Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Arthur Kingsman hated his name. It was a name that belonged to a courageous, legendary hero-king, not a cowardly turn-tail weakling. A weakling who was presently standing on the shoulder of a deserted highway in the middle of the night, miles from anywhere, in his pajamas.

“Dammit, you need to start handcuffing yourself to the bed,” he muttered, staring down at his dirty, bare feet. He'd been sleepwalking again. He never used to sleepwalk before. Of course, before, his dreams were only ordinary nightmares about what kind of terrifying experience he'd be dragged to next by the supernatural-loving weirdos he'd somehow been roped into a friendship with.

Now he mostly tended to dream about fury beyond the grave from the supernatural-loving weirdo he'd murdered.

Extenuating circumstances or not, it was the sort of thing that tended to gnaw at a person's soul. A guilt that couldn't be dampened by phrases like “you were possessed at the time,” or “he's the one who ignored the warning signs and dragged you to that cavern.” No, it was Arthur's inability to stand up for himself, whether against his friends or against creeping evil spirits, that was to blame. And it was his weak will that led to his current predicament, stranded in the thorny wilderness barely held back by a river of pavement.

Lewis had been calling to him.

He could sense it all the time now; a low, rhythmic pulse like a distant bass beat, or a throbbing heart. When he was awake his fear of the vengeful spirit kept him immobile and safe. While he was asleep, though, it was so much easier to influence his mind and lure him out. Once again, Arthur's body was betraying him, and his only consolation was that this time he was alone. No one to be hurt but himself. Lucky him.

The moon was full and high, but even that wasn't enough to tell him where he was. Both ways looked identical in the darkness. He could be only a few steps away from that accursed cavern, or that ephemeral mansion, and he wouldn't know until he walked right into either one's maw. With a sigh, he tried to run his hands through his spiky hair and realized that he was down an arm, too. Crap, he had removed his home-brewed replacement when he went to bed, so now he was handicapped as well as lost and in deep trouble. He shivered in the cool night breeze, his bedclothes too flimsy to offer any protection. Yep, he was just about as helpless as he could be. Swell.

With a sigh, he picked a direction and started walking. Maybe he'd get lucky and come across civilization before something came along and ate him, assuming he was even going the right way. Or maybe someone was out driving despite the late hour and would let him hitch a ride, hopefully without the intent of murdering him. Quite frankly he couldn't think of anyone else that would be out cruising for hitchhikers at this time of night besides serial killers.

“Or maybe I'll find a nice cemetery to spend the night in,” he mumbled sarcastically to himself, just to break the silence. “Or a flying saucer will beam me aboard for a prostate exam. Or, hey! Maybe Lewis will pop up and offer me a cozy room in his ghost mansion since we're such best buds. You know, since it's the least he can do after luring me out here to KILL ME!”

Me! Me! Me! echoed through the darkness. Arthur flinched and immediately regretted shouting. The last thing he wanted was for anyone or... thing to mistake that for a request. He held still for a moment, listening intently for the slightest sound of approaching danger. The wind blew softly in the branches of spindly trees, and the grass rustled with small creatures, but otherwise the night was silent. A car engine would have been welcome, but utter quiet was better than wolves howling or spirits moaning, at least.

Arthur trudged on, wishing he could rub his arms for warmth. He was chilly and tired from walking, not to mention just plain sleepy. He closed his eyes, picturing his soft bed and imagining warm blankets wrapped around him. It wasn't like he could see anything in the darkness with his eyes open, anyway. At home his room would be lit by the faint glow of his alarm clock, and sometimes his desk lamp when he forgot to turn it off after finally dragging himself, half-conscious, away from his repair books or latest mechanical project. Galahad would probably be cruising around in his network of hamster tubes, which pretty much encircled the room several times over. Arthur's sheets would soon be tangled all around his legs or kicked to the floor, a consequence of tossing and turning so much. Vivi told him once that she barely moved at all when she slept, so that she wouldn't dislodge Mystery when he lay in the crook of her knees or draped his head over her ankles. He wondered how she did it. He would probably self-combust if his legs weren't free to move.

Arthur tripped over a stone and woke with a start, then slapped his forehead into his palm with a sigh. He'd actually fallen back asleep as he walked. As if sleepwalking wasn't exactly how he got into this predicament in the first place! He looked around nervously but the scenery hadn't changed, hadn't transformed into any familiar zones of supernatural habitation. It was still just him and the road and the moon shining down on a few thin wisps of fog. And the occasional rustle of critters in the grass.

One of those critters sounded rather close, actually. Arthur decided to pick up the pace, just in case.

He trudged on through the darkness, his pajama pants slowly growing clammy around his calves as they passed through cloud after cloud of shimmering vapor. His feet were completely numb from stepping on miles of pebbles and gritty asphalt; it was probably miraculous that he hadn't run across any broken glass. He tried to keep an eye on the ground in front of him for any glints of reflected moonlight, just in case. After a while, though, even that was pointless, because the fog grew thick enough to hide even his feet from view. Which meant he couldn't see the road.

It startled him the first time his foot came down on grass, but he quickly corrected his course. The next several times were frustrating, because he thought for sure he had moved to the center of the highway. Was it the road that was turning, or was he? There was no slant to the ground like a banked corner would have had, so why did it feel like the road was weaving away from him? Oh. Of course. His missing arm meant he was unbalanced, and the faster he walked, the harder it was to stay in a straight line. Without a visual cue, he couldn't tell if he was over or under-compensating.

He decided to walk with one foot in the grass and one on the road, so he could tell which way he was going. After a while, though, the constant rustle of vegetation unnerved him. His footsteps could be masking approaching danger and he'd never know. Was all that noise really coming from him? He stood still for a moment just to make sure.

The rustling grass continued for a full second after he stopped.

Arthur's blood ran cold. Please let that be my imagination, he pleaded to whatever powers might be listening. He resumed walking for another minute before pausing mid-step, holding his breath.

Rustle rustle-- Then silence.

He took a single step, his foot hitting grass. Nothing but his own noise. Another step, his foot hitting pavement. A rustle of grass that shouldn't have been there.

Something was stalking him. He turned his head ever so slightly, peeking back the way he had come. Moonlit fog spread out like a river, swirling with eddies created by his own passage. There was nothing else there. Nothing visible, anyway.

Arthur faced forward, took a deep breath, then burst into a sprint. Grass and pavement changed constantly under his feet, as if the road was undulating underneath him like a snake. He ran for several minutes before coming to a stop, breathing hard and staring back the way he had come. The low-laying fog slowly settled back in to fill the wake he had left, smoothing itself out and leaving a pristine surface behind. He strained his eyes to catch anything out of place. Nothing. No sound either, or at least none that he could hear from this distance. Whatever it had been, Arthur realized it probably wasn't very fast. As long as he kept moving at more than a walk, he would probably be fine.

Yay, a night spent jogging when he was already exhausted. This just kept getting better and better.

“At least I probably can't fall asleep this way,” he huffed as he bobbed down the road. “Though I'd kill for a little entertainment all the same. A radio to crank up. Or at least some caffeine.” He dredged his tired brain for some lyrics to sing. “You've got me hangin' by a thread, yeah. Must've been somethin' that I said, yeah. I just want yoooooouuu-uuuu! Wish I could turn back time, wish I could rewind life...”

He trailed off. Maybe... maybe not that song. Something else.

“You got me hypnotized, I'm feeling so obsessed with you. You've left me paralyzed, and now I'm stuck, you've got me stuck...”

No. Definitely not that one either. Come on, something fast and bouncy to run to, that wouldn't make him think about his own messed up situation!

“It's like magic! I got you feeling like you're fallin' in love. I got you feeling like you'll never give up, oh! Got you feeling like you'll never give up on: magic, magic! Magic, magic! Magic, magic, magic magic!” He struggled for a few steps to fit his jogging feet to the rhythm, then switched to a sort of skipping-walk instead. Okay, maybe it was just dancing. Whatever. It was fun and it kept him moving forward.

“Magic, magic, oo-oo-oh, magic, magic, oo-oo-oh, magic magic magic magic, oo-oo-oh!”

The moon shifted ever so slowly across the sky, scratched every now and then by silhouetted tree branches.

“It's like magic... Got me feeling like I'm fallin' in love. Got me feeling like I'll never give up, no! Got me feeling like I'll never give up on you!”

The bounce left his steps as he grew tired, but he kept on walking.

Never give up on... never give up on you! Never give up on... never give up o-on!

Arthur didn't even realize that he had stopped singing aloud by the twentieth mindless repeat.

Magic, magic!
Magic, magic!
Magic magic magic magic!

It was just his bobbing head, his walking feet, and the music that played over and over in his mind. A throbbing rhythm like a distant bass, or a beating heart.

The rhythm slowed down imperceptibly. Words started to change here and there.

How could you give up on... how could you give up on me! How dare you give up on... how dare you give up o-on!

Arthur's brows furrowed. That wasn't how the song went. It didn't even sound like his own voice anymore, though it did sound familiar.

Every note of every chord of every song reminds me...

No, no, no, this was a different song entirely! What was his brain doing?

Every note
of every chord
of every song
reminds me that you gave up!
“You sold me out.”

Arthur woke up, yet again, with a flash of pure panic, certain that he heard those words whispered right in front of him. A terrified glance in all directions revealed no one, but did reveal that he was standing in front of a familiar mansion, lit from within by an eerie magenta light that pulsed like a living thing. It looked completely unchanged, despite the ghostly fire that had raged through it when he dragged his friends away before.

No, he took that back. There was a difference. This time the wall that encircled the haunted grounds was taller, and had an imposing wrought-iron gate so overgrown with vines that it looked like it hadn't been opened in years.

Impossible, of course. It hadn't been nearly that long since he'd last been here, when the gate didn't exist at all.

Also, Arthur was already past it, locked inside the mansion's grounds.

Lewis had sprung his trap.

Chapter Text

There was nowhere to go but in.

That didn't stop Arthur from circling the grounds several times over, hoping to find a spot where the stone wall had fallen in, or a hole he could climb through or under. No luck of course, and he couldn't scale it with only one hand. He glared petulantly at the mansion. Maybe he would just sit right down on the wide staircase leading up to the entryway and wait out the night.

The front doors creaked open ever so slowly.

“Hahahaha-no.” He turned his back on the invitation and returned instead to the locked gate. Through its cold metal bars he could see the road he had been trudging down all night. So close and yet so far. He rattled it with frustration, then quickly stopped, wincing at the loud noise it made. How was he going to get out of this mess alive?

Far down the road, something caught his eye. There was a shape reflecting the moonlight, something that was slowly coming this way. Not bright enough to be headlights, but maybe a person wearing a white shirt? The shape seemed to expand as more of it came into view. No, not a person. It was... the fog.

He hadn't even noticed that he'd outdistanced the fog during the last bout of sleepwalking. Of course, that was because he was a bit more preoccupied by his current predicament. Now, though, the mist was rolling in fast, looking rather disturbingly like it was traveling down the road with purpose. Like it had a mind. Like it was chasing him.

The thing he couldn't see... the one stalking him and rustling the grass. Was it in control of the fog?

Arthur had no intention of finding out. He shifted his gaze to the mansion doors and gave a shaky, resigned sigh. In a choice between death by karma or death by opportunist, he'd pick karma. Even so, it was hard to climb the stairs with knocking knees, and once he reached the open maw of a doorway, his feet refused to move another step. He hovered just outside the threshold, quaking and struggling to breathe. He had never been the sort who could walk boldly into danger. He needed to be led by the hand, or more preferably, completely shielded by a braver person. He couldn't do this. He couldn't.

He peeked over his shoulder. From the top of the steps, he could see the first wisps of fog as they came in range of the gate. They rolled slowly along the road, then turned to roll towards him.

Arthur gulped, closed his eyes tight, and stumbled into the grand foyer's entryway. The doors closed themselves gently behind him, bringing the darkness he'd traveled in all night to completion. He'd really done it! He'd stepped into the lion's mouth all on his own, and had only to wait until it crushed him. He stood still, eyelids still scrunched so tightly he was seeing stars, almost certain that the entryway was going to collapse around him at any second. Until a soft glow fell upon his face, anyway.

Cracking one eye open, he assumed he would see a ghostly flame dancing before him, probably dramatically lighting up the entryway sconces one by one. Instead, he found only a single three-armed candelabra sitting on a side table, obviously meant for him to take. “What, no show this time?” he joked nervously, picking it up with his trembling hand. Shadows stretched and danced under the flickering light as it moved, making him flinch. “Oh, I g-get it. Why make an effort when you can j-just let me scare myself silly over nothing?”

Tense as an overstretched spring, he shuffled awkwardly into the foyer. The chandelier remained unlit, so it was mostly by memory that he recalled there being a grand staircase across the room. Well. If Lewis's lair was in the basement, then it only made sense to go upstairs instead. The darkness seemed unnaturally dense, leaving him in a tiny pool of light that only illuminated the runner carpet under his feet. He followed it on tip toe, eyes constantly darting to catch anything that might lunge out at him. He almost dropped the candles when the banister suddenly gleamed in the light. His breath stuttered in his throat.

“Th-that's the last thing I need, to lose the only light I have! Or s-start a fire.” He reconsidered that for a second, wondering if burning down the haunted mansion would purify the ghosts or something. “Nah, they'd probably just make sure I burn with it... and I'm not even sure this place is real, anyway. Not all the time.” Somewhere up above, a timber creaked ominously. He swallowed. “Uh. J-just joking about the fire... thing.”

Tightening his grip on the candelabra, he started cautiously up the steps, wishing he had another hand to grab the railing with. Then again, it would be just his luck if the railing changed into a snake under his fingers, or turned out to be coated with blood. Sure seemed like the sort of thing he could expect in this place. He could almost feel his missing hand recoiling at the thought, which very nearly made him lose his balance. Suddenly afraid he would become dizzy halfway up, Arthur decided to stay close to the rail anyway. At least he could lean against it if need be. Unless it was waiting for that, so it could give away suddenly and let him fall...

“S-stellar idea, letting me do all the scaring myself. I'm doing a great job, by the way.”

Up above, the crystals on the chandelier sparkled in the candlelight from below. He edged under it as carefully as possible, positive it was going to fall on his head. It failed to live up to his expectations. Since the stairway split into two directions at the halfway point, he went left so he could continue not-quite-touching the rail. “Is this the part where the carpet lifts up and throws me down to my death?” he whispered half-jokingly, half-questioningly as he neared the top. The carpet remained unmoved. Somewhat baffled, he started his way down the second floor hallway. “Still nothing? Seriously? This place seemed a lot more proactive the last time I was here...”

If the first floor had been decorated mostly by suits of armor and painted portraits, this corridor seemed to be dedicated to doors, tapestries and vases full of unusual flowers. At least, he thought they were unusual; they weren't roses or whatever else was usually sitting glumly near the checkout at the local grocery store. Every door seemed to have a brass plaque affixed at eye level, along with an accompanying vase next to it on a pedestal or small table. Unable to help himself, Arthur moved closer to a door to read its sign:

Nancy Rice
1994-2010
Abandoned

He blanched. Was the label some kind of headstone inscription?! Why on a door? And who would put something like that as an epitaph? He took a more serious look at the vase of flowers now, full of cup-like blossoms of various colors, all of them with black centers. He didn't know what they were called. He had a suspicion they meant something more than just “flowers on a grave.” With a foreboding feeling, he turned around to check out the door across the way. It had a bouquet of flowers that kind of looked like carnations, but bigger.

