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Outside the twenty-four hour diner sits a blue ’75 mustang. It sits across the parking lot, away from the street, and away from the diner’s flashing neon lights, advertising a meal for less than a dollar. Thick mud coats the wheels of the mustang, still wet. One of the mirrors has been duct taped, an old wound not made by the current owner––one of many wounds the mustang received before coming into the care of Vanitas.
Vanitas cherishes his second-hand mustang more than anything.
Well, almost.
The one downside to the car is that the heat doesn’t always work, and the drive to the diner was one of those times. The inside of the diner is much warmer in comparison, the early February air too cold and too crisp to be considered truly comfortable. Still, the shudder Vanitas suppresses isn’t attributed to the shift in temperature more than it is to the––ah––tension in the air.
Like an over-tuned guitar.
He cuts a glance across the vinyl booth to Ven, who’s still dutifully ignoring him, instead busying himself with a packet of sweetener between his long fingers. Even in the face of his indifference, Vanitas knows his best friend well enough to recognize his annoyance; the wrinkle between his brows, shoulders tense, knee bouncing under the brightly colored table. Over the tinny speakers, the radio counts down the top 100 hits from ten years ago, and Ven doesn’t even mime the words.
Vanitas also knows he’s to blame for Ven’s frosty silence, a knowledge that leaves him prickling with guilt. Ven meets his gaze suddenly, like he can hear his thoughts, before he narrows his eyes and looks down at the black-and-white checkered floor, jaw set.
Alright, Vanitas thinks, sitting forward. I’ll bite.
He crosses his arms, leaning his weight onto the small table that separates them. Ven doesn’t move. “How’s your coffee?” Vanitas asks, dropping his attention to the barely touched mug between them.
Ven still doesn’t answer, but Vanitas sees the corner of his mouth twitch. Encouraged, he presses, “The stuff you make at home is probably better, right?”
Finally, Ven looks up at him. He breathes sharply through his nose before he says, openly irritated, “Stop trying to make me laugh.”
“I’m trying to make you talk to me.”
“Why?” Ven’s bright eyes pierce Vanitas; he inclines his head an inch. A challenge. “It’s not like you bother to listen to me.”
And there it is. Not that Vanitas didn’t see it coming.
It started a couple hours ago, when they first pulled up to the old warehouse off the highway to do one of their semi-regular ghost hunts. Ven had picked the place after looking into the disappearances around town. More than a few seemed to point to the warehouse, where the first person had disappeared a few months back.
Looking back, two college kids deciding to poke around the site of several missing people in the dead of night wasn’t the smartest choice. Ven, though, looked so excited at the prospect of investigating––going on about portals. He just had to see it. And Vanitas couldn’t bring himself to deny him.
He doesn’t mind the exploring bits of it either. He’s less enthused about the supernatural than Ven is, but Ven won’t go unless someone is there with him, and Vanitas isn’t only willing to trespass but he also owns a car. And it also helps that it’s an excuse to hang out with him.
The venture started simple enough. Vanitas pulled off the beaten path, mud splattering along the car's door from the most recent rain. They ducked under the caution tape and crept through the warehouse, shining their flashlights at dark corners, attempting to piece together how much of the local rumors were just conjecture and what might actually feed into Ven’s “portal” hypothesis. A little spooky, sure, but definitely run-of-the-mill. Very normal.
And then things go weird.
Technically, things have been weird for the last few weeks, if you ask Vanitas. He hasn’t been able to shake the feeling of someone or something watching him everywhere he goes, or constantly seeing something in the shadows of their shared apartment that disappears anytime he turns his head to try and catch it. He’s been having strange dreams, too. The kind that leave him uneasy for the rest of the morning once he’s awoken. He’s been trying to pin down when it all started––maybe at the start of the year, around his birthday.
If Ven’s noticed, he hasn’t said so.
But at the warehouse, that weird feeling got dialed up to eleven. It was more than seeing things in the shadows; he heard them, too. Like something dragging its nails against the concrete floor, or an odd whisper that made his skin crawl. Something was breathing in there, he swore, moving with them and watching them.
