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"Otto, my lovely." Awsten sits down on the bed in Otto's moonlit bedroom, more carefully than he usually would. Under normal circumstances, he would launch himself at Otto, knowing that Mr Vampire Strength could take it. But these are not normal circumstances, as calm as he is trying to be.
It's the middle of the night, so Otto is wide awake. "Yes, my darlin'?" He looks up from his drawing with a quick smile. The drawing is of Grace. They're always of Grace.
Awsten is not actually jealous about Otto and Grace remaining friends. He really doesn't care. They broke up - not that either of them will ever call it a break up, just a parting of ways or something like that - before Awsten was even born. If that's the case, though, why does she keep showing up at the house? Otto always seems to know when she's going to arrive, even though she doesn't call beforehand. She doesn't have a phone to call with - it was hard enough to get Otto to use one. It would only get wet in the ocean, anyway. Awsten doesn't think her fur coat has waterproof pockets.
Whatever. This isn't about Grace. Unless it is, then Awsten might lose his mind. Which he won't do, because he promised himself he would be reasonable about this. Back to the topic at hand.
"Why, if you don't mind me asking," Awsten asks gently, making an effort not to get mad, "is there a fucking corpse in my living room?"
Otto blinks at him. Unphased, but puzzled. "Your living room?"
Awsten raises an eyebrow. "So you admit that there's a corpse?"
"I don't deny the existence of a corpse. I wouldn't be surprised, in fact, if there was one. Considering the track record of this place." Otto says. He does have a point. "I'm just astounded that you think it's your living room, considering I own this house and have done for over two hundred years."
"I think that's besides the point I'm trying to make." Awsten doesn't get petulant and say, well actually, we're in a relationship, so it is our house. Because he is trying very, very hard to be amicable about this. "You're avoiding talking about the corpse because you put it there, aren't you?"
"I did not put a corpse in my own living room, no. I wouldn't do that." Otto insists, then adds in response to the look Awsten gives him, "I don't do that anymore, since Jawn moved in and complained about it."
Right, so Otto didn't do it. Despite it being very possible, Awsten knows Otto wouldn't lie about that. He's one to own up to his mistakes. Which begs the question, who the fuck put a corpse in their living room?
No one else in the house eats people, unless Jawn has taken up cannibalism recently. He would have told Awsten about that, though. It's one of those things they've discussed during their late night kitchen floor conversations. Jawn would eat human flesh, given the ethical opportunity. Awsten doesn't think he would, personally. He's a picky eater. Eating meat barely sits right with him as it is.
Lucas is a normal human and while it wouldn't be completely above Travis, he hasn't dragged a whole corpse home before, to anyone else's knowledge. Awsten wonders briefly if he himself blacked out and killed someone. Again, not impossible. God, his life is fucking bizarre.
"Can you come and look at the corpse for me? Just so I can figure out what the fuck is going on." Awsten tugs on Otto's free hand to try and compel him. This is not a situation he is equipped to handle alone.
"Sure. I can't promise I have a solution to the problem that doesn't involve me eating it." Otto puts his drawing of Grace down on the nightstand carefully. Awsten wants to tear it in half. He doesn't. He is being reasonable today.
Otto gets up and follows Awsten downstairs. He tries to hold Awsten's hand, but Awsten is not in the mood for cute shit. Even if Otto does look very handsome with his freshly cut hair and his crop top and ripped jeans and- No, Awsten is supposed to be normal about things today. Not getting distracted by his partner's very nice abs.
As expected, the corpse is still there. It's not exactly going to walk away. Or at least Awsten hopes not. The paleness of its skin glints in the moonlight streaming in through the window. Its eyes are closed. There's no blood, no signs of violence or how it died. Just... a dead body, lying on the rug in the middle of the room. It looks freshly dead, like it could have been alive hours ago. Not that Awsten knows a whole lot about corpses. He doesn't know a whole lot about anything.
"That's a corpse, alright." Otto crouches down beside it and touches its face.
Awsten gags. He couldn't imagine touching it, the idea alone makes a shiver scuttle down his spine. As soon as he had walked into the living room and set eyes on the thing, he had turned and gone straight to Otto. Without freaking out, obviously. Because he is completely level-headed about this.
"Thank you for your observations, babe." Awsten mutters. "Why is it here?"
"Dunno, love." Otto shrugs. He presses his hand down on its torso, and frowns. Then he sniffs its neck, like he's searching for blood. "It's embalmed."
Awsten wants to throw up. He must have misheard, so he says, "Come again?"
Otto nods, a furrow in his brow. "Embalmed. Like they do at funeral homes before burial. You know, someone tried to embalm me alive once. It was in... 1756? Or was it earlier than that? I think it might have been around when I knew Shakespeare-"
"Travis!" Awsten shouts up the stairs, because if he has to listen to one of Otto's lengthy Shakespeare stories, he might do something he regrets. "Travis, get down here!"
A few moments later, Travis trudges down the stairs. His hair is a mess, his eyes ringed with dark circles. He yawns loudly, as if to make a point. Of course, he was on a twelve-hour shift at the clinic today. Awsten feels bad, or he would if he didn't suspect that Travis was the one who put the corpse in the living room.
"This better be important." He mutters as he reaches Awsten. Then he sees the corpse and he stops in his tracks. "Ah, right. I'd file that under quite important. Which one of you killed it?"
"Neither of us." Otto beckons Travis over and gestures for him to touch it.
He does, and recoils. "Ew, embalmed. You can't use that for anything. Where did you find it?"