David Singleton
1964-1997
Shame

His eyes skimmed over the numbers, focusing instead on the last word. Was the man a shame to his family or something? Sounded more like his family was full of jerks. Or was it supposed to be... cause of death? For a moment his eyes settled on the doorknob, and he actually considered taking a peek inside. Then reason took over, and he backed hastily away.

He found himself angling down the hall to the next set of doors, and the next, unable to stop himself from reading the engraved signs. Christina Hubbard with some bright orange marigolds. Jealousy. Eric Boyd with a bunch of flowers so withered he couldn't tell what they might have been. Rejection. Kim Saunders with some white daffodils. Vanity. Jonathan Carpenter with some tiny flower tufts. Ennui. The hallway went on and on, a terrible visual rhyme in a small pool of light. He wondered, if the lights had actually been lit, if he would even be able to see an end.

He was almost running now. Names and flowers and one-word descriptors flew by, blurring together. It was the descriptors that stuck in his mind, refusing to be shaken loose. Heartbreak. Loneliness. Despair. What did it all mean? What was the point of it? Why was it scaring him so much, making him stumble on numb feet and wave the candles wildly and gasp heavily on stale air? What was he missing that his subconscious already realized? How much longer would this go on before he cracked? Was he sleepwalking again, to be having a nightmare like this?

And then suddenly it all stopped, the hallway ending with one last door. A vase filled with purple hyacinths sat waiting beside it. Arthur knew, almost before he started reading the shiny new plaque, what it would say. The first number was his birth year. The second was the present.

Arthur Kingsman
Guilt

He should have listened to his screaming brain and gone back, should have kept on running away until his feet failed him. Instead, he reached for the doorknob and gave it a cautious try. It was slightly warm to the touch, turning easily and almost eagerly to let the door quietly fall open. Inside he could just barely see a dresser and the corner of a four-poster bed, nicely made and waiting for him. It was a bedroom, as fine as a person would expect in such a fancy house as this, and as impersonal as a hotel. A resting place. A final resting place.

He stepped inside numbly. He should have been panicking, should have been foaming at the mouth and incoherent with fear. This was it, then, this was the end. This was what he'd come here for. And yet, instead of obsessing over ever-more imaginative and elaborate ways he might die in the next few minutes, he found himself wondering, as a matter of idle curiosity, how he had managed to turn the doorknob when he never set down the candelabra.

The door closed gently behind him with a soft click.

He was so very, very tired.

* * *

Chapter Text

“Your phone is ringing, make it stop,” grumbled a sleepy dog.

Vivi rolled over and grabbed the offending device off her nightstand, her thoughts a tangled haze. “What?” she rasped out after she managed to thumb the 'answer' icon, voice scratchy from sleep. “Mister Kingsman?” she said a moment later, surprised by the unusual caller.

Mystery yawned and shifted over to where her legs had moved. He could hear a tinny reply through the phone, an apology and inquiry as to whether the caller had awoken his mistress.

“Well, it is my day off.” A pause. “No, we didn't do anything last night. Why?” Pause. “That's weird. And he didn't answer the phone?” Pause. “Yeah, I can go check on him, that's fine. I'll let you know what's up.”

She hung up the phone and groggily sat up, rubbing her eyes blearily as she scanned her emails for anything from Arthur. Nothing. With a sigh and a longing glance at her warm covers, she dragged herself away from the temptation.

“Don't get too cozy, Mystery, we'll be leaving in a little bit,” she said around a yawn as she raided her tightly packed closet. “Arthur's uncle said he didn't come in to work today. Quite frankly I wouldn't be surprised if he's sick, as down as he's been lately.”

Mystery arched his back in an elaborate stretch before hopping down and scratching behind an ear. He sniffed the air and paused, as if considering something that only dogs with hidden supernatural powers could detect. Then he wandered off to go get breakfast.

“Jeez, don't act too concerned or anything,” Vivi chided as she headed for the bathroom. True, it was more likely that Arthur just stayed up too late working on something and slept through his alarm. Still. As a dedicated friend, it wouldn't hurt to go check. Just in case.

* * *

Arthur woke up with a groggy headache that let him know he had been sleeping for far too long. He grimaced against the weak light that still managed to get past the thin curtains; it looked like it was going to be an overcast, stormy day. He hated those, especially when he had to go to work and couldn't stay in bed all day. What time was it?

He turned his head to look where his clock should be, but it wasn't there. This was not his room. Suddenly confused and much more alert, he sat up and looked around. He was surrounded by fine furniture that no one he knew could afford, with decorations as generic and unoffensive as one would expect in an unused guest bedroom. A dozen questions all crashed into each other inside his head, then froze as he saw the candelabra on the dresser, its candles all burned up.

The sleepwalking. The mansion. The door with his name.

Arthur hastily slid off of the bed, dragging the thick comforter and something much heavier onto the floor with a clunk. There was something weighing down his wrist. He shook off the blanket and then stared in disbelief. A chain. There was a rusty metal chain attached to a cuff around his one wrist. With growing horror, he followed it around the bed until he found the other end. It was attached to a bolted plate on the floor in the middle of the long, narrow room. He was a prisoner.

A flash of lightning etched shadows across the walls, followed momentarily by a distant crack of thunder. Arthur tugged on the chain, but just as he expected, it held fast. He stumbled around the room, limping with pain from his sore, dirty feet. The chain clattered noisily behind him. He could reach everything in the room except for the wall with the exit in the corner; the chain came up just short enough that he might have been able to reach the door, but only if he had a second arm. He supposed he could touch it with his foot, but knew he wouldn't be able to turn the knob that way. Against the wall that formed the other part of the corner stood a truly enormous floor mirror, angled to reflect most of the room. It was no surprise that he didn't notice it before; it would have been hidden by the door while it was open. Now that he saw it, though, he wished he could open the door again just to hide it. There was something creepy about it, like the reflected image was darker than it should have been.

Turning away, he distracted himself by investigating the rest of the room. There was a sliding door that he assumed led to a closet, but instead turned out to be a small en-suite bathroom. Suddenly Arthur realized that he was thirsty, filthy, and needed to pee. The chain was mercifully long enough that he could move easily inside, though it made undressing difficult. In the end he left his pajama shirt dragging on the floor, tangled up in its length.

He wondered, as hot water and soap streamed down his back and stung the broken blisters on his feet, if it was really a good idea to strip down and take a shower while being held prisoner in a ghost house of dubious reality. Was he really getting clean? Was this tiny shampoo bottle a figment of his imagination? Where was the hot water coming from? Was he being watched at this very moment by a bunch of dead beats? He decided that the answer to these questions was to stop thinking about it and just finish up already. On the off chance that the whole place disappeared if he thought about it too hard, he'd better get the shampoo out of his hair first.

Feeling a lot better once he was clean, Arthur gingerly dried his feet with the fluffy towel he wasn't using to wrap around his waist. They looked pretty bad; he didn't go barefoot often so his tender feet had gotten quite roughed up. He checked the drawers under the sink and was pleased to find some rolls of gauze.

“Of course there's gauze. What self respecting haunted mansion wouldn't have a few mummies?” he chuckled. After a moment's thought, he wrapped some around his wrist, too, under the metal cuff, before it could start chafing. He missed his wristbands, but he had left those at home along with everything else.

He gave the chain a tug to slide the door back open and stepped out, wondering if by any chance there was something clean to wear in the dresser. The answer was yes, though not clothing he would ever normally choose. Nothing casual and comfy at all, only fine black slacks and pressed white shirts. “I haven't worn anything like that since Auntie's funeral,” he said glumly, then realized how dismally appropriate that was. He pulled out a set that seemed his size, then tossed the shirt back when he realized he wouldn't be able to get it over the chain.

He couldn't help but keep a suspicious eye on the mirror while he dressed. Maybe he was paranoid, but he felt certain that it was not what it seemed. Nothing showed up or popped out of its silvery surface, though, so it was with some relief that he finally allowed himself to look away. Stupid creepy thing.

There was only one more thing to investigate: a writing desk next to the dresser. There were several sheets of fine-quality paper stacked upon it, along with a fluffy quill pen and an ink well. Arthur tried not to think about what he was supposed to write. A last will and testament, perhaps? He quickly moved to the other item, an old rotary phone. He'd never used one before, but they couldn't be that hard. The question was, would it even work? And who would he call if it did?

Vivi, obviously. She would probably be ecstatic to learn he had managed to find the disappearing mansion again, and possibly even envious of his current predicament. She was weird that way. Daring to hope a bit at the thought of her coming to his rescue, he picked up the receiver and held it to his ear.

There was no dial tone. Instead, a voice that he recognized as his own hissed accusingly: “Murderer.”

He gasped, dropping the receiver. It clattered loudly across the desk, static crackling through its speaker. As he backed away, shaking his head, a thrumming noise seemed to rise up through the floorboards, through the walls, even from the air itself. The room grew darker as the distant storm rolled in, rain pelting the glass of the window with every harsh gust of wind. A flash of light caught his attention, not from the outside, but from the mirror in the corner. It was starting to glow, the reflection of the bedroom disappearing as another scene took its place: the day of Lewis's death.

“No,” Arthur murmured as he changed directions, backing away from that too. He bumped into the bed and could go no further, clutching onto the corner post for support. In the image he could see himself, Vivi, Lewis, and Mystery inside the van as they traveled down the road, on their way to the cave where everything would change. Lewis and Vivi were especially excited; the last few places they'd checked turned out to be total busts, but this one they were sure was the real deal. Arthur would have been perfectly happy to stay in the car. Then he wouldn't have to put up with any ghosts, ghouls, or shmoopy romance.

“Are you sure you're okay?” Vivi had asked, and in the present, Arthur jumped upon hearing her voice. A tinny soundtrack was coming in through the phone's ear-piece that he had dropped on the desk, perfectly accompanying the mirror's unwelcome show. “You've been sulky ever since we told you we're a couple now.”

“You've been a couple for weeks, I'm not blind,” he had replied with a roll of his eyes. “I was starting to wonder when you were planning on telling me.”

She looked a little flustered to hear that their attempts at secrecy had been a total fail. “We just, uh, wanted to adjust to the change before we started announcing anything. In case it didn't work out.”

He had to snort at that. “Seriously? You two? I've never seen a pair more obviously meant for each other.”

“Aw, come on,” Lewis finally entered the conversation. “There's no such thing as a perfect couple. We've already made a few confessions and compromises and stuff around each other. You gotta work those things out early so they don't become fights later.”

Vivi made an exaggerated swoon. “I love it when you talk all mature like that.” They both laughed, already caught up in new little in-jokes just for the two of them. Arthur looked away.

A few moments later they noticed the quiet. “But really, though,” Lewis said, a touch of uncertainty in his voice. “You're... okay with us, right?”

Arthur forced himself to smile without it looking fake. “You two are a-okay. Relax! I promise I'm not secretly pining for either of your sexy bods. You dorks.” They had to laugh at that. Arthur was a card-carrying asexual and they knew it, even if they didn't understand exactly what it meant. They tried to, at least, and that was enough for him. As a bit of a loner who didn't have many friends, he loved these two with all his heart. He was glad to see them happy.

It just hurt, a little. To see the beginnings of the end for their friendship threesome.

Present-day Arthur looked away, wiping his hand down his face with fierce regret. “Why didn't I just tell them what was really bothering me? Even if it was embarrassing and pointless? You don't know for sure what they would have said. They could have surprised you! And even if they didn't, surely it would have been better to know than to keep stewing in uncertainty! Maybe... maybe if my mind hadn't been in such turmoil, I wouldn't have been such an easy target for that thing!”

The mirror show continued, oblivious to his outburst. The van arrived at the mouth of the eerily lit cave, and as the other two and Mystery hopped out, they turned back to see what was keeping Arthur.

“I think I'm gonna just stay here, guys,” he said with a nervous look at the warning signs posted around the entrance. When there was no response, he turned to look at Vivi, but she was just grinning at him. Arthur suddenly found himself hoisted off his feet, which he flailed wildly as Lewis carried him easily out the back and shut the doors before setting him down.

“Don't be silly, Arthur, we wouldn't dream of leaving you behind!” Vivi said cheerily, already turning to waltz right into the danger zone, Mystery at her side. Lewis gave him a friendly slap on the back to get him moving too.

“Don't worry, man,” he said with an earnest smile. “I'm looking out for you.”

“Gee, thanks,” he muttered back, but quickly followed when Lewis started down the path, afraid to stray too far behind.

In the bedroom-prison, Arthur sank down to the floor, leaning back against the bed with his head on his knees. He couldn't watch any more. He'd seen the next few scenes play out in his head far too many times already. One moment his hands would be gripping Lewis's shoulders in fear. The next moment his hand would be pushing Lewis off the ledge.

The fall was always over so quickly. He thought these things were supposed to happen in slow motion in one's mind, but it never did for him. Lewis only had time to look alarmed as he fell to his death. His body hit the ground hard, the stalagmites cutting through him cleanly. From the phone receiver, Arthur heard the thump. He braced himself for what he knew would follow.

It was the only time he had ever heard Vivi scream, and it was the most horrible scream he had ever heard in his life. An absolutely soul-rending, deep throated, curdling shriek that echoed over and over and louder and louder through the cavernous vault. She had been down at the bottom, perfectly placed to see the gruesome splatter happen right in front of her. He couldn't even imagine what that must have been like for her. Enough to send her into shock and give her amnesia, apparently. More blame on his shoulders.

The old fashioned phone couldn't handle the scream. The speaker cut in and out horribly, the piercing noise staggered with jarring staccato slices of silence. Arthur tried to cover his ears with his hand and shoulder, but it was useless. The noise went on, unending, warping and transforming into a familiar beat. That rhythm that haunted the back of his mind, like a car with a bass beat so loud it rattled the windows, or, perhaps, the throbbing of his own guilty, guilty heart. What little light was in the room was dimming and flashing in sync with the rhythm, and as he looked up, he was frightened out of his wits to see that the mirror was coming closer with every split-second of darkness.

“Stay back!” he shrieked. The mirror lurched forward relentlessly, its weight digging into the floorboards and tearing splintered gashes along its path. Behind him, the storm was beating on the window so hard that he could hear the glass cracking under the strain. The horrible scraping and snapping noises were added to the screeching mix, another few notes in the orchestra's strobing crescendo. On the mirror's surface was the image of Lewis's head, completely severed from his body, still rocking slightly where it had come to a rest at Vivi's feet. Eyes already dulled by death stared blankly in his direction.

Arthur thought he felt something break. He took a deep breath, keeled over on the floor with his arm over his head, and bellowed: “MAKE IT STOP!!”

Suddenly, jarringly, everything went silent.

He couldn't look. He was contracted so tightly that he couldn't even move, only shudder with trembling spasms.

