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Snatcher sat on the edge of the bathtub and sighed as he thought through the events of the past two days. He never would have thought that breaking one of the kid’s silly little time pieces would cause anything like this to happen. This all felt more like a dream than real.
Well. Less of a dream. More like a nightmare.
Snatcher could quite honestly say that being human again was quite possibly the worst experience he had ever had since he’d died. And that was for sure saying something, as he’d had a lot of experiences in his time of being a ghost. But he supposed he would have to live like this until those little brats managed to find some way to turn him back to normal.
Snatcher stood, fully intending on leaving the bathroom, when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He startled, turning towards it, only to relax as he found himself facing a mirror. God. Was this what he had been devolved to? A simple man afraid of his own reflection?
No. It wasn’t his reflection. At least, it shouldn’t be. He wasn’t human anymore. He had died. He wasn’t the Prince anymore. This was wrong, wrong, wrong-
Before Snatcher had even realized what he was doing, he had punched the mirror. It shattered remarkably easily, and Snatcher stood there for a moment, surrounded by shards of broken glass, before collapsing onto the floor of the bathroom. His hand stung. A glance showed that it was bleeding. That was wrong too. Ghosts shouldn’t be able to bleed red. Except, he wasn’t a ghost right now was he? No. He was trapped again in his weak, pitiful, human, body.
It took a teardrop splattering on the ground for him to realize that he was crying.
Once he realized it, he suddenly found that he couldn’t stop. The tears kept coming, his face felt hot, his breathing was off. He was shaking. His thoughts started to spiral as he stared at his bleeding hand, remembering how all of this wasn’t right, he was meant to be dead-
The door opened.
Hat and Bow stood there, shocked at the scene before them. Snatcher supposed he couldn’t blame them, after all, it wasn’t everyday that one saw what used to be a great and powerful soul stealing ghost kneeling on their bathroom floor crying.
There was a short moment of silence between the three of them, broken only by Snatcher’s sobbing, which he frustratingly just couldn’t seem to get under control.
“I’ll go get the first aid kit.” Bow said softly, before turning around and running off. Hat Kid stayed. For a moment she just stood there, not doing anything, and for an instant Snatcher thought that she would leave, but then she stepped forward. Being mindful of the few glass shards on the floor, she walked over and gently wrapped her arms around him.
“Go away.” Snatcher whispered, not having nearly enough energy to even try and make an attempt at his ghostly voice. “Leave me alone kid.”
She didn’t move, if anything, her grip increased in strength. Snatcher couldn’t find it in him to ask her to go away again. Especially because, even though he’d certainly never admit it to her, the hug seemed to… help. Somewhat.
When Bow returned, she brought Cooking Cat with her. With her help, the girls treated Snatcher’s hand, cleaning it and wrapping it in a bandage. Snatcher found himself too out of it to protest against the treatment, and before he knew it, he found himself sitting on top of the kid’s sea of pillows with a blanket over his shoulders. Bow and Hat sat on each side of him. In front of them was a plate full of cookies, along with a mug full of what the kids had called ‘hot chocolate’.
“Snatcher….” Hat Kid started, breaking the silence that had fallen over them, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, kid.” He said, staring down at the drink in front of him. Hat and Bow both looked at him doubtfully, but thankfully didn’t press him any further than that. Instead, they sat there, sipping on their own mugs of hot chocolate and nibbling on their cookies.
“You know, you should really try your hot chocolate.” Bow pointed out, “It’ll help you feel better.”
“Said as though I need to feel better.” Snatcher said, giving her a glare, but he was so exhausted from his emotional breakdown from earlier that it barely had any effect. He sighed at the looks they gave him, knowing that if he didn’t give into their demands now, it’d probably come back to bite him later. He took a sip of his drink.
And nearly dropped it when he burned his tongue.
“Ow!” On instinct he stuck his tongue out, trying to cool it down. Hat and Bow giggled at his expression. “Shut up!”
“We told you it was hot.” Hat laughed, “It’s literally in the name!”
“Listen, I haven’t been human in 300 years, lay off me a little!” Snatcher pouted, which only made the kids laugh more. “I told you to shut up-”
He was abruptly cut off as Bow shoved a cookie in his mouth. He coughed, barely stopping himself from choking because of the unexpected food assault. Hat and Bow only laughed harder.
“All right, that’s it.” Snatcher said, standing up, letting the blanket fall down off of him. He watched as the girls stared at him with twin looks of confusion, then realization, and then excited horror, as they saw him raise a pillow above his head. “This is what you get for assaulting the great Snatcher!”
He swung the pillow down, barely missing the two of them as they each dodged to the side. Hurriedly, the girls armed themselves with their own pillows, before charging back at him. Snatcher barely remembered in time that he, in fact, could not currently go intangible, and should in fact dodge, and the girl’s attacks only narrowly missed him.
The three of them chased each other around the room, throwing and dodging pillows as he did. The war was great, but all battles must end, and this one promptly did when Snatcher found himself laying on his back, the two girls on top of him.
“Okay,” He wheezed, “You win.”
The girls cheered,climbing off of him and letting him sit up as they celebrated their victory. Snatcher rolled his eyes, before realizing the fond smile that had planted itself on his face, and proceeding to wipe off the expression as fast as possible, choosing to pretend that it never happened. Hat and Bow saw him do this out of the corner of their eyes, but they chose to ignore it.
The three of them ended up falling asleep curled up together on top of the pillow pile, and it wasn’t until morning that Snatcher realized that the kids had managed to distract him from his spiraling thoughts entirely.