Maybe more than one thing.
Eventually, Vanitas thought he saw movement, something diving behind a stack of pallets. That must have been the line for Vanitas because he tried to charge forward only to be snagged back by Ven, dousing both their flashlights. Vanitas started to hiss at him to let him go, that something was in there but Ven clapped a hand over his mouth.
A radio sounded from the entrance of the warehouse, a flashlight scanning back and forth. Cop. Ven prodded at him, opposite of the way Vanitas wanted to go. He looked deeper into the warehouse, into the labyrinth of pallets and abandoned crates.
Stupidly, stubbornly, he wiggled his way out of Ven’s grip and slipped further into the maze of crates. Ven was on his heels, loyal in all things, but his hands found Vanitas’s arm, his grip firm. He hissed, “That’s not the exit, dumbass,” even if he knew Vanitas knew it.
The cop buzzed back into their radio. It sounded like just a routine sweep of the area, rather than someone actually reporting a blue mustang trespassing––and this is what Vanitas argued on their chilly drive to the diner. That he knew they were fine so long as they kept quiet, but Ven was hardly convinced.
In all, Vanitas found nothing.
Whatever he saw had cleared off by the time he (and Ven) came along. Ven had him in a vice grip, cussing under his breath the whole while, and as soon as Vanitas gave in and stopped digging in his heels, Ven nearly threw him from the building as they darted out the nearest exit. It wasn’t the cleanest escape, and Vanitas was lucky the mud wasn’t so deep that they spun out, but soon the adrenaline of it all started to recede.
They didn’t speak the whole way to the diner.
Vanitas sighs, spreading his hands on the table. “I wasn’t trying to upset you. Honest,” he insists, seeing the unimpressed look that twists Ven’s features. “I’ve been trying to tell you, something was in there. Didn’t you hear––whatever that was?”
“No, I was too busy trying to make sure we didn’t get arrested.”
“I’m being serious, Ven.”
Ven rolls his eyes, sitting up straighter. “And I believe you. Really, I do. Tonight felt–– Well, I don’t know what that was. But,” Ven points at him, “you can’t just ignore me when we’re doing admittedly stupid things that can get us in a lot of trouble.”
“Would you feel better if I said sorry?”
“I’d feel better if you meant it.”
Vanitas pinches the bridge of his nose, his own irritation bubbling to the surface. He has half the mind to remind him that it was his idea to even go there in the first place, but he knows it will do nothing to solve the argument. He hates being at odds with Ven, especially over something as stupid as this. “I do mean it. I am sorry for being reckless.”
For a moment, Ven says nothing, picking at a loose thread in his sleeve. The silence stretches between them, less awkward than before but still too tense for Vanitas’s liking.
Finally, Ven meets his eyes again and his expression softens. “Alright," he says, not a clean acceptance of the apology but a step in the right direction. Vanitas fights the urge to smile at him. “Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to go outside, grab my notebook from the car, and then we can talk. Since we’re already here might as well go over our findings tonight. And,” he makes a face, “you can tell me exactly what you heard.”
Vanitas can’t contain his grin now. “It is part of our tradition,” he reminds Ven, not wasting the opportunity to try and return to their normal rapport.
“Yeah, yeah.” Ven waves a hand at him, shrugging his jacket back on, though Vanitas knows Ven stole it from his own closet. He decides not to mention it.
Ven asks for the keys and he jingles them in his palm. “Be back in five.”
Vanitas watches Ven leave the diner, hears the bell on the door chime behind him, and he sits back in his seat as a sigh leaves him. He’s glad they’ve moved on from arguing; Vanitas knows he has a tendency to get under people’s skin, but he vastly prefers a happy Ven over an angry one.
He raps his knuckles on the side of the table, organizing his thoughts so he knows how to present them to Ven when he returns. He regrets angering him, but he doesn’t regret overstaying his welcome. Someone or something was there, but maybe with Ven they might actually have found it. Even if it means telling Ven what he’s been seeing, what he’s been hearing. Ven, of all people, would have the highest chance of taking him seriously.