There was a tiny clicking noise. At some point the phone receiver must have fallen on the floor, possibly blown off by the wind that had blasted through the window cracks. Now a faint voice could be heard coming from the device.

“Operator. How may I direct your call?”

Arthur stirred just enough to make sure his voice wouldn't be muffled by his arm. “...Lewis.”

There was another series of clicking noises, a brief ring, then another click. No one spoke on the other side, but the silence seemed to resonate like that of an open room, not a lost connection. Someone was listening.

“Make it stop,” he said again, defeated.

There was a long pause, and then the phone burst into pink and purple flames. They spread with purpose, like slithering snakes across the floor, up the walls, and along the ceiling. They engulfed the mirror, causing the silvery surface to bubble and boil. The mass of melting glass and fire started to form the shape of a familiar silhouette before the entire thing violently exploded.

Arthur flinched as his bare torso was nicked and singed, then peeked up to see the towering, skeletal, and obviously enraged figure of his nightmares. Glowing irises within otherwise empty sockets glared down at him in completely justified fury.

“YOU!!”

Lewis lunged so fast he might as well have teleported, and suddenly Arthur found himself off the ground, dangling by a massive hand around his neck. A skull filled up the entirety of his vision. “I don't know what possessed you to come back here, but you won't live to regret it!”

Arthur couldn't help a weak, disparaging laugh. “That's the idea.”

The void of Lewis's eyes seemed to widen, then narrow in anger. His broad shoulders twisted as he slammed Arthur into the bedpost and then to the bed, the tall pole snapping under the force and ending up pinned under his back. Arthur cried out in pain, his eyes tearing up. The smoke didn't help either; it smelled like the bedsheets were starting to smolder. The hand around his neck was soon joined by another, and they both began to tighten. Arthur reflexively tried to resist, but his hand tugged uselessly against the chain. It had gotten pinned somewhere, so taut he could barely raise it off the mattress. His feet kicked wildly instead, but they encountered nothing but the bed frame against his heels, as if they were passing right through Lewis's body.

A roaring filled his ears as flashing stars started to obscure his vision. His throat was in pain and he couldn't breathe and this was it. This was going to be the end, a life snuffed out too early, just like Lewis's was. Arthur tried to peer up at him, tried to keep his eyes from rolling back in his head and face his own death with a bit more dignity than he had lived most of his life, but he couldn't bear to look at Lewis's skeletal face. His flickering vision seemed drawn instead to a dull silver heart affixed to the breast of his attacker's suit. There was a crack running through it, and it didn't glow or beat like it did before. Something about that just seemed wrong, or at least sad. Was that his fault too? He should probably fix it before he died, then. Somehow. Was that right? His thoughts didn't make sense any more.

Arthur couldn't really see anything else now, as if he was staring into a tunnel that was growing smaller by the second. Despite it all, he managed to raise a feeble arm and let his fingers trail weakly down the cracked surface of the broken heart.

Lewis's reaction was immediate. He recoiled violently, flying back several feet and clutching a hand protectively across his chest. Arthur gasped in the most painful breath of air he'd ever taken, and then the tunnel of blackness closed up.

* * *

Chapter Text

If being dead hurts so much, no wonder Lewis is mad.

Arthur stared in a daze as the ceiling came into focus, trying to make sense of the blackened scorch marks. There were no more flames flickering that he could see, but no signs of what put them out, either. The fires had just stopped.

There was a horrible rasping sound, which it took him a moment to realize was his own breathing. So, not dead then? That was unexpected. He rolled his head experimentally from side to side. It hurt, but not in a “something's-broken” kind of way. He couldn't see much but the narrow walls beside the bed, which made him nervous. Was he alone? He couldn't tell without moving.

Merely raising his head hurt too much, so he tried to sit up. That... also hurt too much. Now that he was paying attention, his back was in agony. After a moment he realized that at least part of the pain was because he was still laying on the broken bed column. It took some fumbling before he managed to pull on the chain still cuffed to his wrist and curl himself over on his side. He could see more of the room now, which was pretty much a disaster area, but what most caught his eye was the sight of Lewis slouched against the frame of the open door with his arms crossed, glaring at his damning epitaph.

Upon noticing him stirring, Lewis turned his fearsome stare back upon Arthur. “How did you do that?” he barked out, reaching up a hand to hover protectively over his heart again.

An uncomprehending look was his reply. Lewis strode forward, still towering high above him but far less menacing than when he had first appeared. “You shouldn't have been able to touch me. That's not how it works!”

Oh yeah, Arthur thought, finally getting what he was talking about. I didn't really think about that. He tried to apologize, but his first attempt at speaking only came out as an unintelligible wheeze, followed by coughing. With great effort, Arthur managed to use the chain again to pull himself up to a sitting position, while Lewis just stared at him and made zero attempts to help. No, he wasn't staring at him, exactly. He was staring at his amputation.

“Rude,” he managed to whisper.

Lewis ignored him, bending over to examine the rounded stump more closely. “What's going on with your arm?”

“It's gone,” he replied, with a look that clearly meant are you a moron?

Lewis actually seemed startled. “...Oh.”

Arthur stared at him very hard, his mind racing. “Wait. Can you... see it?” A pair of glowing eyes met his own. “Do I have some kind of ghost hand?” He burst into another round of coughing, having strained his weak voice with the outburst.

“Can't you feel it sometimes?”

“That's just phantom limb... syndrome...” Lewis gave him a flat look, and Arthur couldn't help but feel lost. He stared at the place where his hand should be resting. “Really?”

Lewis straightened up again, looking satisfied. “So that's how you did it. Mystery solved.” Then he paused, and asked curiously, “How did you lose an arm? Accident at the garage?”

Arthur looked away. “Dog attack,” he said evasively.

“Huh.”

There was a long and awkward silence. Arthur tried to wiggle his phantom fingers but was unsure if anything happened. Lewis examined the items around the room.

“Sooo... are you going to kill me or what?”

“Oh, I'm going to kill you, all right, make no mistake!” Lewis blustered. “Don't think that this changes anything, just because we're on the second floor.”

Arthur felt like he was missing something. “What's so special about the second floor?”

Now it was Lewis's turn to be tossing around looks that said are you a moron? “Why do you think you're here?”

“Because you called me here with your hypnotic ghostly powers?”

“Wow. You are vastly overestimating my abilities. No, if you were called here, it was because the House caught a whiff of your subconscious desires and decided to expedite matters.” At his blank look, Lewis gave a sardonic laugh. “Welcome to the House of Strays. Second floor: suicides!”

Arthur's eyes went wide. “I'm not—I'm not suicidal!” he protested, even as his mind poured over the night's events with new light. He was a coward who ran away from danger every waking moment, for sure, but he didn't walk here while he was awake. Maybe that tormenting rhythm was a summons from the house... or maybe it came from within. All those one-word engravings on the doors—they weren't causes of death, because that was stupid. People didn't die of guilt. People killed themselves out of guilt.

“Oh, really? Let’s take a look at the evidence, shall we?” Lewis walked over to the writing desk, which was splattered with spilled ink, and picked up a piece of paper. “Behold: Exhibit A.” There were words scrawled across it that hadn't been there before, and Arthur felt himself shrinking inward even before they were read aloud. “Lewis, make it stop.”

“I-I never wrote that.”

“But you said it, didn't you? This is your suicide note; pleading to the dead about ending it all.”

“That... sure is what it sounds like.”

“There is no difference between what it sounds like and what it is.”

“Stop that, you're not a lawyer yet.”

“And I never will be.”

A familiar pain of guilt zinged through his heart, and Arthur realized that he was arguing a lost cause. “Okay, fine. Maybe—maybe, mind you—I came here because of some unconscious death-wish. Even so, it hardly counts as suicide if you kill me.”

“I'm dead. You can't be murdered by a dead person. Legally.”

Arthur threw up his hands with a loud clink from the chain. “Okay, fine! I'm suicidal, whatever! Are you going to get this over with or not?!”

“Hey, you moved it!”

The expression on Arthur's face screamed a mix of confusion and incredulous frustration. For a second, Lewis almost seemed amused. “Your phantom limb,” he clarified.

Arthur blinked, thrown off track. “Of course I can move it,” he said impatiently, wiggling the short length of arm that extended from his shoulder.

“But your hand opened. Right now it's clenched shut again, but for a second there it was mirroring your other hand.”

Arthur paused his tirade for a moment to flex his hand, trying to focus on making the nothingness at his other side do the same. “Am I doing it now?”

“No. Maybe you're trying too hard? Or maybe you can only do it when you're not thinking about it.”

He sighed. “What does it matter?! In a few minutes I'll have a phantom everything, if you would just get on with it. Are you—are you stalling?”

Lewis went rigid, like maybe the accusation had hit right on the nose. “I just want to understand it, that's all! I wonder if the fact that you have 'one hand in the grave,' as it were, is why you're already here. I've never heard of the House collecting someone who isn't actually dead yet.”

“What is this place, anyway?”

Lewis shrugged his shoulders and pulled out the desk chair, sitting down backwards with his arms on the back. “Some sort of shelter for unattached spirits? If they're not totally locked to the place they died, it invites them in to fill its rooms.”

“And that's how you came to be here?”

“I guess. I remember floating outside the entrance of the cave where I died, watching the paramedics carry out my body. Watching Mr. and Mrs. Pepper cry when they identified me.” He paused, then flickered with a bit of anger. “You didn't come to my funeral.”

Because I was in the hospital with a severed limb, Arthur thought, but said nothing.

“Everything I saw just made me angrier and angrier. At you. And then I found myself at the front doors of this place, and the other spirits welcomed me right in.”

Arthur shivered. “Where are the other ghosties, anyway? They were everywhere last time, and now they're nowhere to be seen.”

Lewis cocked his head, as if listening. “Around. They've probably been instructed not to interfere.”

“Ha ha,” he said nervously, eyeing the walls like something might change its mind and pop out after all. “Wouldn't want to scare me off from killing myself!”

“Exactly.”

Another uncomfortable, interminable silence. Arthur shuffled his bandaged feet against the floor. The gauze was a little snagged, but still holding nicely. He wondered if he would be wearing them forever, once he was a ghost. A shirtless, gauze-footed, one-armed ghost. Ah, no, he would have two arms again once he was dead, apparently.

“How's Vivi?”

Arthur glanced up, trying to read the expression on Lewis's bony face. “She's doing well. Still researching haunts to investigate, still working hard at the Tome Tomb. Still living half buried in highly organized clutter.” He paused, debating whether it would be a good idea to tell him. “She doesn't... really... remember you. Very well.”

To his surprise, Lewis merely gave a slight shrug. “I know.” Arthur gaped at his lackluster reaction.

“And you're okay with that?!”

“It was my dying wish.”

“You—what?”

“Maybe you weren't aware when you pushed me to my death, but Vivi's path took her to the bottom of the cavern. I don't know if I was already a spirit or if the neurons in my head were still firing for a few seconds after it was lopped off, but I remember seeing her... splattered with my own blood. The look on her face...”

Lewis went quiet. To Arthur's amazement, the skeletal form sitting in the chair seemed to go out of focus and fade away, turning into something far more familiar and human. The Lewis he remembered was coming to the surface, a man with a huge heart who thought too much and too deeply about those he cared about. Seemingly unaware of his transformation, he continued his story. “All I could think was, 'don't let this ruin her life!' It was bad enough that mine was suddenly over. I couldn't bear it if someone as unique and passionate and... and radiant as Vivi were to crumple up and spend the rest of her life haunted by memories instead of specters.” He settled his chin on his arm, staring off somewhere to the side and miles away.

So it wasn't trauma, Arthur thought as he blinked his eyes rapidly. It was a gift. He took a deep, slightly-less-painful-than-before breath, trying to rein in his emotions. Lewis glanced his way, narrowed his eyes, and transformed back into a spook so fast it looked like his skin melted away. “Wipe that look off your face,” he growled as he stood up, kicking the chair aside. “I don't want to see it.”

“It's gone!” Arthur said hastily, hands up in a defensive gesture. He watched with apprehension as Lewis approached once more, an imposing giant come to grind his bones to dust. “S-so I guess that means we're getting back to where we left off?”

“Sounds about right.”

“Ah,” he squeaked. His impatient bravado from earlier seemed to have evaporated back to whatever tiny pocket of his brain it came from, leaving him with only his usual trembling fear to go on. He stared up at Lewis with wide eyes, swallowing hard and trying to breathe normally while he still could. Any moment now, breathing would no longer be an option.

Any moment now.

Any... moment... now...

Chapter Text

Any...... moment...... now?

With a loud sigh, Lewis's glowing irises disappeared, as if he had closed his eyes in frustration. They reappeared as he looked up and glared at the ceiling, his hands balled tightly at his sides. Arthur shifted uncomfortably, unsure of what was going on. Should he say something, or wait and see? Just as he was about to open his mouth, probably to put his foot in it, Lewis's shoulders twitched and he spun around to face the door. “What?” he barked, clearly irritated. Following his gaze, Arthur spotted one of those purple, formless spirits that terrorized him the first time he visited, peeking into the room. It flinched upon being addressed, then hastily floated inside.

“I hate to interrupt your moment of, uh... triumph? Well, your moment there, but there's a situation downstairs and everyone's being summoned. Especially the basement-dwellers.”

“Seriously? Now?”

“I'm sorry! But the House is under attack by another entity! Apparently it followed him here?” it squeaked, glancing in Arthur's direction.

Lewis turned to stare at him, and he could only stare back in surprise. “What, you mean... the fog?”

“What on earth have you done now?” Lewis groaned as the dead beat nodded and scuttled away. He stood with his hands clenched in frustration, looking around the room as if searching for something. After a moment, he sighed and grabbed the metal chain where it trailed along the floor. With entirely too much ease, he broke the chain between his hands and gave it a tug, encouraging Arthur to take to his feet. “Come on. I'm not letting you out of my sight! The last thing I need is for you to off yourself while I'm gone—and deny me the satisfaction, I mean.”

“Ow ow ow, not so hard, my back is killing me,” he whimpered as he sidled around him to the door.

“Don't be a baby, it can't be that b—oh.”

“What? What did that sound mean?”

“Nothing!” Lewis said hastily, avoiding his eyes. “Now come on, I'm a busy dead guy, I've got places to be.” He ushered them both into the hall, closing the door behind them. Instead of the oppressive darkness it was shrouded in before, it looked like a perfectly ordinary, dimly-lit hallway you might find in any hotel. Even if Arthur couldn't see where any of the light was coming from.

“What's up with the, uh...” He pointed to the vase by his door with the purple hyacinths.

“The grave flowers?”

“Yeah. What do they mean?”

“Well, yours are a sorrowful apology.”

“...Oh.”

They started down the hall, Lewis pointing out other bouquets and naming them. “Candy Tuft for indifference. Narcissus for narcissism, obviously. Withered flowers for rejected love. Peonies for shame. Anemones for the forsaken.”

“I see,” Arthur said with a tone that meant please don't tell me any more. He peered into the distance. “Wasn't this place... longer?”

“Possibly,” he replied with a shrug. “Don't worry about things like that in this place. It tends to be exactly as big as it needs to be at any given time.”

