing that she had accidentally smudged some sort of series of keys that provoked spellcheck before handing it back down to him once more. A palm hit her face and slid down…and when it left her, she saw another expression on the fiend’s face. Maybe it was her exasperation, maybe it was the silliness of it all, but…the small spider seemed to be beaming. Yes, that was undeniably a smile curving his sausage-like lips.

Indeed, a slip of her own hand accidentally replying to his written screaming was all it took to start a conversation. And so joining insanity seemed to be the correct response to its existence.

“Lime”

“Flavour Taste”

“Slurp the lime gurt”

“I want to eat an abple”

“I have one! It is several weeks old. It has white fuzz and a friend inside”

“Can I eat”

“yes but be warned. You might die”

“okay im eat now”

“yeah sounds good”

It didn’t take long for it to be unclear to a hypothetical observer which of these two had likely suffered decades of head injury and lack of human interaction. Indeed, the woman was having fun. She questioned the actual intelligence of the creature still, but he certainly seemed…very far gone. As amusing as these conversations were, it couldn’t be helped that they were tinged with a very dark sort of humor.

And that’s where she was now with him, sitting together like a pair of siblings.

How long had it been? At least a day it felt like since they became a purposeless duo. And yet…she enjoyed the company. Eventually. And it seemed to be doing him a service. It must have been quite a while since he had a friend.

…

Reluctantly, as they looked face to face in the present, it was undeniable he thought her a friend. How utterly uncanny that she was beginning to say the same. The lightness of their garbled talk- almost like he was just a toddler that knew how to kill someone- had made her laugh more than a few times, and certainly Edgar seemed to jump each time the woman did.

Had she noticed that he had caught on to her smiles, that he was trying to make her do it more and more? She was searching endlessly for an escape, but certainly these little quips were an escape unto themselves.

But now something was…different.

“Wow,” the woman had sighed under her breath. The elevator had fallen and fallen until they stood above a giant pool of ink. It seemed to gaze upon them as they gazed upon it, the glimmers of the waves almost glinting like sets of eyes. Something about the way it shined, something about the way the lights reflected upon them…

As he invaded her personal space, his stitched head only inches from hers, she felt a weight in her hand once again, the communicator placed irregularly gently in her grasp; and as he pulled away, the monster’s aura seemed mysteriously…sad. All the lines on the current note app were his and his alone.

“There are 6 stars in the sky”

“One for me. One for my wife. Two for my 2 kids. And two for me and my wife’s existing parents.”

“Damibly”

Speechless. Beyond the screen, the traveler saw her companion turn his head away and slowly glance towards the stars scattered over the liquid ground. He…He was…

This whole time, the woman hadn’t considered that Edgar used to be a human being. It left a big gaping hole in their conversation; even if their talk was audibly silent, this quiet was inexplicably poignant.

She had to say something.

“Oh”

“I bet they’re beautiful”

That was all she could come up with. After a moment, the phone was passed back to her.

“They’re so pretty and sparkly”

“You think stars can be eaten”

“I tried to eat the alice door star and she punched me”

Inevitably, a snort came from the woman’s nose and her face wrinkled in a grin at the thought of Edgar trying to eat a prop. His head tilt was invocative that he approved, almost as if the gremlin was worried he had sucked her joy away entirely just before. His turn to read now:

“Are you a star?”

“I think you’re a star”

It too was asked in humor, and yet words weren’t needed to see his heart only sank. Soon hers would too, uncovering a whole second lifetime of longing and suffering with three mere lines.

“I wish I was so I can be with my other stars”

“If I die again, I might come back as a star”

“I hope”

And the woman realized she could grasp how but never what it truly felt like to be pushed to the point that one wished to die in hope that maybe the life after the next may give back what had so wrongfully been stolen.

Hair was pushed behind her ear as a silent sigh moved her whole body, revealing that a glitter was with her too; but it felt best to not let the lost soul see her cry. He had already gone through so much. Maybe she was in pain, maybe she was scared and tormented too…but she was fresh to this cartoon hell. She still had a bit left to give for the sake of someone more broken than she.

One last exchange. A shadow fell over the screen as Edgar’s head titled parallel to it. A long pause, as if he was reading it over and over.

Finally, the warped spider remembered that a nod could mean “yes” when not even typed words were easy to make out. The woman’s offer was accepted, and the being who used to be human nuzzled his scarred face into her chest, letting the warmth of her hug wrap around his body in hopes that it would start to hurt just a little less.

“I got ya, Edgar.” Her chin tilted towards the emptiness ahead, unknowing of what power had done this to the man and if it lied in wait for her too. “I got ya.”