After a moment, Vanitas reaches out and grabs Ven’s coffee. He sniffs it once before taking a sip, the taste flat and bitter where it coats his tongue. He barely resists making a noise of disgust and sets it back down. Ven definitely makes it better at home.
Minutes tick by, much longer than it should take for Ven to cross the lot to the car and back. Vanitas cranes his head to see the clock behind the diner’s bar, brow furrowed in concern. he knows Ven might want to cool off, but….
Where is he?
An uneasiness builds in Vanitas the longer he waits, the hairs on the back of his neck standing straight. He can’t explain it, but something feels wrong. Something is wrong. It comes from the pit of his stomach, a disquiet that makes him move. He slaps cash onto the table and moves quickly to the door.
He could be overreacting. This could be nothing.
They’ve had a weird night to say the least. What if this feeling is wrong? What if he charges to the car and Ven’s there, catching a moment alone, fully planning on coming back inside?
Outside, the cold air does little to calm Vanitas’s nerves. The parking lot is nearly empty now, only a few cars left, and the flickering of the diner’s neon sign matches his uneven heartbeat. Across the lot, the mustang remains dark.
Vanitas scans the street, his anxiety clawing at his chest. He calls out, “Ven?”
Immediately, he hears Ven shout back, “Vanitas!” His voice, far-off and full of panic, makes Vanitas’s breath catch in his chest. He whips out his pocket knife as he runs in the direction of Ven’s voice.
“Ven?”
He doesn’t get an answer this time, but as he rounds the corner of the building, coming up to the alley between the diner and the movie store, something urges him that this is where he needs to go. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust in the dark, searching in the shadows, before his eyes settle on blond hair. Ven.
Ven, knocked onto his back, arms held to his sides, as two things sit on his chest. Vanitas can’t tell what they are. Darker than shadows, like pits of void. He has a hard time seeing them, but he can certainly hear them as they snarl at Ven.
That’s when Vanitas hears it again, clearly for the first time, like water hitting a hot pan and steam dissipating in the air, like nails on a chalkboard, unsettling and inhuman, filling the small alley. The things and their heavy breathing fill the air, cut up only by the sounds of Ven struggling under them.
Panic grips Vanitas, and time seems to slow down. There’s a buzzing in his ears, and he barely hears himself shouting, “Hey! Get the fuck off him!”
Both of the shadows jerk at the sound of his voice, lifting their black heads and turning their freaky yellow eyes in Vanitas’s direction, the only points of light in their smokey faces. Vanitas hardly notices, his thoughts consumed by Ven, helping Ven, getting him out of here.
The next moment passes in a blur, lost behind a haze of anger and desperation that propels Vanitas forward into the alley. In one instant he’s at the mouth of the backstreet, and the next he’s beside Ven. He doesn’t remember making himself move, only wrenching the things off Ven with all his strength and throwing them against the wall.
He hears Ven call his name again, but it sounds far away, like he’s underwater. Vanitas can’t focus on him. Not when the shadows are crawling closer again.
Vanitas doesn’t look down at Ven when he lunges at the closest monster, knocking it back to the ground, the momentum jarring the knife from his hand. It clatters away, but Vanitas doesn’t bother for it. He digs his nails into the overly warm flesh of the monster as best he can.
It shocks him when the thing lets out a shriek, yielding to Vanitas’s hands like butter to a warm knife. The thing is solid in his grip, but the skin swirls and fizzes through his fingers like smoke. Some of it smolders against his cheek, but still he doesn’t stop, pressing all his strength he can muster until it stops struggling.
Vanitas flinches when the shadow starts to dissipate, sinking into the ground. He hardly has time to watch when he hears its partner moving behind him.
He whirls around in time to see the other disappear, too, vanishing into the shadow of the building like a spooked animal. It just melts, gone as suddenly as it came.