“So the second floor could be twice as big as the floors below, if it had that many more suicidal ghosts than... whatever's on the first?”

“Sure.”

“What is the first floor's specialty, anyway? People who died in battle?”

“And accidents. Well, except the left wing, that one's for spirits who didn't wake until their graves were desecrated. How did you know?”

“The suits of armor are kind of a giveaway.”

Lewis chuckled. “The suits aren’t normal spirits, as far as I can tell. They never speak, and they have no hearts. I think the House creates them? But they seem to have a soul… I really don’t know how that works.”

“Gasp! Something you don’t understand? Better hit the books, then.”

“Quiet, you,” he joked, then went silent as the humor drained away as quickly as it had come. They both looked away, uncomfortably aware of the gulf between them that didn’t use to exist.

“Anyway,” Lewis continued when the silence grew too heavy, “there's also a third floor. I guess it’s more of an attic, really. That’s where the people who died of sickness or old age rest, if for some reason they didn’t cross over. Basically this whole place is arranged so the more gentle, weaker ghosts are on top.”

“So the lower you go, the more powerful and violent they are?”

“...Yes.”

“So what are the... basement-dwellers?” he asked, even though he already knew the answer.

Harshly glowing eyes met Arthur's nervous ones and narrowed. “The murdered. And vengeful.”

Arthur had no more questions after that. They walked in silence, a length of chain between them, until the rail overlooking the staircase came into view. Shadows were dancing all along the ceiling, cast by what must have been dozens of flickering lights in the foyer below. Shrieks and clanking noises could be heard, like some kind of battle was taking place. Exchanging glances, Arthur and Lewis ran the rest of the way to the balcony, taking in the sight that played out below.

The first floor was covered in dense fog. Dead beats were swirling and swooping everywhere, transformed into flaming will-o'-the-wisps and burning up small swaths of fog that immediately smoothed out again. The suits of armor were swinging wildly at nothing, and occasionally destroying the furniture, in their attempts to vanquish their foe. If the fog was taking damage from any of this, it was impossible to tell. Lewis groaned and held a hand to his face.

“How did it even get in here?” he muttered to himself. “Uninvited guests can't even see this place, much less enter its grounds. It's protected by far more than a mere stone wall.”

“Maybe it's just really powerful?”

“It's fog.”

“No, I meant the thing controlling the fog. I couldn't see it, but I could hear it following me in the grass. Sure freaked me out.”

Even through his skull-like face, Arthur could read Lewis's “why didn't you tell me that detail in the first place!” expression loud and clear. He tried to slink away under the force of the glare, but Lewis was having none of that. In a swift motion, he tied the end of the chain around the banister rail. “Stay. Put,” he ordered, then leaped over the rail, flipped, and landed lightly on his feet on the fog covered floor below.

“Showoff,” Arthur muttered, very quietly. He watched as Lewis spread the word, rounding up ghosts and pointing in various directions. They took quickly to his commands, or suggestions, or whatever it was Lewis was saying. Arthur wondered if Lewis was a respected figure in the House or something, despite being the new guy. Was he respected because he was a basement-dweller, and therefore big and menacing and powerful? Or was he as social in death as he was in life, listening intently to all the ghosts' tragic stories and earning their friendship? Whatever the case, now the flying spirits were working together in groups, clearing the fog away from nooks and crannies where something might be able to hide, while the haunted armor stood with swords at the ready to stab anything that might be revealed. In the meantime, Lewis...

Lewis seemed to be concentrating hard, crouched down with his arms out. The fiery light that served as his hair seemed to flicker and weaken, then flared up wildly as every single object in the foyer—from the side tables to the candles in their sconces to the rug that ran from door to stairway—suddenly floated up into the air and swirled around the center of the room like a tornado.

“Whoa,” Arthur whispered.

Something slender and maybe two feet long was flung off from the underside of a side table. It scuttled about in alarm, almost getting chopped in half by a knight's sword. Just before it could get burned by a will-o-the-wisp's fire, it darted up the leg of a suit of armor and slipped through a gap into its hollow insides.

The knight stumbled backwards, twisting and stomping as fog roiled out of every joint. It shuddered and bent over, going still as the others cautiously approached, unsure of what to do. From the slit in its visor, the glowing magenta lights that served as its eyes dimmed out, then flashed a poisonous green. The suit stood up tall once more—and lashed out at everyone else.

Lewis just barely had time to raise an arm to protect himself, but another knight was faster, blocking the blow with its shield. The armored guardians rounded on their possessed comrade, battering it to and fro as it backed away, trying to ward off the jarring blows that clanged loudly against the metal and rattled the invader within. In only a few moments the sword went spinning out of its hands, and it looked like its was only barely hanging on to the shield. The helmeted head swung this way and that, looking for an escape.

Then it spotted Arthur watching from the balcony, and its eyes flashed.

Arthur flinched, struck by a sudden tightening feeling in his gut. The armor bashed the others away with its shield, giving itself a split-second opening. It grabbed the plume of hair on its helmet, pulled its head off, and swung the entire piece straight at him. Arthur ducked as the helmet zoomed past him, hit the wall so hard it left a hole, and clattered noisily across the floor before coming to a stop. He watched with growing horror as something crawled out of the helmet's neck-piece. Something familiar.

“No.” He tried to back away, but he was still chained to the rail. “Not you.”

It crawled toward him on dirty green fingers, putrid and decaying. Arthur knew it wanted to finish off what it had been interrupted from doing the last time. Before he could even open his mouth to call for help, though, a roaring line of magenta fire erupted between him and his attacker. “Lewis!” he cried as the phantom landed lightly on the rail beside him. He felt a surge of relief, swiftly followed by a bout of panic. He spun back to the isolated foe. “Burn it! Quick!”

Lewis raised his hand to direct the fire, but the undead arm was already making a hasty retreat. Bending at the elbow like it was a knee, it sprung up and grabbed the hole in the wall made by the helmet, then scuttled inside like a rat. Fire followed it inside, but the hissing sound of steam made it obvious that the monster was extinguishing just enough of it to get away safely. Dead beats swarmed up and stuck their heads through the wall, already on the job to track it back down. Judging by the way they vanished, it must have slipped down the rafters to another floor already. “Argh, the walls are filling up with fog!” one of them lamented before fading out of sight.

Lewis didn't move. He was still standing there, staring at the hole with his arm up, as if frozen. Arthur side-eyed him nervously. Maybe he hadn't noticed?

“Wasn't that your wristband?”

He'd noticed. “What wristband?” Arthur asked with feigned casualness.

“That thing. It was an arm. Exactly the size of your missing one. And it was wearing one of your wristbands.”

He shrugged tensely. “Coincidence.”

“It was pursuing you.”

“No accounting for taste.”

Lewis turned to face him, clearly bewildered and irritated. “You said you lost your arm to a dog.”

“I did,” he replied, his voice clipped.

“So why is it wandering around possessed by a monster? I assumed it was either digested or incinerated or something.”

“Medical negligence,” he growled, looking off to the side.

Lewis clutched his skull in frustration. “What is wrong with you? Why are you being so cagey all of a sudden? First you got all defensive about whether you were suicidal or not, and now this!”

Arthur didn't answer that, because quite honestly, he wasn't even sure himself. All he knew was that only the chain on his arm was preventing him from running far away from this conversation. “What does it even matter? Just kill the monster so we can get back to business.”

“Because I need to understand! I hate doing things in haste, you know that!”

He finally looked back at him. “Be hasty! Be impulsive! You're dead, you don't have to worry about consequences!”

“But you do!”

“I KNOW!!”

Lewis actually looked taken aback by the outburst. They stared at each other, Arthur with his shoulders hunched defensively and his breath coming fast. His face felt like it was burning. Lewis slowly raised his hands in a calming gesture. “O... kay. Obviously I've hit a nerve here. Is that monster and the guilt you feel somehow related?”

Arthur glared.

“Now that I think about it... there was a lot of fog in that cave where I—where we went to. Is that where the monster came from?”

His teeth clenched so hard the grinding was probably audible. Apparently Lewis interpreted that as a yes. And now the gears in that skull were definitely turning. “So if a dog was involved... surely it wasn't Mystery.” His eye twitched. Lewis gaped. “Mystery tore off your arm?! Why?! Because you pushed me?”

Arthur jumped on the guess, trying to look unrepentant and confrontational. “Yes.”

“So no, then,” Lewis continued on, completely unfooled. “Wait. Wait a minute.” Arthur could see the realization slowly dawn across his face, and he hated it. “Did that thing...” He glanced down at the helmet from the suit of armor it had possessed. “It can...” He looked up at Arthur. “When you...” The glow of his eyes widened. “But that means--”

“NO!!” Arthur bellowed, then doubled over coughing as he strained his voice again. Lewis made a motion as if to reach over and pound his back, and Arthur hastily straightened up and slapped the hand away. “It doesn't mean anything!” he rasped out between coughs, despite the pain in his throat. He had to stop this now. “I was weak, and an easy target, and I couldn't do a thing to stop it! It's my fault you're dead, Lewis, mine, and I don't want your pity just 'cause I can't live with it!” He balled up his fists and swung them at Lewis's chest, and though one of them phased through as Lewis turned transparent, the other one continued to strike a solid surface. “Don't... stop... just... cause... it's... the... second... floor!” he shouted with each hit.

Lewis grabbed him by his wrist, the phantom wrist Arthur couldn't even see, and held him still. “But this still changes things! Now I know--” he paused a moment to wrestle Arthur still again, “--now I know you didn't want to. You didn't betray me out of jealousy or hatred, like I thought you did. Why... why would you want to keep that from me?”

“BECAUSE,” he started out loudly, before a sudden flow of tears choked up his voice, “then you might forgive me and that's the one thing... the one thing...” The fight evaporated out of him as quickly as it had come, and Arthur sank limply to the floor as the floodgates opened up. “...The one thing... I couldn't bear... most of all...”

He covered his mouth with his other hand, but it couldn't stifle the sound of his sobs. They echoed across the open foyer back to their private perch on the balcony, a broken sound for a broken man and a broken friendship.

Chapter Text

Lewis slowly, awkwardly, crouched down next to him, releasing Arthur's hand and looking like he had no idea what to do, for once. Arthur was certain that the ghost was never going to kill him now. Which meant that he was either going to have to keep limping through life with his crippling burden, or really do the deed himself. He peered out through his tears at the drop on the other side of the banister slats. He wondered if that was a long enough fall.

“I think...” Lewis began cautiously, reaching over and snapping off the metal cuff that had been attached to his arm since he awoke. Arthur wondered if he was undoing the chain so he could make the jump. “I think maybe it would help... if you knew... that I'm as much to blame in my own death as you are.”

Arthur blinked, totally thrown off by the unexpected statement. Upon raising his head, he found that Lewis had shifted into his human appearance again, and was currently staring at his over-sized hands as he toyed nervously with the remaining length of chain. “You see, the thing is. Well. The thing is. If you're somehow at fault for being possessed... then I'm definitely at fault for putting you in that situation.”

Arthur searched his mind for an elegant rebuttal that would shut down such a ridiculous notion before he had to waste any more time listening to it. “Huh?”

“It's like this. We both love Vivi, right? As a person,” he clarified before Arthur could finish opening his mouth. He shut it and nodded. “Vivi is just an all around, amazing pal and life with her as a friend is a thousand times more interesting and exciting than without! But, Vivi as a girlfriend... is also amazing, of course! But still, there are things... that might be nice, that she just... doesn't... do.”

Arthur raised his hands as if to cover his ears.

“No, not that,” Lewis said hastily, starting to look flustered. “Let me, uh, well, how about this. People look at me and think, 'wow, that guy's huge, he must be a super manly football player,' right? Or maybe a bouncer. Street brawler. Something... anyway, a really stereotypically macho guy right? But then they find out I'd rather watch Sailor Moon than any kind of sports match, or that I spend my days either wrangling a trio of hyperactive little girls or happily serving people food, and they just get this look... like... I don't know. Like they were impressed and intimidated at first, but now suddenly I'm okay to laugh at. But who cares, those are strangers, right? Except, even when its just us three... who did I go to when my toilet wouldn't stop running? You. Who did Vivi go to when her clothes dryer broke? You. Who do we depend on to keep the van running? Certainly not me, I don't even know how to change the tail light.”

Arthur gave him a flat look, tapping his fingers against the floor.

“Right, okay, the point. So...Vivi is older and braver than either of us, that's obvious. I tried to shield her from danger once and she pushed me out of the way and said I was blocking her view. But then... there's you.”

Arthur stopped tapping.

“Do you get... what I'm trying to say here?”

He was certainly starting to get an idea.

“You're going to make me actually say it, aren't you.”

He nodded stiffly.

Lewis sighed, looking extremely embarrassed and ashamed. “It was me. Maybe it was Vivi's idea the first time we dragged you into a place that terrified you, but after that it was always me who insisted you had to come. I liked it. The way you hid behind me for protection and clung to my shoulders when you were scared. It made me feel invincible, like I was stronger and braver and all the things a man is supposed to be. I was addicted to it! I used you to feel better about myself, and I guess... I paid the price for it.” His voice filled with horrified revelation. “And then I had the audacity to blame you for it! I almost killed you!”

Arthur felt like the world had turned upside down. His mind and emotions had gone completely blank. He had no idea how to feel about this. Lewis didn't look like he was fairing too well either. “I was a terrible friend,” he whispered to himself, eyes staring inward, at the past. Arthur just looked blankly at nothing, and didn't disagree.

They sat in silence for a very long time, lost in their ruminations. I went through hell, Arthur thought. You put me through hell. I was just about to throw myself over the railing, and now you spring this on me. Should I be angry? Does this clear me of guilt? How could it? You're still dead, and by my hand. Nothing has changed.

And yet, something had. Where once there had only been remorseful contrition, now there was a poisonous sliver of... resentment.

Were you looking down on me?

“Maybe,” he began cautiously, finally breaking the silence, “I should go home.”

There was a flash of something in Lewis's eyes that looked disturbingly like loneliness, before his humanity faded away again into cold fire and bone. “Yeah.” He stood up, brushing away a few bits of broken chain and studiously looking away. “Yeah, this is a house for the dead. You don't belong in a place like this.”

Arthur looked out across the mess on the first floor to the entryway. The headless armor was the only spirit still there, shuffling about as it tried to put things away, an odd stoop to its shoulders. Did it feel ashamed for having been possessed? Even through the burnt-out haze of his emotions, Arthur felt a glimmer of amusement that he could feel kinship with a supernaturally animated object. Picking up the battered helmet as he walked past, he tucked it under his arm and walked gingerly down the staircase, the other hand sliding down the banister for support. He tried not to think about which one of the hands he was using wasn't real.

The armor seemed hesitant when he offered its head back. Arthur couldn't really blame it; the helm was rather worse for wear, and not with war-wounds that inspired pride. “Sorry about that,” he said with regret. The knight processed his words for a moment, then deigned to bow and let him place its helmet back on its shoulders. Dark slots flashed as the glowing eyes returned, and it gave him a dignified nod before returning to its task. Arthur thought that the armor was perhaps moving with a lighter step now, but knew that it could just as easily be his imagination.