"Here. I came in here looking for my glasses and it was just," Awsten gestures vaguely, becoming more erratic, "on my fucking floor!"
"My floor." Otto mumbles.
"So who put it here?" Travis asks.
"I assumed you did." Awsten says, his voice tight.
"Why would I bring a whole embalmed corpse into the house?"
"You bring body parts into the house all the time!" Awsten is feeling more unreasonable by the second. If he doesn't get an explanation soon, he is going to start punching walls.
"Yeah, body parts. Not whole fucking ready-for-the-grave corpses." Travis frowns at Awsten, then at the corpse. "You know me. I would have at least put it in the basement."
"Jesus fucking Christ." Awsten mutters. He turns and looks at Soulsucker, who has been sitting silently in the armchair the whole time. "It wasn't you, was it?"
"I have no purpose for a dead thing." Soulsucker whispers. He looks just as horrified as Awsten feels. They tend to mirror each other's emotions, part of the connection that forces Soulsucker to follow Awsten around.
Awsten takes a deep, steadying breath. "Noted."
Another door opens upstairs. Jawn saunters down, whistling to himself, until he reaches the living room door and sees them all gathered around the corpse. He looks shocked, not to see it, but to see them.
"Oh." He has the good grace to look sheepish. He tries to push his fingers through his hair, but it's tied back. "Yeah, I was about to move that."
"What?" Awsten yells, his resolve finally snapping. Otto and Travis jump in surprise. "Why do you have a fucking corpse?"
"I'm holding onto it for a friend!" Jawn holds up his hands in defence. "I didn't kill it. I don't think she did, either. Although I didn't ask."
"In my living room, on my carpet, without telling me!" Awsten shrieks, barely listening to Jawn. He starts laughing, because otherwise he will burst into tears. He knows he looks crazy, but frankly, he doesn't care anymore.
"My living room." Otto chimes in. Awsten shoots the most hate-filled glare he can muster at such a pretty face.
"I was gonna move it down to the basement. Lucas texted me, and I- I got distracted-" Jawn tries.
Awsten rubs his hands over his face, exasperated. If he was a violent man, there would be more than one body in their living room by now. "Oh my fucking god, I'm going to fucking bed. If that fucking thing is still here when I wake up, I am burning this bastard house to the fucking ground with all of you inside of it." He storms off upstairs, which to be fair, is a reasonable reaction to the situation he has found himself in.
He throws himself down onto his bed, forgetting to close his door first. His phone chimes a few times, but he ignores it in favour of sulking alone. Lucas passes by on his way down the stairs, but seems to think better of bothering him. Perhaps he heard the hysterical laughter. Instead he closes Awsten's bedroom door for him and heads to the ground floor.
"At least it was not leaking." Soulsucker says. Awsten unburies himself from his pillows to look up at him. Soulsucker is sitting upside down on the ceiling, fiddling with Awsten's lampshade. He does that a lot, and has mentioned before that he doesn't approve of the colour. "The corpse," He clarifies. "It could have been leaking fluids onto the carpet and that would have been worse."
"Every time you speak I want you to die more." Awsten says, although Soulsucker does have a good point. "Can you let me know when they've moved it?"
Soulsucker vanishes in a puff of black smoke, which is his way of saying yes, of course. Awsten stares at his ceiling a little longer, until his brain starts doing Bad Thinking and he picks up his phone instead. There's a slew of messages in the house group chat.
Travis: @Lucas can you help us move a roughly human shaped and sized object?
Lucas: do i even wanna know what it is
Lucas: it's a corpse isn't it
Travis: for legal reasons, no it is not
Lucas: why do you have a corpse
Otto: It's Jawn's.
Lucas: as in you've murdered him or he has come into possession of one
Lucas: or do i not wanna know
Jawn: neither! im holding it for a friend
Lucas: Human question: what the fuck is wrong with you people
Jawn: non-human question: are u going to fuckin help us or not?
Lucas: be right down x
Jawn: thank u x
Awsten rolls his eyes. He loves them all to death, and under normal circumstances, he would be quite happy to help them move a dead body. Bury one, even. Just... not today.
Things aren't so bad these days, he supposes. If he's really honest with himself, which he isn't often. Soulsucker has been better tempered. Jawn and Lucas are doing... whatever it is they're doing together, so both of them are happier. Travis remembers to eat and sleep on a regular schedule, sometimes. Awsten has Otto now. But Awsten woke up with a bad feeling today, and sometimes that's enough to send him off the rails. Finding a corpse in his living room certainly didn't help. He is one minor inconvenience away from throwing a book at Soulsucker and seeing what happens.
His phone buzzes again, and he squints through the bright light of it in his darkened room.
Jawn: @Awsten i am deeply sorry for the corpse thing. it wont happen again
Awsten: my poor living room floor :(
Otto: MY living room floor!
Travis: OUR fucking living room floor. we are a family you know
Jawn: thats gay
Lucas: you don't normally complain x
Jawn: only because ur pretty x
Awsten: first you leave a corpse on MY living room floor and then you flirt in MY group chat. disgusting. im moving out
Otto: No :(
Awsten: fine. you've convinced me <3
Otto: :)
Jawn: oh so ur allowed to flirt and im not? this is discrimination against supernaturals
Lucas: Except i'm human and otto isn't?
Jawn: be quiet x
Awsten giggles to himself. Yeah, he does love his friends, and his life is okay. Things could be worse.
Things always seem to get worse.