The buzzing between Vanitas’s ears doesn’t lessen; his eyes dart across the recesses of the alley like there’s something he’s missed, but they’re alone.
It doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense.
It’s not until he hears Ven’s staggered breathing behind him that the world slides back into focus. Vanitas wobbles when he twists to look at Ven, still slumped against the brick wall. His eyes are wide, jaw slack.
Vanitas crashes to his knees beside him, wasting no time snatching up Ven’s hands to examine them. They’re scratched up at the palms and the tips of his fingers, and Ven hisses at the touch.
“Are you okay––what happened, Ven? What were those things?” he asks quickly, all of the words bursting from him as the panic catches back up.
Ven doesn’t answer, just watching Vanitas like it’s the first time he’s seen him. “Vani, Vani,” he gasps.
“What, what?”
Ven grabs back at Vanitas’s hand, his own shaking when he lifts it up between them. Confused, Vanitas glances down at it, unsure what he’s doing. His hand is stained black, evidence from the monster he fought off but something else is…wrong. Off.
Once Vanitas recognizes what’s different, mild horror crawls up his throat. His fingers are longer, sharper, resembling something closer to a claw than a hand. He flexes his fingers, heart ricocheting against his ribs as he examines them. His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth when he pulls his attention up to meet Ven’s gaze.
A new kind of fear settles in Vanitas as he looks at Ven––he has no explanation for any of this, least of all whatever’s happening to him, and he wonders what Ven will say. How he’ll react.
“Ven,” he breathes out.
Ven closes his gaping mouth, swallowing thickly. Vanitas’s heart gives another dull thud, every second of silence making him feel like he’s treading water. Then, finally, Ven speaks.
“You,” he wheezes, breath still hitching in his chest, “are so fucking cool.”
Vanitas watches Ven tremble, his pupils huge and looking dazed. Did he hit his head? “Hey. Hey.”
“Eyes,” Ven gasps. “Your eyes––oh god. Oh god. Oh my god, I feel––” Ven twists violently away from Vanitas, retching onto the pavement.
Vanitas sweeps his hand under Ven’s now-sweaty bangs. He’s sure it’s just his reaction to the whatever just happened, but Vanitas can’t help the urgent tone in his voice. “Ven. Hey, Ven. Breathe.”
“You––breathe.”
“There we go.”
“Vani,” Ven croaks, wiping a string of drool from his chin. He frowns. Vanitas realizes a second too late his hand is still in Ven’s hair, bangs pushed off his face. He plays it off as he fans air onto Ven, but that only draws their eyes back to the matter at hand.
The claws.
But as both look at Vanitas’s hand, they watch as the claws slowly retract, a normal-looking appendage left in its place.
“What the fuck,” Vanitas breathes out, not knowing what else to say.
"Has that happened before?” Ven asks stupidly, like Vanitas would’ve been able to hide something like this from him for the last decade.
He rocks his weight back on his heels, still flexing his fingers like something will change. Nothing does, and he can’t tell if that makes this better or worse. “What? Of course not. I’d tell you if it had.”
“That’s the right answer,” Ven agrees, pressing a hand to his chest. He’s still trying to level out his breathing.
Vanitas does nothing but watch him before he remembers where they are and what just happened. He shivers. “Let’s go. It’s not…. We’ll be better off in the car.”
He takes both of Ven’s hands, hauling him to his feet and holding him until he steadies himself. He keeps a hand on Ven’s wrist to yank him out of the alley, not missing the look Ven shoots into the shadows. Vanitas grabs his fallen pocket knife.
“Don’t think you’ll need that anymore,” Ven jokes, sounding half-hysterical. “Got ten of ‘em attached to your hands.”
“Ven.”
“Sorry.”
Vanitas doesn’t think he sounds very sorry.
They hobble back to the mustang. Ven managed to hold onto the keys through all that, preventing one more disaster tonight, and blessedly the heat starts up when Vanitas turns the car on. It’s not until Vanitas has peeled out of the lot and onto the street that he thinks to ask again, “What happened?”