He paused in the entryway. It was so much more inviting with sunlight streaming in through the window above the double doors. Not nearly as scary as when he jumped through it with eyes closed, fleeing from a foe that followed him anyway. He kind of felt guilty about leaving with that thing running rampant in Lewis's new home. Not that he could do anything about it, and not that ghosts were really in any kind of danger from it. Still...

He turned one last time, looking up to the second floor where he had left Lewis standing. Whatever he had been planning on saying died in his throat when he realized there was no one up there to shout it to. Lewis had already vanished.

“Goodbye,” he whispered anyway, mostly for his own sake. It didn't help much. He still felt unsettled, like he was leaving with too many issues left unresolved. He was pretty sure he was doing the right thing, since he needed more time to sort out his feelings. It was just... he wasn't sure he would ever be able to come back. Most people couldn't find this place even once.

The front door creaked open on its own, and Arthur took the hint. “Sorry about the... well. Everything,” he said glumly to the house as he paused in the doorway. He halfway expected some kind of response, considering all the effort that had been put into reserving a room for him, but nothing happened. Instead he walked over the threshold, and the doors clicked shut behind him.

Chapter Text

The sun was shimmering warmly across the rain-drenched lawn, chasing away a few lingering storm clouds. The angle was all wrong for rainbows, which Arthur felt was a generous display of consideration for the state of his feelings. It was bad enough that the sun was out at all. Shielding his eyes against the brightness after the dimly lit mansion, he looked out across the gate below, blinked, and looked again. No, it wasn't a mirage or wishful thinking. Outside the walls, parked on the side of the lonely road, was a familiar custom-painted van.

“Vivi?” he asked softly in surprise. There was no one he could see in the driver's seat, but maybe she was in the back? Hobbling down the stone steps, he ran up to the gate, which was conspicuously free of vines this time. “Vivi!” he called as he gave the iron bars a push. There was no lock, nothing to keep him from taking the final steps out onto ordinary, haunt-free pavement. Arthur ran to the back of the van and opened the door, but there was no one inside. He stepped back and looked around, trying to see where his friend might have run off to.

The mansion was gone.

There was no gate, no stairs, and no haunted house. There was a short segment of stone wall, still, but it was old and crumbling. Nothing else but twisted trees and thorny bushes as far as the eye could see, separated only by a river of pavement—the same sight he'd been frustrated to see all last night. Arthur felt a pain in his hands, and realized he was clenching them tightly. Well, he assumed his phantom hand was clenching too. He could feel the pain from it, all the same. “VIVI!” he shouted into the wilderness.

There was a moment of quiet, the wind stirring slightly through his tangled hair. “Arthur?!” cried a muffled voice somewhere in the woods. “Where are you?”

“By the van!”

“I'll be right there! Don't go anywhere!” There was a cracking, snapping sound as something went crashing through the undergrowth, and a moment later Mystery popped out, his fur matted with cockleburs and twigs. A complex string of emotions fought for dominance on the dog's face; relief, irritation, feigned indifference, and concern. The two of them had never been close in the first place, a product of being rivals for Vivi's attention, and they'd been treading on eggshells around each other ever since Mystery ripped Arthur's arm off. There are some things that are hard to forgive, even if they were necessary.

A few moments later and Vivi emerged, her legs scratched and bleeding, her short hair in disarray. “Arthur!” she cried with relief as she ran toward him, stopping short from hugging him at the last second. She looked him up and down instead, concern plain on her dirt-streaked face. Arthur realized with a stab of dismay that the streaks looked rather like tear tracks. “Are you okay? You look terrible. Your eyes are all bloodshot,” she said as she reached over and gently took his face in her hands, peering intently. The caring warmth of her touch was wonderfully comforting; the pain in his phantom limb seemed to melt away. “What happened? I went to check your apartment and it was unlocked and empty. Your phone and arm were still on your desk! I thought you were abducted or something, but according to Mystery's nose you just walked out on your own.”

“It's a long story,” he said, suddenly feeling exhausted, “but it started out with sleepwalking.” He pointed downward. “Maybe we should clean you up first?”

“Oh,” she said as she stepped back, glancing at her blood crusted legs. “Yeah, I guess.” As he turned to get the box of first aid supplies from the back of the van, though, she let out gasp. “Holy shit, what did you do to your back?!”

“What? What does it look like?” he asked, trying futilely to look over his shoulder.

“You're red and purple from top to bottom! That must hurt like hell. What happened, did you fall on a log or something?”

“Sort of,” he said with a wince, recalling the wooden bed post he had been slammed into and strangled on top of. “It only hurts when I move... anything.”

“Jeez, forget about my little scratches,” she said, slipping past him to dig around in the stacks of boxes that filled the back instead of seats. She shoved everything to one side to clear a space long enough for him to lie down, then spread out a clean blanket as bedding. Next she opened up the cardboard box with “First Aid” printed neatly on the side in sharpie, subtitled with a much sloppier scrawl that said “+ emergency drink chillers.”

“Thank goodness you guys didn't waste all my instant ice packs,” Vivi muttered as she pulled out a stack of them.

“Hey, if we didn't force you to keep buying more, they'd probably be expired,” Arthur teased weakly between hisses of pain as he lowered himself to his stomach. The pain seemed more noticeable now that there wasn't so much excitement to distract himself with. He nestled into the blanket's velvety folds, smelling the gentle scent of Vivi's favorite fabric softener. As soon as he was settled she laid a towel over the bare skin of his back, then started squeezing the ice packs to activate them. Something warm and heavy pressed down on the back of his legs, and Arthur was amazed to realize it was Mystery. He must have been really worried, to deign to show a sign of affection like that.

“So, I'm assuming you were in that super haunted house we went to before,” Vivi began as she laid the rapidly chilling packs across his prone form. The cold was almost as painful as the bruises they were meant to soothe. “So you went there while you were sleepwalking?”

“Yeah,” he replied, turning his head so the blanket wouldn't muffle his voice. “I guess that place had been weighing heavy on my mind.”

She was quiet for a moment. “That ghost we met before... that was Lewis, wasn't it?”

He sighed. Guess there wouldn't be any dodging that subject. That terrible, necessary, loaded subject. “What do you remember about him?”

There was a rustle as she climbed over the back of the one chair still in the back of the van and took a seat, her body angled to face him but her eyes staring off into the distance. “Actually remember? Not much. Just bits and pieces of conversations, some vague feelings. I don't remember the night that he died at all.”

“Do you ever wonder... why? Like, do you think it was trauma like the doctors said?”

She fidgeted with her phone. A sour sort of smile tugged the corner of her lips. “No.”

He blinked. That was news to him. “Why?”

She turned her phone around and showed him what she had pulled up. It was a picture of herself and Lewis, happily embracing. Arthur remembered the photo; he was the one who had taken it for them. “Ask me what he looks like.”

“Uh. What does Lewis look like?”

“He has... brown... hair?” she began, extremely hesitantly. “Is it... a crew cut?”

Arthur's eyebrows shot up. “Weren't you just looking at this photo?”

“Yes! When I try to remember him, and our conversations and stuff, it's like I was talking to a shadowy mannequin. When I look at pictures of him, I barely recognize him, and as soon as I look away, I can't remember what he looked like at all. Surely that's not normal! It's gotta be supernatural, don't you think?”

“I—yeah. I do.”

She looked relieved. “Thanks. I'm so tired of hearing everyone tell me that it's all in my head. Those doctors, what a bunch of babying know-it-alls.” Her nose wrinkled as she curled her lip. “They almost wouldn't even let me go to his funeral. Too afraid it might trigger something and break my brain, I guess.”

“...How was it?”

“The funeral? Sad. I felt so bad for his family. Mrs. Pepper always looks so stern, but she was really broken up about it. And the girls... I think they may hate me now, because I didn't cry. But how could I? To them he was the big brother they never knew they wanted until he showed up on their doorstep, but to me... he was almost a stranger. If it weren't for the stories, I might have just shrugged off his loss and moved on.”

“Stories?”

“It seems like everyone has one. “Lewis bought me a drink and listened to me when I'd had a really bad day at work, and it made my week.” Or “Lewis put in a good word for me with a professor so they let me sign up for a class I badly needed that was already full.” “Lewis let me hide in the kitchen when my abusive ex-boyfriend came into the restaurant looking for me, and gave him such a stern talking to that he never bothered me again.” “Lewis watched my kids for me when I lost my old babysitter just before finals week.” There were so many of them. It seems like he always had an ear open wherever he went for people who needed help. He sounds like an amazingly kind person. I can see why I must have loved him.”

Arthur felt his mouth tighten like he'd swallowed something bitter. “What if--” he started, then stopped.

“What?”

“What if,” he continued more hesitantly, “he wasn't as selfless as everyone thinks he is? Was. How would you feel if you found out he was only using someone?”

Vivi got very quiet. “Someone like... you?”

Arthur lifted his head so he could look at her straight on. A few ice packs shifted but managed not to fall off. “Do you know something?”

She squirmed, unable to look him in the eye. “It might be something we'd discussed before.”

He couldn't believe it. “You knew about that? How he kept me around so he could feel brave in comparison?”

She winced. “Wow, it sounds really bad when you put it like that.”

“Of course it sounds bad! It is bad! That really... really hurt! I thought he was my friend! That was kind of a big deal for me, having you two as friends! I thought that you were dragging me around to these places that scare me because that was just what friends do? But then I find out the truth and its like... I feel like a fool! Was that all I ever was? And why... why are you crying?”

It was disturbing, how quickly Vivi's nose and eyes turned red as tears began to drip down the previously dried tracks on her cheeks. “I'm sorry!” she snuffled from behind the hand that was covering her mouth, hiding the quiver of her chin. “It's just, everything you're saying, really you should be yelling at me!”

“What?!” He pushed up on his one hand and moved to a sitting position, dislodging all his ice packs and one very concerned dog. “What are you talking about?”

“If you're feeling betrayed, it's all my fault! I'm the one who started it all! I was the one who first approached you at the garage, remember?” she confessed, tugging on her sleeves in a nervous gesture he’d never seen before. “I could barely afford to keep up with repairs on the van, so when I saw you working there, around my age and cute and lonely, all I could think was that befriending you might get me free labor costs. So I invited you on an investigation, hoping that you would love it and we could bond over that! But you didn't.” Her voice fell, sounding tired. “ You hated it. If it weren't for your uncle, I probably would have dropped that stupid idea, but he was just... so happy for you. He started giving me discounts immediately—kept asking if I was going to take you out again, get you some fresh air and adventure instead of being cooped up at a worktable all the time. And you were such good company, we were real friends before I even knew it! But still... it's not like I asked your uncle to stop giving me discounts.”

Arthur stared at her with unblinking eyes, and finally said, “oh.”

“What, that's it?” she muttered as she wiped her palms across her cheeks, mostly just making more dirt smears. “Where's all your anger for my betrayal?”

“It does hurt to finally hear it out loud,” he said slowly, stroking Mystery's back for comfort. The dog had moved beside him to look back and forth between their faces with concern. “But I guess I kind of always suspected that one? I mean, it was pretty obvious.”

“What, and that makes it better somehow?” she mumbled as she cleaned her tinted glasses with her shirt, unable to look him in the eye.

He couldn't help making a tiny huff of breath in amusement. “Not really. But it does mean that I've already forgiven you.”

Her lower lip puckered, like she didn't know what kind of face to make and ended up with a grimace instead. “I don't feel like I've deserved it.”

He finally smiled. “You came looking for me, didn't you?” he pointed out, holding out his arm in a rare invitation. She quickly slid out of the seat and accepted the hug, resting her arms lightly against his shoulders to avoid his back. “Only a real friend would go crawling around in those thorn bushes on the off chance that I was back there, hurt.”

She made a noise somewhere in between a sniffle and a laugh. “What else was I supposed to do? Your trail went off-road and just ended. The house wouldn't appear for me this time.”

“It's probably just as well. Something bad was following me that I don't want you to have to deal with. Although,” he realized, reaching out to pat Mystery as he nuzzled his way in on the cuddles, “you might have been a big help. I'd dare say it's unfinished business for you.” Mystery's ears swept back, a cross between let me at 'em and sorry about that.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Vivi said suddenly, pulling away and moving to fetch something from the passenger seat. Arthur kind of wished she'd stayed a little longer. Unless he was scared, he usually felt too uncomfortably shy to initiate or accept any kind of touch. “I've got the things you left behind.” With a flourish, she produced his missing phone and his pride and joy: his mechanical arm.

“Yes!” he cried, reaching out to take the latter. “I have missed this so much, you have no idea.”

“Probably not,” she admitted, helping him with the straps since he couldn't twist his shoulders far without wincing. He slipped the end over the tiny bit of upper arm he had left, getting everything adjusted and snug. Flexing the simplistic hand controls, watching the metal fingers open and shut, he couldn't help but wonder if his phantom limb had any effect on the machinery at all. Was it moving too?

Before he could get lost pondering new experiments to perform, Vivi patted the blanket and squeezed past him to gather up the ice packs. “Alright, back on your stomach, soldier. The doctor prescribes fifteen minutes of cold, not five.”

“Aaawww,” he pretended to whine, even as he obliged. Having two arms again was doing wonders for his mood. “But I was just warming up again.”

“Where is your shirt, anyway?”

“That is an excellent question. Where are all things, really? How can we assign a location to any given object when we're all spinning and rotating through the vastness of space at a million miles per hour? Give or take. Don't stick your tongue out at me,” he added, not even looking.

“I wasn't!”

“Don't roll your eyes at me, then.”

“...I did no such thing,” she said, playfulness plain in her voice.

“Uh-huh, sure, like I'll believe that.”

“The burden of proof lies on you, my dear accuser.”

“Don't go all Lewis on me,” he laughed, then felt his humor drain away. Well, that just killed the mood fast. He gave a great sigh, feeling the ice packs shift and settle with the inflation of his lungs. A moment later, Vivi laid down across the floor too, somehow squeezing into the tiny space between his side and the boxes. That was a bit more bodily contact than he had bargained for, and he couldn't help tensing up.

“Hey,” she said softly, propped sideways with her head on her palm. “You've got every right to be mad.”

“Do I?” he muttered, trying to make himself relax again now that she had stopped moving. “You don't know what all went down that horrible night.”

“True.” She held out her other hand, hovering it above his head and watching his face. When he finally nodded, she began lightly scratching his head and stroking his spiky hair. Mystery made a disgruntled noise but didn't butt in, curling back up on his legs instead. Arthur could almost feel himself melt under the soothing motions.

“It's my fault he's dead. That's the one thing I've been certain of, no matter what else might have gone on. I've been mulling on that thought so hard, it is... literally killing me. Now I'm starting to wonder if I was putting him on a pedestal and crushing myself with it. I shouldn't be so surprised that he was human, just like the rest of us. And now I feel guilty that I suddenly feel less guilty. Am I seriously so terrible that his death means less to me now that I know he wasn't perfect?”

“If you want to know what I think,” she began questioningly, then continued when he met her gaze, “I think you're just finally accepting that the fault doesn't lay solely on your shoulders. It never did, but you couldn't see that because you didn't know about every contributing factor.”

