JW blinked back at Ginko. He still had so much to explain.
"You can hear them coming. It's okay, I promise!" He offered the other man an encouraging grin and spread his arms there in the road as if INVITING DEATH ON WHEELS TO COME. But none did.
Ginko winced a little when JW spread his arms out, then, when no metal hell machines appeared to flatten him, took a deep breath and hurried across the road, his hands still shoved deep in his pockets.
When Ginko met with him, JW led him across the ditch and up the incline. Through a thin band of trees, a grassy pasture fenced in hotwire opened. It was full of dozy black cows who didn't so much as bat an eye at them. JW climbed up a lightning blasted tree and hopped into the pasture.
"Don't touch the wires."
There were lots of things you weren't supposed to touch in the future.
Ginko climbed up after him, somewhat awkwardly thanks to the weight of his pack. He frowned slightly at the warning then jumped down after JW, grunting and stumbling a little when he landed. He hoped he had added enough cushioning for his supplies.
"Hotwire. It'll shock the crap out of you." JW jabbed Ginko's shoulder with a finger. "Not really sure why this farmer bothers, the cows'll lean across it to get at thistles and don't act like they even feel it. But it'll hurt us. I'll show you the way back over when you want to go home."
Worry not, Ginko, for every question fed JW's ego.
"Electricity! It's what this world runs on. Even the fan I showed you runs on electricity...but it's a lot harder to hurt yourself with it than with that fence."
Dozens of cows passed them by. JW wove his way around cow pies with practiced ease (some of them may as well be landmarks at this point) and pointed out which ponds actually had fish in them. The world sloped upwards, yellow and brown, and once they reached the top of the hill, another tree line greeted them, guarded by that devil wire. JW led Ginko to a place where a tree had fallen during the previous winter and squashed the fence at the corner. THis is what they used to climb but the world just kept tilting upward. JW was not joking when he said he lived on a hill.
Soon enough though, a structure became visible. It was brown, two stories high with a jungle of a back yard. The porch was decorated in junk JW had managed to push outside over the years, a couple of chairs, and even a decorative animal skull or two. One window had been boarded up and if you didn't know to look for the little signs of life like the still clean novelty GET LOST welcome mat or the unlit Christmas lights rounding the porch roof, you would think it was abandoned.
The push mower that belonged to the house's original owner lay half hidden near a bird bath. On either side of the house sat two other houses. One was squat and white and parted from JW's by a gappy, rain-rotted fence. The other was a three story mansion that glistened in the sun and a towering white-washed fence blocked the lower windows from JW's shack.
The antlered man sent a glare the mansions way before climbing those last long feet up onto the porch and tugging open the storm door. He was wheezing and puffing again and the aggressively yellow 70's kitchen was a sight for sore eyes.
All the way up the hill, Ginko kept casting glances around at everything around them - the apparently dangerous fences, the strange architecture of JW's house and the others around it. He followed JW inside, comparatively unaffected by the climb, and blinked a couple times at the sudden onslaught of yellow.
"...Huh."
He really did not know what to make of this, except that there was a lot of stuff in here that he could only really guess at the function of.
"Just put yer whatever wherehever." JW dragged a chair away from the kitchen table and sank into it. Now that the thrill of 'getting away' with sneaking Ginko from one timeline to another had faded, he was winded and a little shaky. Still grinning though as he watched Ginko explore with his eyes.
The kitchen was small and, as previously described, very very yellow. And lived in. Pots and pans and canisters and boxes of ingredients crowded the counter tops along with a coffee-maker, a microwave, and a toaster of questionable disrepair. A squat fridge sat in the corner and hummed to itself.
And then there were the mushi.
The house was smattered with small, semi-transparent harmless ones, but there were two slug-shaped mushi in the upper most corner of the kitchen that fed off anxieties. They were very fat.
Ginko stayed by the door for a moment, still looking around as he slipped off his shoes, leaving them and his box just outside the door - he vaguely noticed the JW didn't remove his shoes, but... force of habit and all that.