“I don’t know––”
“No,” Vanitas stresses, cutting him off, “not with me––with you. I thought you were going to the car.”
“Oh,” Ven says, furrowing his brow. “I was––I was, but I was walking through the lot and I heard something and…”
“What did you hear?”
“Something weird, like an animal? Or a little kid crying and––oh god, you don’t think those things got a kid or something,” Ven rambles, his breath coming quicker again. He leans forward until he can put his head on the dashboard, eyes closed. “Oh god, I think I’m gonna be sick again.”
Vanitas reaches out to press a hand against Ven’s shoulder, giving him what he hopes is a reassuring squeeze. “It’s fine, I don’t care,” he tells him. He’s just glad Ven is here and in one piece. “I don’t think they had a kid.”
“You don’t?”
"No," Vanitas says, full of false confidence. What the hell does he know? "They were probably just trying to draw you out, get you into the alley.”
Ven thinks for a moment before sniffing miserably. “That’s messed up.”
“They tried to eat you, Ven. Pretty sure they weren’t thinking about the ethics of it all.”
Ven promptly buries his face in his hands and lets out a muffled little scream, and maybe Vanitas is halfway to hysteria as well, because he can’t stifle his laughter. So much for a normal night.
Ven raises his head and watches Vanitas clutch the steering wheel, laughing. “It’s not funny,” he says, as if the corner of his mouth isn't slowly twisting.
Vanitas turns his eyes back to the road, still smiling. "Maybe you shouldn't storm out of diners then," he mocks. The choked noise Ven makes borders on scandalized, earning Vanitas a swat to the arm. “Maybe then monsters won’t show up and try to kill you.”
“And what about you, huh?” Ven says, changing gears.
“What about me?”
“What was all of that? Your eyes went completely yellow, like they were glowing, and your hands were like claws. What happened to you?”
“I don’t know,” Vanitas says, truthfully. “I was just––angry. And worried about you.”
“You’re sure this has never happened before?”
Vanitas frowns. “I tell you everything that happens, Ven. I would tell you this.”
Neither of them speak for a moment, and then Ven whispers, “You kind of looked like them. A little.”
Vanitas’s heart stutters in his chest at that, his thoughts drifting towards the dreams he’s been having recently, where he doesn’t look or feel particularly human. The dreams don’t mean anything, but he still looks at Ven uncertainly. “Would that…freak you out?”
Any anxiety that Ven might run off screaming dies when he snorts, waving a hand. “Are you kidding me? I’d be more pissed than anything,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest. “All these ghost hunts we go on and all the weird shit we look for and you’ve been right in front of me the whole time. Un–flipping–believable.”
The relief that Vanitas feels is palpable, despite Ven’s loose implication he’s some kind of freak. He sinks back against the driver’s seat, huffing. “Ah, I should have known. You’re a faithful ghost hunter and journalist until the end.”
“Of course I am,” Ven says, grinning now. There’s that glint in his eyes, the one that makes Vanitas’s stomach feel like it’s collapsing in on itself. The one that he loves. “I know you’re just as curious about whatever those things were as I am.”
And he is. Any fear Vanitas feels mixes with a deep satisfaction that he hasn’t been imagining things, that he’s not actually crazy. Something is out there, and has been following him around these last few weeks.
“You’re right,” Vanitas concedes. “We should probably get home, and then we can dissect this. Try to figure some of this out."
"Right. I need to brush my teeth," he agrees, making a face. "And then we need to see if we can trigger…whatever happened to you."
“Excuse me?”
“Yeah. Like, why now of all times?” Ven studies Vanitas for a moment, a fierce sort of delight flashing on his face with the streetlights that filter into the car. “Don’t worry,” he says, reaching over to pat Vanitas’s hand that’s on the gear shift in a near death grip. “We’ll figure it out.”
We.
“Well,” Vanitas says slowly, “when you put it like that….”
“Good,” Ven says, smiling widely. “Now get us home. I’ll make coffee.”