It did seem to make sense. “Okay. I guess I can see that. But all that aside... how do I get over being used like that? This is kind of a reverse case from our situation; our friendship started as a lie and in time became real. But I thought his friendship was real from the start, and now it's become a lie. It's not like we can fix it, he's dead!”

“It wasn't a lie!” she said, her eyes imploring, her voice insistent. “I promise! Selfish moments aside, Lewis was a good friend to you. The best. Better than me.”

Arthur gaped at her, startled by her certainty. “How can you know? You barely even remember him.”

“I--” she began, then looked a bit flustered. She pulled out her phone again, thumbing through her list of apps. “I have one more source of info about him.”

“Who?”

“...My diary.”

Chapter Text

Arthur's eyebrows shot up. “I didn't know you kept a journal. Though I guess it makes sense, you keep track of everything. ”

Vivi seemed relieved that he didn't tease her about it. “It's a good thing I did, huh? It's kind of been my lifeline to the past ever since my memory fucked off.”

“Do you write about me in there?” he asked, only half joking.

“You and Lewis probably make up 80% of the things I bother to write about.”

“What are the other twenty?”

“Ghost experiences. And complaining about my mom.”

“Ah. Sounds about right.”

Vivi glanced over to see if he was judging her, but his face was open and sympathetic. Looking back at the phone, she apparently found the passage she was looking for. “This is actually one of the last entries I made while he was alive. It's... very personal.”

“If it's graphic, can you leave those bits out?”

“Not personal like that,” she said with an amused sigh of long-suffering. “I mean it's... it doesn't paint me in a very good light. It's mostly about you, actually. And it's stuff you really ought to know.”

“Oh.”

She cleared her throat nervously. Her eyes stared intently at the screen, and she opened her mouth only to close it again. “L--” she started hesitantly, then stopped. “Man, I can't bear to read this out loud. Here, you read it,” she said quickly, holding the phone out and looking away, embarrassed.

Arthur propped himself up on his elbows, losing a few ice packs as he got comfortable and took the proffered device. It was a sign of how numb his back was now that it didn't hurt to bend this way. Vivi's diary entry was a wall of white text on a black background.

Lewis and I had another argument today. He'd been talking a lot lately about moving out of the Pepper's home, letting the girls take over his old room, so I suggested that we move in together. My apartment would be too small, of course, but when I suggested getting a bigger one, he said it should be a suite so we could invite Arthur.

Arthur's eyebrows shot up. He glanced at Vivi, but she was chewing on her lip and pointedly staring elsewhere, one foot bouncing with nervous energy.

I was like, Arthur's not going to want to live with us, not when we'll probably be banging the headboard and wandering around naked all the time or something, and he was like, I'm sure you can make the ultimate sacrifice of wearing a robe, have you even asked him? (We haven't even told him we're going out yet, of course I haven't asked him!) And then Lewis got all shrewd on me and asked if the real problem was that I was worried what my mom would think. Of course I am! She already stares down her nose at me for dating a guy three years younger, and she's going to flip her shit when she finds out we're “living in sin.” Add in what she'll of course assume is a licentious threesome and she'll probably disown me!

L-licentious... threesome? Okay yeah, that sounded like something Vivi's mom would say. Arthur had never met someone so negatively obsessed with sex and the people having it. The one time he'd had the misfortune of speaking with her, she had told him to his face that his identity wasn't a real thing and he was a liar.

Lewis scoffed that it was her loss, and I blew up and told him that he didn't know what it was like, he didn't have a real mom! And I'm sure I went too far, but he just said that Mrs. Pepper would gladly take me in, too. Sometimes I don't know how Lewis can stand me, he has inhuman patience. But by that point I was arguing because I felt bad and wanted him to feel bad too, so I pressed him on why he was so intent on having Arthur live with us. Was there some other fault of mine that he made up for? (Arrg, I can't believe I said that. Arthur, it's not like you'll ever read this, but I am so, so sorry.)

He couldn't help it, he chuckled at that.

I think I finally hurt Lewis with that one, but he swallowed it down and asked me instead about where I saw myself in thirty years. What? “Not saying it has to be me,” he said, because lets face it, Lewis is too shy to make assumptions, “but do you suppose you'll get married someday, to someone you can share your life and grow old together with?”

Arthur darted a quick glance at Vivi, his eyes wide. Was that just a general question about her future plans, or something more? Sure, they were talking about moving in together, but still...

Well, yeah? We'll probably have a kid or two; Jr. ghost hunters who'll take care of us when we're so old and decrepit we're almost ghosts ourselves. And then he asked, “who will Arthur grow old with?”

Arthur sucked in an involuntary breath. Wait. Wait, wait wait wait, they couldn't really be—surely not.

I was floored. Totally floored. Our dear friend had told us many times that he's ace, and I'd never even thought about what that meant in the long run. Did Arthur plan on getting married someday? Who would he even marry, someone who would have to seek out others for sex? Another ace person, assuming he could find one and they even got along? Or would he just quietly watch his friends from a polite distance? Who would Arthur grow old with? “Us?” I finally said, feeling very humbled. I'm such a horrible friend.

There was a rattling sound that it took Arthur a moment to identify: his metal hand against the phone. His hands were shaking.

Lewis pointed out that Arthur was already pulling away. That we need to be open with him. Stop dating in secret. Let him know we'll never leave him out, that he's always welcome. (With possibly a kick in the pants if he tries to be all noble and “give us our space.”) I agreed, but I was still worried. What if he just couldn't get comfortable with the two of us being “us?” Arthur gets frustrated just listening to the radio because almost every song is about sex and dating. Lewis didn't know what to say to that. In the end he suggested we take it slow and see how things go, but he sounded just as nervous as I felt. How do we find a good balance between growing our romance and preserving our friendship? Lewis and I love each other, but we love Arthur, too. Why do relationships have to be so hard?

There was something screaming at Arthur's brain, louder than his unsteady breaths and roaring heartbeat. That night, at the cave, when Vivi and Lewis pulled him from the van. What had they said?

We wouldn't dream of leaving you behind!

I'm looking out for you.

He'd thought they were mere platitudes at best, or selfish justifications at worst. Now, though, a new explanation had come to light that was making his throat contract painfully with emotions he couldn't hold back. Lewis and Vivi had been unsure how he'd react.

So they'd been dropping hints.

The phone slipped from Arthur's fingers with a clatter. As Vivi looked back over, she found him with his face buried in his arms, shoulders shaking. “Um--” she started, obviously having no idea how to proceed.

“I was so afraid!” he blurted out, loud enough that the blanket was unable to muffle his words, despite the tightness in his voice that meant he was about to cry. “I was so certain. I was so messed up about it. I couldn't even bring myself to mention it, it was too embarrassing. How can you look at your best friends when they've become a happy couple and have the gall to beg, please, please, don't leave me behind?” He lifted his head, and he knew he looked like a choked up mess but it didn't matter. Vivi was starting to water at the eyes anyway, and would soon be joining him. “I was willing to keep going to these terrifying places because it was something we did together, and I would go to a hundred more if that's all it takes! I used to think I was okay with being alone, but then I wasn't alone anymore and I don't ever want to go back!” He reached out and wrapped a hand around hers, both of them warm and clammy and dirty. She turned hers over so she could grip back. “I would have loved to share an apartment with you guys, even if you did feel the need to make out in the kitchen while I'm having breakfast.” Vivi's laugh was wet and giddy and tinged with despair. “I hardly dared to dream you guys would be willing. I never even imagined you were already discussing it.” He shuddered with great, bitter tears of regret. “If only I'd known. Maybe things would have gone down differently! But... it’s too late.”

Vivi's shoulders quivered beside him, and they laid there side by side, curled into each other and crying over the dream that could no longer be, until they were raw and exhausted. Mystery had left at some point, giving them some privacy while he stood guard outside. The two of them finally pulled up to a sitting position, Arthur shoving aside the ice packs and towel that had fallen off a while ago and were no longer cold anyway.

“What should we do now?” Vivi asked, looking strangely small as she rubbed the feeling back into her arms.

“I've gotta go back,” Arthur said with dawning realization.

“Back... in the haunted house?”

“I can't leave things like this. We parted on such poor terms... I need to talk to Lewis again!” He scrambled to crawl out of the van, almost tripping over the blanket.

“But the house is still gone, isn't it?” she asked as she followed, looking over at the section of woods with the crumbled wall just to make sure. Even so, she couldn't keep the sudden excitement out of her voice.

Arthur felt so certain the house would let him back in, it was a bit of a shock when he stepped past the line of the wall only for nothing to happen. Baffled, he stepped back and tried again, getting the same result. “But... but I was just here!” he cried, feeling oddly like he'd been abandoned. “I had a room and everything.”

“You had a room?”

He coughed. “Long story.”

“Looks like your invitation has been revoked,” she concluded with a pout.

“Please!” he shouted, not ready to give up yet. “House of Strays! Let me in, I have to talk to Lewis again!” When there was still no response, he eyed Vivi sideways, then resigned himself to having to explain a lot of things later. “I know I... I'm not suicidal anymore. But I still need to come back! I may not be dead, but I have unfinished business!”

Now he could feel Vivi's eyes staring intently into the back of his head, and still nothing was appearing. For a second he felt like slipping into despair, but then he pulled himself together and forced himself to think. What else might work? What else...

“Vivi,” he said firmly, holding up his mechanical arm. “I need this off again.” Her eyebrows rose in curiosity, but she helped him loosen the straps and remove the clasps he couldn't reach at the moment. He laid it on the ground with a heavy clunk and moved forward again, stopping just in front of where the gate should be. He closed his eyes and lifted his arms.

There is a way in, right in front of you. All you have to do is open the door. Now find it. Find the door! Open your hand, just like you know you can. Feel what isn't there. It is there, you've seen it! Arthur struggled to shake off the unhelpful thoughts that told him he was just waving a stump at the open air. Reach out your hand, grab onto iron bars, and pull!

Something cold and hard registered in the part of his brain that governed the sensation in what, once, were the fingers of his left hand. Arthur grabbed onto it like a lifeline, wrapping his fingers around it tightly and opening his eyes as he pulled. Like a shimmering mirage, the sight of the House of Strays unfolded before him, its decrepit facade the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Vivi gasped with wonder, and Mystery pulled his ears back and growled.

There was fog pouring out of every window.

“OH, no,” he squeaked.

“What?! What... is that?”

“A big problem. I didn't—surely not! It can't have!”

“Make sense!!”

“My arm! Some monster possessed it, and it followed me here, and I think it's taken possession of... the entire house?!”

Vivi took a breath and held it, looking almost comical with her lips twisted and her eyes bugging out. “So, that's the thing that killed Lewis?” she clarified, her voice higher than usual.

A dozen protests clamored at his lips, yet to Arthur's surprise, what came out was a vindictive, “yes.”

“And now he's in danger from it again?”

“Sure looks that way.”

Vivi's eyes somehow managed to bug out even further, and she sucked in a breath of air through her teeth so loudly it sounded like a jet engine firing up. Arthur had a sudden, irrational fear that she was going to explode.

“MYSTERY!” she barked, almost spitting sparks as she rounded on her loyal pet and companion.

“Yes?” came the startled reply, doggy paws catching and repositioning the tiny glasses that fell off his snout when he flinched. Arthur shivered. Sometimes Mystery was so good at pretending to a normal dog that it gave him the willies when he stopped.

Vivi threw out a pointing finger at the house like she could shoot it down with nothing but righteous anger. “FETCH!!”

Chapter Text

Mystery's meek expression narrowed into a cocky grin and he let out a laugh that was downright creepy, but the confidence in it was reassuring. Before their eyes, his small, furry form vanished in an eruption of ethereal flames, growing and transforming into a more unearthly version of himself with long, lean legs and six thrashing, bushy tails. Arthur didn't know much about Mystery's past or why he chose to hide out with Vivi, and wasn't really sure he wanted to know, but sometimes it sure was convenient to have him around. Even if that meant amputation-exorcisms.

Mystery rushed through the gate and up the steps in a fluid motion, Vivi and Arthur following more clumsily behind. The front doors began slamming open and shut violently as they approached, as if trying to keep them away. Mystery growled, lunged forward, and tore one of the doors right off its hinges. Fog pooled out around their feet, white as bones with an eerie green sheen. Arthur wrinkled his nose and kicked at it. “I don't think it can hurt us,” he said, as much to reassure himself as the others.

Mystery sniffed at it and made a noise somewhere between a sneeze and a snort. “It's a conduit. But the spirit can't possess any of us without relinquishing the house first.” He whisked past them into the entryway and beyond, his human friends quick to follow. “Not that it could possess any of us very easily right now, anyway!” he shouted over his shoulder.

“Why not?” Arthur shouted back, eyes wide as he took in the state of the foyer. It looked like a tornado had hit; planks of wood were sticking up from the floor, tearing the runner carpet to shreds, while the purple striped wallpaper had bubbled and distended where the walls had warped. The chandelier was swaying ominously, as if the entire building was being rocked by an earthquake. A few twitching pieces from a couple of armored knights hung perched from various broken outcroppings; he wasn't positive, but he thought he recognized a dented helmet.

“Spirits have to enter something in order to possess it, which is also the point when they're at their most vulnerable. When I ripped your arm off before it could finish taking over your body, it became trapped in that corporeal limb. Now it can only possess things that an arm can fit inside, unless it can complete the process with your body and finally free itself properly.”

“Guess that explains why it was after me,” Arthur muttered, feeling thoroughly creeped out.

“Why is it still roaming around, though?” Vivi asked, catching up quick with the conversation. “What did you do with it the first time?”

If dog fur could blush, then Mystery would have definitely been red in the face. “I, uh. I buried it?”

“...in a locked box?”

“No, just... in the ground.”

There was something amazing about the sight of a mythical creature with its ears back and six tails between its legs, like it was awaiting a smack with a newspaper. “Mystery!” Vivi hissed. “What were you thinking!! Didn't you watch any of my zombie flicks with me?”

“I snuck in the other room and watched dramedies,” he whimpered, his head at his feet, staring up at her pathetically.

“Guys?” Arthur called out, an odd tone in his voice. They looked up from their argument to see that he was crouched down, looking into one of the holes in the floor and growing paler by the second.

“What? What is it?” Two more heads huddled around his to stare downward, and the dawning realization soon encompassed all three of them. Looking into the basement was like looking into eternity.

“It didn't seem so far when we fell down the trapdoor before,” Vivi said quietly.

“This house generates its own reality. It's as big or small as it wants to be. And now, that thing has control... we're never going to be able to find it.”

“I could still sniff it down,” Mystery said hopefully.

“We'll die of old age first.”

“I'll tear this place apart!”

“I don't think it cares! Look what it did to the place already!”

“What—what do you think it did to the residents?” Vivi asked, looking horrified. “Did you see those poor knights in armor?”

“They're probably fine,” Mystery said with false cheer. “They're ghosts, they can't be hurt.”

“I could touch Lewis, though,” Arthur added as he waved his phantom hand by way of explanation. “I bet they could be held captive.” There was a moment of silence as they all processed that. Then they started shouting.

“LEWIS!!”

“Lewis, where are you!”