He made a mental note to ask about... basically all the appliances later. But first, there was a more pressing issue. He waved away a couple of the mushi floating through the air as he wandered toward the corner where the slug mushi sat. "...Yeah, you've got mushi in here, alright."
Once Ginko started fanning the air, JW leaned up from slumping against the back of his chair. It was still so weird, even in his own home, to be the one who couldn't see the Weird. He patted down that jealous little flame and watched Ginko's gaze.
"They're not dangerous. But it's not really a good sign that they're here."
He tilted his head up to examine the mushi on the wall; they were a little high up to reach, but it wasn't like they really needed to be removed. "Would you say you're... stressed or nervous a lot?"
JW continued trying in vain to see the mushi and squinted so hard at the ceiling that his forehead started to hurt.
At Ginko's question, JW hesitated. It wasn't a secret that he was under a lot of stress--being sick, bills, the whole Town Hero thing. But being nervous wasn't something he wanted to admit to. "Why? Do the mushi creep into houses and give off bad vibes?"
He pointed up at the corner, as if there were any doubt that he was looking at something up there. "There are mushi here that feed off anxiety - stress, fear, especially in combination. From the look of it, they're doing pretty well for themselves here."
James made A Face. Great, now he had invisible things in his house ratting him out. It was worse than Deuteronomy. He folded his arms and leaned back in his chair again.
"Hm." That's all he's saying in response to that. If JW doesn't want to tell him, pushing the issue won't help.
Ginko stepped away from the wall, turning back to JW. "Well, in any case, you'll be glad to hear there's nothing in here that needs to be removed. Just a few common, harmless types."
"Well that's good." He fumbled with the scarf around his neck before leaving it be and getting up. "Want some coffee?"
He went ahead and started making himself some, dragging the coffee maker out of its corner and opening one of the cabinets to dig for the canister. As he worked, he gestured to various things in the kitchen.
"That there is the heat-em-up." A microwave. "And that's the cool-em-down." The fridge. "And...well that's an oven, you know what an oven is."
Something click click clacked on the hardwood in the next room.
"Uh... sure, why not." He considered whether to mention that he had never actually had coffee before - JW was awfully casual about it, but then he supposed it may have been easier to get in America, anyway. Especially given this time's apparently ability to produce massive amounts of everything.
He leaned over a little to look curiously at each device JW pointed out. "Do they work off electricity, too...?"
Then he paused, turning to glance in the direction of the sounds coming from the next room.
Git ready for some store brand coffee, Ginko. Git ready.
"Yup. They run it out here on wires--the big ones hanging from those poles out by the road."
And that is where the mushi master's lesson on the future was cut short because something that used to be a wolf sashayed into the kitchen. Her movements were unnatural, stilted, almost as if the animal were a child pretending to move like an animal. Deuteronomy was a grey and brown wolf pelt stretched over questionably canine bones, stuffed with straw and hinged with wire. Her eyes were wet and alive though and they squinted up at the white-haired man at the table.
She gave two loud sniffs and then said, "It's you." in an older woman's voice.
JW jumped and whirled around, nearly spilling the sugar. "Deuteronomy! You can't-- you aren't supposed to come in when I have people over, someone could see you!"
The she wolf made a rasping sound deep in her empty throat that was probably a laugh. Now that JW was facing her, she could see the scarf trailing down his shirt. Hooo boy did he have it bad. She grinned a grin full of mismatched teeth (and a couple of white-painted screws).
"I think he's seen enough weird stuff already. I'm just a drop in the bucket."
Ginko's eyes widened a little when Deuteronomy came into view, glancing uncertainly over at JW - should he let him know that there seemed to be a wolf corpse wandering around his house?
Hearing her actually speak up came as yet another surprise - not to mention what she said. But any questions he may have had about that were put on hold by JW's reaction.
...Well. That answered... some of that. He glanced curiously between them as they talked. "I, uh... take it you're a friend of JW's, then?" And that she had heard some about him.