“If you can hear us, if you can reach us, we're right here!”

“HEY! Hey, monster! It's me! You know, the one you need in order to free yourself? If you ever want to be anything more than a rotting hand in the drywall, you'd better bring Lewis to us, RIGHT NOW!” The other two turned to look at Arthur. “What?”

“You're not... uh.” Vivi struggled with whether or not to say it.

“Planning on doing something stupid, are you?” Mystery finished bluntly. Arthur's face took on that obstinate cast he only got when being backed into an emotional corner.

“Arthur!” they began, only to be interrupted by a vigorous trembling in the floor. The walls rattled fiercely and the chandelier finally gave up the ghost, crashing loudly onto the stairs and sending out a spray of crystal pieces. As the three intruders huddled together and backed up towards the entryway, the floor at the foot of the staircase exploded as something burst through, coming to a stop heavily on top of the pile of splintered wood.

“What is that?” Vivi asked, peeking with one eye around the hands she had raised to ward off the shrapnel. The object was plenty large enough to hold a human, engraved with a skull and decorative, angular brambles. Numerous chains were wrapped around it, holding tight against the flashes of magenta flames that licked at a seam that encircled the sides from top to bottom.

“A coffin?” Mystery wondered.

“Lewis!” Arthur gasped.

Furious banging could be heard coming from inside, along with wordless bellows of anger. What once had been a gift from the house, a place to rest his bones, had now become his prison. Chains that Lewis could have broken easily one by one were safely out of his reach, working en masse to hold the wooden box together against the force of his fiery tantrum.

“Lewis!” they cried as they started to run forward again. The banging stopped, presumably because he heard their voices, but whatever reply he made was too muffled by the coffin's padding to be understood. Before the trio could get close enough to attempt to free him, several planks of broken wood rose up on one end, angled like spikes for them to run into. Arthur almost got impaled as the other two crashed into his back. Obviously, coming to Lewis's aid would not be allowed.

There was a noise behind them. For a second, Arthur thought they were all about to be pushed into the spikes by force, but upon looking back he found only an innocuous writing desk. It could have been the same one from his room on the second floor for all he knew; it was adorned only by a stack of paper, an inkwell, and a fluffy quill. He exchanged confused glances with Vivi and Mystery. Now what?

As if to answer their unspoken question, the quill dipped itself into the ink, then began to write.

Apprehensively, they inched closer with shuffling steps. Before they could get close enough to read, the paper flipped up into the air and floated over right in front of Arthur's nose.

A deal, then. I will grant the Revenant's freedom if you will grant me mine.

Vivi snatched the paper so she and Mystery could read it too. “Nuh-uh, Arthur, no way.”

“It just wants to be free, though, right? Doesn't that mean it will possess me for a moment and then let me go? Maybe?”

There was a flurried scratching sound as the quill scribbled across another sheet, and Arthur realized that the spirit could hear them just fine, even if neither it nor the house it was possessing could speak. The new sheet fluttered over.

I just want to go home. If the Witch will take us there in her carriage, then I give my word that I will release you.

Three sets of eyes absorbed the ornate writing. “I'm not a witch,” Vivi said after a moment, as if she'd paused to consider the idea.

“Why didn't it just go back to the cave on its own, then, if it wants back so bad?” Arthur muttered, only to be given a flat look by Mystery. “Oh. Right. 'Cause it would still be stuck as an arm.” Another paper prodded insistently at his head.

The Not-Witch and her Familiar must leave first. The Revenant will be free once I no longer control this Construct.

“No way are we leaving you here alone--” The next paper was a wad that thunked Vivi right in the face.

Do you think me a fool? Your dog will attack the moment I show myself. Leave. Or no deal.

The coffin containing Lewis's spirit made a threatening lurch, sinking several feet back through the floor. “NO!” they yelped, ruining any chance they might have had to bluff indifference.

“Shit!” Vivi cursed, looking torn. “I can't see what other alternative we have, unless we leave Lewis imprisoned here for the rest of his... afterlife. At the mercy of his own killer, no less,” she growled.

“No way,” Arthur said despite the apprehension he felt. “Not an option. Besides, I owe him this mu—I mean.” He shook his head, then looked up, determination settling into his features. “I love him this much.”

Vivi's eyes glowed, like she was brimming with pride and delight. “Now that's something I think I can get behind,” she said, reaching out to clasp his hand tightly. “Glad to see you're finally coming back to life.”

“I have been a bit of a zombie lately, haven't I?”

“Just a bit.” She teetered with a moment of indecision, then rose up on her toes slightly to give him a lingering kiss on the cheek. “You'd better come out of this alright.”

“Believe me, I want that too.”

“Do you think we can trust this thing? Is it an honorable evil monster?”

“I have no idea. I'm sure hoping, but at the same time, I doubt it. Think we can exorcise it if it breaks its word?”

“I'll find a way,” she said darkly, squeezing his hand one last time before stepping away. “And yeah, you can take that as a threat!” she shouted to the walls.

Mystery moved in to get his own farewells, tails low and ears drooping. “You know I can't help you anymore if it finishes possessing you.”

Arthur couldn't help the strained laugh that escaped. “That's okay, really. I would rather not loose any more body parts.”

With a pained smile, the canine transformed back into a normal, more approachable-looking dog. Arthur stooped down and wrapped him up in a hug. Mystery nuzzled against his other cheek and whined.

The used papers began flying around Vivi and Mystery as they walked reluctantly to the door, flapping in blatant shooing gestures. Arthur waved half-heartedly as they looked back, clearly as dissatisfied with leaving this place as he had been when he did the same thing. “Just wait for me at the van,” he called with nervous bravado. “I doubt this will take long.”

The doors slammed shut, completely repaired, the moment they cleared the threshold. Arthur swallowed. “So, uh. Now what?”

We wait for them to leave the boundary, and then I restrain you.

“O-oh. Is that... necessary?”

I'm risking a lot to release my hold on this place.

“I'm kind of surprised you even want to. Aren't you commanding a lot of power right now?”

I don't care. I hate it here, it's too crowded. Being alone is my only desire.

“Wow. That makes me kind of sad. Being alone is like... my greatest fear.”

I know. That's why I picked you as my target when you four trespassed in my home.

“What?! Why?!”

Your preoccupation with loneliness was easy to read in your aura. It was a simple matter to penetrate your spiritual defenses when you were resisting with your weakest subject, and I with my strongest.

“Isn't that sort of like cheating at rock, paper, scissors?”

Another missive appeared and almost seemed to shrug in front of him. I would call it tactics, but to each our own. Your companions have departed and the gates are barred. Let us begin.

Chains, a familiar part of the House's repertoire by now, shot out from numerous holes in the broken floor, latching onto Arthur's limbs like manacles, even his phantom one. More chains entwined around his body, pulling him down with a loud crash. “Ow,” he complained, feeling like a wriggling worm as the slack disappeared to leave him tied to the floor on his stomach, hands pinned to his sides. The links kept pinching his bare skin and felt painfully heavy on his bruised back. “Try not to break anything, okay?”

He was surprised to get a response to that. It does not matter if you are in good condition. I fulfill my promises, including those to myself.

“What? What do you mean?”

All who invade my home and disturb my solitude must be punished. The cave is clearly marked with warnings about my wrath, yet still people enter. Once the Not-Witch returns me to my home, I will finish the task her Familiar interrupted before.

“You don't mean... you're going to kill us?!”

You will kill her and the dog. Then I will release you after you step off the cliff. Exactly as promised.

For a second, Arthur was speechless. “You—you filthy rotting piece of scum!!!” Tears of fury licked at the corners of his eyes. He thrashed helplessly in his cocoon of metal links, trying to think of an argument that might actually give such a selfish creature pause. “How are you going to be alone with all those vengeful spirits running around your cave, huh?!”

My roots in that place run deep; I will have enough strength to evict them. This foolish house will have more strays to take in.

The paper dropped limply to the floor, along with the wooden spikes. The room seemed to shudder as fog began pouring out of every hole, exiting the walls in long streams of white. It looked like the house was vomiting up a poison, or releasing puss from an infection. The vile spirit was relinquishing its hold. Which meant it would soon be vulnerable.

“Help!” Arthur began to shout, to anyone and everyone who might be able to hear. “Someone help!” His voice was rough and desperate, and apparently loud enough for Lewis to hear, because he started beating on the inside of his coffin again. “Anyone! Now's your chance!” Nothing happened; no one appeared, and the building itself did not move. He realized with dismay that the House of Strays was probably disoriented and weak, and would take a while to right itself and put things back in order. That meant the barred gate wouldn't be letting Vivi and Mystery back in anytime soon, much less releasing the chains that kept him and Lewis bound.

There was a soft, sliding noise coming from somewhere behind him. He froze, tense, and slowly turned his head. In the swirling fog, a disembodied hand was dragging itself up from one of the holes in the floor, sidewinding along by elbow and palm like a snake on hot sand. Several chunks of flesh were missing, no doubt scraped off on the rafters inside the walls as it had fled from pursuing ghosts. At least one fingernail had been lost entirely. Arthur felt sick with fear just looking at it.

“S-stay back! No deal! Killing us definitely wasn't in the spirit of the bargain!”

The thing completely ignored him of course, growing closer and closer with each shuffling slide. Fog rose off of the rotted surface like steam on water, wafting over toward him with a horrible rancid smell that made him want to gag. Arthur thought about that thing attaching itself to his stump and shuddered all over. Good thing the monster had forgotten to leave that part of him exposed when it tied him up in chains, though, right? Right?

How was it going to possess him, anyway? Mystery said it couldn't do it easily this time, since it was stuck in a material form, and that it had to be inside something to possess it--

Aurthur realized what it was about to do.

Chapter Text

“NO GET AWAY GET AWAY GET AWAY!!” he shrieked, pure panic robbing him of any other thought. He reared back against his chains, thrashing against the floor, trying to keep his head as far away as possible from the approaching terror. Green-glistening fog teased at his mouth, which he couldn't decide if he wanted to keep open to scream or clench tightly shut. “I don't want this I don't want this SOMEBODY HELP ME! Please, please, don't let it do this!!” he pleaded before being wracked by dry heaves. He couldn't stop envisioning it; that disgusting thing jamming itself down his throat and his imminent death by suffocation. A torrential pounding could be heard coming from Lewis's coffin, spurts of pink and purple flames bursting out of every seam. Arthur could hear wood cracking and desperately hoped it meant his friend was about to break free any second now.

The hand came to a stop in front of Arthur's face, and he still couldn't see any sign of Lewis's prison giving way. Bloated fingers twitched upward, as if to pull his lips apart. Arthur's neck was stretched to its limit, his torso bent upwards, trying to hold his head high enough that it couldn't reach. No such luck. The foul smelling fog was tickling his nose, threatening to make him cough and sneeze. The arm coiled up, ready to make a spring attack the moment his teeth parted.

Something slammed over Arthur's head, completely obscuring his vision.

He yelped, thrashing from side to side to shake it off, before it shifted so he could see again. Through a slitted aperture he watched as his would-be invader sprung backwards instead, dodging the kick of a pair of metal legs. Or a leg and an arm, apparently? A whole slew of random parts, too incomplete to be called a suit of armor, all hastily assembled in whatever manner would give it a way to move and a way to attack. Arthur realized that the thing on his head, shielding his mouth, was a helmet. A dented helmet, by the feel of it pressing into part of his scalp.

A certain ghostly knight had come to defend his honor, and also avenge its own.

“Go get it!” he crowed, collapsing back onto the floor with quaking muscles. The mishmash of armor and his dead hand leaped and dodged around each other in a bizarre battle, each trying to incapacitate or possess the other, to avoid damage and to avoid possession. Arthur wasn't sure his champion could actually do anything to harm the other, actually, but then, it didn't need to. That monster was relying on a quick transition into Arthur's body. It had to be panicking over this delay. “You're doing great, drag this out as long as you can!”

His hand somehow found a moment to flip him off.

There was a sudden new sound, that of metal striking metal. When he looked up, Arthur spotted some more segments of the knight's missing body parts, working independently from the rest. They had a sword, and rather than chase the feisty spirit around, were making even better use of it: prying at the chains that held Lewis's coffin shut. Each time a link was forced open, another chain fell to the ground with a loud clatter. Fog roiled thickly across the floor as the spirit realized what was happening, a last ditch attempt to hide itself and make an escape.

Lewis's cage exploded in a massive pink fireball, burning off the fog in one fell blast and sweeping harmlessly across Arthur's body, where it swirled back and coalesced into a familiar undead form. Massive hands tore into the chains tying him to the floor, shucking them off in moments and pulling Arthur to his feet, the helmet falling from his head. For a moment, they stared at each other at arms length, a hundred things to say dying on their tongues. Then Lewis pulled him into a nearly crushing hug.

“You're okay,” he said in a tight voice. Arthur nodded against his chest, too shaky to even form words. “You... you came back. Why?” He loosened his grip enough that Arthur could stand up straight and look him in the eye.

“I...” he fumbled, but couldn't figure out how to put his intent to words. The dull, cracked heart affixed to Lewis's chest caught his eye, and he couldn't stop himself from reaching up and trailing his fingers gently over the broken line. “To mend things,” he realized.

Lewis's eyes grew so wide, he looked like he'd been struck. Arthur thought he felt a beat throb under his fingers.

Suddenly a giant crash made the two of them jump, Lewis pushing Arthur behind him protectively before he could even think about it. All the chains in the room had begun dragging themselves to the middle, twisting together and merging into what could only be described as a giant wrecking ball suspended from the ceiling. Planks of wood were zooming about, filling in all the holes and gaps in the walls and floor that a hand-sized vermin could escape through. The segments of the armored knight abandoned dueling and scrambled instead to a corner, taking the chance to reassemble itself better. The first few dead beats began to reappear as well, jeering and shouting at the invader in their home. In the meantime, the wrecking ball heaved itself into the air, swung about ominously, then dropped into the vat of concealing fog that a certain zombie arm was desperately trying to regenerate. The hole in the floor healed itself as soon as the weight was lifted. Another crash soon followed, and another, like a game of whack-a-mole on an unprecedented scale.

The House of Strays was back in business.

As soon as he realized that, Arthur felt himself relax, which made him realize that he was presently huddled behind Lewis, gripping him tightly by the shoulders. Lewis, meanwhile, was peering at him from the corner of his eye socket, warily awaiting to see what his reaction would be.

“Eh-heh. Whoops.” He smoothed out the creases in his suit jacket, but on further thought, didn't take his hands away after all. Somehow it occurred to him, for the first time, that if Lewis needed to protect someone in order to feel brave, then that meant he was actually just as scared as he was. And even if he wasn't, it still didn't mean that he was looking down on him. If anything, Lewis understood very well what it felt like to be looked down upon. No, he was every bit the true friend he'd thought him to be, and Arthur could certainly forgive him for a little ego boosting.

Gripping Lewis's shoulders more casually, he flashed him a jocular smile. “You know, you could always ask me to teach you how to change the van's tail light if you're that worried about it.”

Lewis's eyes flashed with surprise, and he barked out a laugh tinged with as much relief as humor. “I just may take you up on that,” he said, reaching up to place a hand on top of Arthur's.