"I'm his keeper." She sat and lifted a paw to gesture at the quietly simmering man. "I apologize for his gettin' out again and botherin' you. He couldn't behave if his life depended on it, bless his heart, but somebody's got to watch him."
"Dueteronomy," JW said with that same forced WE ARE A NORMAL HOUSEHOLD folks use when the object of their affections has just encountered a really embarrassing relative. "Don't you have your stories to watch?"
The wolf didn't even turn an ear his way. Instead, she studied Ginko. He was weird looking. Had a big nose too. She could see where JW thought he had a chance.
"Thank you for bringing him back."
JW muttered something and turned back to the coffee pot to pretend this wasn't happening.
"It's fine - it doesn't bother me that he comes by. I'm glad he does, actually." Well, he was definitely sitting here talking to a taxidermy wolf. That was new. But she seemed nice enough, and... honestly, pointing out that she seemed to be dead struck him as kind of rude.
He shrugged a little, sitting back slightly against the chair. "I would say it's more like he brought me; I couldn't find my way around here on my own if my life depended on it."
If JW's ears had been mobile, they would have perked at that. Ginko was glad he visited! The antlered man treated himself to a grin neither of them saw.
"Is that ssssooo," the wolf grinned as she hopped up onto a chair. She was polite enough to keep her paws off the table. "Where on Earth did he find you? You must be some kinda special for him to walk such a long ways every other week." She had no way of knowing most of JW's hunting trips were unsuccessful.
"That isn't any of your business." JW was suddenly behind her with a coffee mug in one hand. He hooked the other arm under her forelegs and carried her to the kitchen door. She was as light as she looked and wore a face of utmost indignance when she was removed. When he put her down she looked over her shoulder at the two of them before giving Ginko a wink and trotting off.
James rolled his eyes and groaned before placing the mug before Ginko. He then fetched himself a cup and brought a fistful of probably stolen sugar packets with him when he sat back down. "She came with the house. Can't get rid of her."
Ginko didn't quite get the chance to respond to Deuteronomy - or really process that last sentence, though it may well be that all the time in the world wouldn't have been enough for him to figure out what she meant - before JW removed her from the table. He watched her leave, giving her a look of vague confusion at the wink before turning back to James.
"She doesn't seem too bad. ...I... don't suppose it would be too rude of me to ask, ah... how she can talk?" That seemed... relatively safe to ask about. And frankly, he would wonder about that even if she seemed to be a normal wolf otherwise.
He took a cautious sip of the coffee, then jolted a little, setting the cup down and managing to keep himself from spluttering this time. "--okay, that's really bitter."
"Magic," he said without a single hint of sarcasm. He shoved a few of the sugar packets Ginko's way. "Necromancy, to be exact. Somebody made her..." He dumped some sugar into his own cup before squinting at the doorway.
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theattic2015-08-13 03:59 pm
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"You can hear them coming. It's okay, I promise!" He offered the other man an encouraging grin and spread his arms there in the road as if INVITING DEATH ON WHEELS TO COME. But none did.
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He did not like this.
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"Don't touch the wires."
There were lots of things you weren't supposed to touch in the future.
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"Why not?"
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"Electricity! It's what this world runs on. Even the fan I showed you runs on electricity...but it's a lot harder to hurt yourself with it than with that fence."
Dozens of cows passed them by. JW wove his way around cow pies with practiced ease (some of them may as well be landmarks at this point) and pointed out which ponds actually had fish in them. The world sloped upwards, yellow and brown, and once they reached the top of the hill, another tree line greeted them, guarded by that devil wire. JW led Ginko to a place where a tree had fallen during the previous winter and squashed the fence at the corner. THis is what they used to climb but the world just kept tilting upward. JW was not joking when he said he lived on a hill.
Soon enough though, a structure became visible. It was brown, two stories high with a jungle of a back yard. The porch was decorated in junk JW had managed to push outside over the years, a couple of chairs, and even a decorative animal skull or two. One window had been boarded up and if you didn't know to look for the little signs of life like the still clean novelty GET LOST welcome mat or the unlit Christmas lights rounding the porch roof, you would think it was abandoned.