There was another crash, and this time it came with a tiny squishing noise. They quickly turned to look as the ball of chains unraveled and retracted away to reveal a gruesome sight. Exchanging glances, Arthur and Lewis cautiously approached, their faces twisted into similar expressions of disgust. The foe that had given them such grief now resembled something that had been hit by a car; half of it, the fingers and hand, were still recognizable, but beyond its mangy wristband was only a flattened smear of flesh dotted with crushed bone. Arthur turned green and tried not to retch again.

“Rot in hell, murderer,” Lewis hissed, then recoiled with a tiny shriek when the fingers started scrabbling against the floor again.

“It's still alive?!”

“Well, it was already dead...”

“What is it going to take to be rid of this thing?”

“Oh shit, it's fogging up again,” Lewis cried as spurts of mist once again began rising off the half-crushed monster. “Quick, somebody! Get a—thing!”

“Get a what??” a panicking ghost asked, almost pulling itself apart in an attempt to fly in two different directions.

“Excuse me,” said a firm, feminine voice from the entryway. All eyes turned to Vivi as she strode in with her head held high and furious spots of color on her cheeks. In her arms was a large rectangular object with glass sides and a black frame. With finality, she slammed the object on top of the hand, the insides instantly turning obscure with white fog.

“Lid!” she commanded like a surgeon requesting a scalpel. Mystery scampered forward, back in his six-tailed form, and released the glass panel from his mouth. Tilting up the edge of the glass box ever so slightly, she shoved the lid underneath, scraping up the smushed bits as she went like it was a spatula. “Tape!”

Mystery whirled around and almost flew out the front door, returning only moments later with a roll of duct tape clutched in his teeth. He dropped it into her waiting hand, then held the lid down after Vivi flipped the whole thing over. The tape made a very loud noise as it unraveled, sealing up the cover and then wrapping around the entire thing just for good measure, until there wasn't a single gap.

“Now you can bury it,” she told Mystery wryly.

Arthur was the first to find his voice. “You had an aquarium in the van?”

“It’s a terrarium,” she said defensively, with just a hint of embarrassment. “You never know when you might find an injured turtle.”

“Be prepared, huh?” he said with a grin. She laughed as she stood up and turned around, then her face went blank upon catching sight of Lewis. Arthur looked back and forth between them, observing the way they seemed frozen in place, eyes locked, and cleared his throat loudly. “Vivi, may I reintroduce you to... your boyfriend?” he said as he bowed out of the way.

The two approached each other hesitantly, painfully nervous but obviously entranced. “So you're Lewis,” Vivi said with uncharacteristic shyness.

“That's me,” he replied, scratching the back of his head. Then he went rigid and waved his hands in front of himself in a no, no sort of gesture. “Wait! This isn't me. I mean, I look different than this! Not scary and... freaky.”

“You look fine to me,” Vivi said breathlessly, then realized how that sounded. “Uh, because I dig that sort of thing! By which I mean, scary stuff. I dig the scary stuff. Not... uh. Anyway, I'm sure your real look is totally fine, too.” She started to blush terribly. “Okay. I'm sure it's totally okay.”

Lewis laughed a little, and despite the impossibility, seemed to be turning a bit red too. “I'd show you, but I can't really seem to control it, unfortunately. I'm not even sure when it happens.”

“I think it's when you reminisce about your past experiences,” Arthur shouted helpfully—from several feet away, forehead against the wall, his ears red from secondhand embarrassment. Why is romance so awkward?!

“Oh. Well, there you go,” Vivi said. “I guess we should reminisce! Or rather, you should reminisce, while I listen in fascination.”

“Actually... that reminds me!” Lewis said hopefully, perking up only to look crestfallen a second later. “Oh. Never mind. I forgot it's broken.” He looked down to the heart-shaped token on his chest, only to rear back in surprise. “Arthur!”

“What?” he cried with a startled jump, spinning around.

“You fixed it!” Lewis said in wonder, holding up the item in question. The heart was once more beating in a strong rhythm, golden and glowing and floating above the palm of his hand.

“No way!” Arthur said in disbelief, jogging over to see it up close. “Are you sure it was me?”

“You said you would mend things. And we did, didn't we?” He ruffled Arthur's hair, making him duck and pout while he fixed it.

“It still has a fracture line,” Arthur pointed out, a little disappointed.

Lewis ruffled his hair again just to annoy him, but leaned in close before he released his hand. “Scars will fade with time,” he murmured, touching their foreheads together for a brief moment. Arthur managed a small smile.

There was a loud sigh. The two of them looked over to see Vivi watching with teary eyes and a wobbly grin. “Don't mind me!”

Arthur snorted, walking behind her to give her a firm push. “Come on, this is your moment,” he said with exasperated amusement, not stopping until she and Lewis were only a foot apart. “I think you two have plenty of catching up to do.”

They fidgeted nervously as Arthur backed away again, once more struck with a bad case of shyness. “I, uh,” Lewis stammered, holding up the floating token. “I have something that belongs to you. If you want it.”

Her eyes grew wide. “Your heart?”

Lewis smiled at her response. “If you mean my metaphorical one, you never lost it.”

Vivi touched a hand to her chest where her own heart was, looking like she might fall over. She took a deep breath, then stared at the beating object. “Then what is it?”

“Memories. The things that make me me. But also? The ones I took away from you. All of them, good and bad. I couldn't separate them, no matter how much I wished. If you accept them, you'll finally remember me again, but at a cost. And I don't know how bad the cost will be.”

Vivi swallowed. She glanced over at Arthur, who was holding a fist to his mouth like he was biting his knuckles. “It's up to you,” he said nervously. She looked back to the heart, letting it float over to hover above her own hands.

“I'm torn,” she whispered. “On the one hand, I don't think I need them. I feel like I could fall back in love with you so easily. I have enough secondhand accounts to at least outline the blanks. And the past is in the past, it's the future that matters. But on the other hand, I think I'm pretty strong; the cost might not be as hard on me as you fear. And to be perfectly honest...” She closed her fingers around the pulsing glow. “Maybe I'm a little greedy. I don't want to start over on our relationship. I want everything we ever had.”

Lewis beamed. “Then open it.” She gave him a shaky nod, then pressed against the metallic surface. It popped open like a locket, and with giddy trepidation, she peered inside.

Like a lightning bolt to the eyes, a jagged beam shot out and struck her down.

Chapter Text

“Vivi!” Lewis and Arthur cried, rushing to catch her before she hit the floor. Her eyes were devoured by a rose-colored light and she seemed to be staring upwards, unseeing, her fingers curled in agony, her mouth open in a silent scream. “No, no, no, no, no,” Lewis chanted over and over, clutching her close, while Arthur stroked her forehead and hair, trying to lend her comfort. After a long, terrible moment, her muscles finally relaxed from “rigor mortis” to merely “ very tense.” Her mouth closed into a neutral expression, though her eyes remained blank. A moment later and she looked happy, then sad, then angry, then content.

“She's remembering things backwards,” Lewis realized.

Arthur let out a giant breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. “Then the worst part is already over. I hope.”

Lewis crossed his legs and laid her gently across his lap, studying her face as it shifted. “I wonder what memory she's seeing right now,” he whispered as the corners of her lips twitched. His introspective thoughts were causing a shift in his own face, bringing out his true appearance. Arthur noticed and said nothing, not wanting to call attention to it and possibly break his concentration.

The glow was fading from Vivi's eyes, slowly but surely. Pinprick pupils were opening up, and she blinked rapidly as if clearing away a haze. Blue eyes settled on Lewis's human face and flickered with—yes—recognition. Then they dilated wide, and tears began to pour down.

“Lewis,” she gasped, sitting up to throw her arms around his neck. He flickered insubstantial for a moment before pulling himself together and hugging back, so tightly that she was in danger of phasing through him anyway. The heart clattered off her lap to the floor, where Arthur picked it up and closed it with a gentle click. He sat back and watched them with a fond smile.

“Vivi,” Lewis choked out, burying his face into her shoulder. “You have no idea how much I've missed you.” His broad shoulders shook under her arms, and she coaxed him to raise his head again. Dabbing away his matching tears with her sleeve, she spent a moment just tracing the contours of his face, then leaned in and kissed him fiercely. A few scattered cheers rose up among the Dead Beats, who quickly stifled it under Arthur's death glare and savage “zip it!” gesture.

“Losing you was the worst thing that ever happened to me,” she confessed after finally pulling away, something dark flickering across her face like a passing shadow. “I hope you're prepared to haunt me to my grave, because I'm never letting you go again.”

“My. What will Chloe think?” he teased, thinking of Vivi's teenage coworker with the unhealthy obsession for romance novels featuring undead boyfriends.

“Chloe can kiss my ass,” she growled. Lewis burst out laughing, and it was so wonderful to hear that she couldn't help joining in.

There was a clatter of dog nails on wood flooring, and they all looked up to see Mystery coming back inside, coated almost head to toe with mud. “Okay,” he said, panting hard and transforming back into his smaller form. “I did it! And just to be sure, I buried it, like, thirty feet down this time.” His expression turned contrite. “Am I forgiven now?”

“Oh, there you are,” Vivi remarked as she tried to get her mirth under control. “I didn't even see you leave.”

Mystery gaped at her, while Arthur sidled over to try to lessen the blow. “To be fair, she was very distracted,” he explained as he reached out a hand to pet him, only to make a face and change his mind. “Wow. We may need to shave you after this.”

Mystery gave him a dirty look, then jumped up and started rubbing mud on his chest. “Ow! Cockleburs on bare skin!” Arthur yelped, which only started Vivi and Lewis up on another round of the giggles.

It was so very, very good to be all together again.

A few ghosts that were hovering close by decided that now was the best time to interrupt. They floated over to Lewis's shoulders and pinned him with wobbly eyes. “Are you really going to leave?” they asked plaintively.

“'Fraid so,” he said gently, patting them on the back of their heads. “I think I've been adopted.”

“Awwww,” they whined. “But we'll miss you! Will you at least come and visit?”

“I—sure? That seems reasonable enough to me. What do you think, Vivi?” He turned to look at her, then blinked. She was staring up at him with her hands clasped below her chin, stars in her eyes.

“We can visit?!”

Arthur shook his head with a smile, turning away from their conversation only to discover that he had a fan of his own. The haunted armor with the dented helmet, and many more dents now besides, was standing stoically a few feet away, waiting to be noticed.

“Hey! It's you,” Arthur said warmly as he approached. The knight gave him a respectful nod, and he nodded back. “You were amazing! I hope all the other suits of armor know what a hero you are. You... you saved my life.” He scratched at his bushy hair, trying to think of something else to say, something to convey just how much it had meant to him. What could he even offer to an animated metal frame?

The answer seemed obvious once it came to him.

“Mystery!” he called excitedly. “Can you go get my arm?”

The dog's expression could best be described as “No. Fucking. Way.”

“Not that one,” he said with a nervous laugh. “The one I built!”

Comprehension flashed in his eyes, and Mystery spun around to fetch the piece of mechanical artistry that was still sitting, abandoned, by the front gate. It was a bit awkward for him to carry without dragging anything, but he managed. Arthur took it reverently and held it up for the knight to see.

“If this is something you can use... would you accept it?”

By now, Vivi and Lewis had noticed, too. “Really, Arthur?” Vivi asked in amazement. “I thought that was your pride and joy!”

“I can build another one. I've got half a dozen blueprints lined up to try out already. But this is something I can do now. And I'd like to.” He looked earnestly into the knight's glowing eyes. “What do you think, Percival?”

“Percival?” Lewis asked, his eyebrows raised.

“Well, I can't call him Galahad, I already used that one. And he needs a name.”

With formal gravitas, the armor bowed and proffered its left arm. Arthur grinned and got to work immediately, Mystery bringing him a toolbox from the van without any prompting. Sizing things up and adjusting his creation to slide over the knight's existing upper arm proved to be simple work. The harnesses were discarded entirely. As he stepped back, he took in the sight with a touch of pride; medieval blacksmithing and modern techno-wizardry intertwined.

“Do you like it?” he asked nervously, watching as it lifted and twisted its shoulder, while the elbow and fingers remained unmoving. “Is it... is it not working?”

The armor used its other hand to hold up a single finger, the universal sign for “wait one moment.” It picked up its old, discarded lower arm and hand, placing them side by side with the new one. There was a tension in the air while everyone watched; humans, dog, ghosts, other knights, and even the house itself seemed to be paying close attention.

There was a sudden flash as two things happened simultaneously: the old limb vaporized into ash, and the new limb was briefly inscribed with a glowing pattern of angular swirling lines, much like the motif that decorated the windows and staircase. As soon as the light sunk into the metal and vanished, the new set of fingers began to uncurl and flex.

“Dude,” Arthur whispered, a gleam in his eyes. “I've got to learn how that works.”

“Next time,” Lewis said firmly as he came up behind him, placing his hands on his shoulders. “I'm not letting you start another 18-hour study session when you already look ready to crash.”

“Aw,” he groaned, trying to resist being steered away. The knight stood to attention and touched its visor in a salute, and Arthur shook off Lewis long enough to return the gesture. “Until next time, Percival!”

Lewis waved farewell, and soon all the ghosts and animated suits were doing the same. Even the haunted paintings, normally hung deep within the first floor corridors, materialized on the foyer walls in order to say their goodbyes.

“I heard you got a honey on each arm, is that true?” a wrestler hooted as he flexed. Lewis's cheeks went red. “You go, big guy!”

“Take care, Lewis,” a beautiful lady in formal attire called from her frame, wringing her white-gloved hands in concern. “Conserve your energy! I know you're such a generous soul, but remember that you need to rest, too!

“I'll be careful.”

“Yeah, don't, uh, bite off more than you can chew,” cautioned a curly-haired man who looked way too young to be a priest.

“And don't let a little thing like death stop you from studying the law!” called the painting of a man with a spider-web shaped cravat.

“Ah-hah. I'll... do my best.”

Still waving their final farewells, the reunited Mystery Skulls finally made it out the front doors. The sun was well past its zenith, heading into evening, yet the world seemed so much brighter than it did before. They trotted down the stairs with a bounce in their steps, feeling as light as air as they headed for the familiar old van.

“What do we do from now on?” Arthur wondered.

“In the long run? I don't even know,” Lewis confessed. “Just take things one day at a time.”

“What about the short run, then?” Mystery asked. “What about tomorrow?”

“I'm thinking apartment shopping,” Vivi said, shooting a conspiratorial look at Arthur. Lewis glanced between the two of them in dawning realization.

“You finally told him?”

“I did!”

“And it was the greatest idea I'd ever heard.”

Lewis grinned, rubbing his nose in a gesture of shy embarrassment. “I'm glad.”

“We'll have to give the place a cool name,” Arthur decided. “Like... Apartment of Strays.”

“Don't be ridiculous. We can't call it that!” Vivi said, dismissing it out of hand.

“Why not?”

She scratched behind Mystery's ears, then took each of their hands. “Because we're not lost. We belong to each other.”

There was no gate to close behind them as they stepped out onto the road that lead to home. Only a well-worn van that would take them there.

The End