The push mower that belonged to the house's original owner lay half hidden near a bird bath. On either side of the house sat two other houses. One was squat and white and parted from JW's by a gappy, rain-rotted fence. The other was a three story mansion that glistened in the sun and a towering white-washed fence blocked the lower windows from JW's shack.
The antlered man sent a glare the mansions way before climbing those last long feet up onto the porch and tugging open the storm door. He was wheezing and puffing again and the aggressively yellow 70's kitchen was a sight for sore eyes.
"Home sweet home."
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"...Huh."
He really did not know what to make of this, except that there was a lot of stuff in here that he could only really guess at the function of.
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The kitchen was small and, as previously described, very very yellow. And lived in. Pots and pans and canisters and boxes of ingredients crowded the counter tops along with a coffee-maker, a microwave, and a toaster of questionable disrepair. A squat fridge sat in the corner and hummed to itself.
And then there were the mushi.
The house was smattered with small, semi-transparent harmless ones, but there were two slug-shaped mushi in the upper most corner of the kitchen that fed off anxieties. They were very fat.
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He made a mental note to ask about... basically all the appliances later. But first, there was a more pressing issue. He waved away a couple of the mushi floating through the air as he wandered toward the corner where the slug mushi sat. "...Yeah, you've got mushi in here, alright."
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"Yeah...? Are they, ah. Good?"
WERE THEY GOING TO EAT HIS SKIN IN THE NIGHT?
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He tilted his head up to examine the mushi on the wall; they were a little high up to reach, but it wasn't like they really needed to be removed. "Would you say you're... stressed or nervous a lot?"
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At Ginko's question, JW hesitated. It wasn't a secret that he was under a lot of stress--being sick, bills, the whole Town Hero thing. But being nervous wasn't something he wanted to admit to. "Why? Do the mushi creep into houses and give off bad vibes?"
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He pointed up at the corner, as if there were any doubt that he was looking at something up there. "There are mushi here that feed off anxiety - stress, fear, especially in combination. From the look of it, they're doing pretty well for themselves here."
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"I've got a bad back, gives me grief."
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Ginko stepped away from the wall, turning back to JW. "Well, in any case, you'll be glad to hear there's nothing in here that needs to be removed. Just a few common, harmless types."
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He went ahead and started making himself some, dragging the coffee maker out of its corner and opening one of the cabinets to dig for the canister. As he worked, he gestured to various things in the kitchen.
"That there is the heat-em-up." A microwave. "And that's the cool-em-down." The fridge. "And...well that's an oven, you know what an oven is."
Something click click clacked on the hardwood in the next room.
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He leaned over a little to look curiously at each device JW pointed out. "Do they work off electricity, too...?"
Then he paused, turning to glance in the direction of the sounds coming from the next room.
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"Yup. They run it out here on wires--the big ones hanging from those poles out by the road."
And that is where the mushi master's lesson on the future was cut short because something that used to be a wolf sashayed into the kitchen. Her movements were unnatural, stilted, almost as if the animal were a child pretending to move like an animal. Deuteronomy was a grey and brown wolf pelt stretched over questionably canine bones, stuffed with straw and hinged with wire. Her eyes were wet and alive though and they squinted up at the white-haired man at the table.
She gave two loud sniffs and then said, "It's you." in an older woman's voice.
JW jumped and whirled around, nearly spilling the sugar. "Deuteronomy! You can't-- you aren't supposed to come in when I have people over, someone could see you!"
The she wolf made a rasping sound deep in her empty throat that was probably a laugh. Now that JW was facing her, she could see the scarf trailing down his shirt. Hooo boy did he have it bad. She grinned a grin full of mismatched teeth (and a couple of white-painted screws).
"I think he's seen enough weird stuff already. I'm just a drop in the bucket."
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Hearing her actually speak up came as yet another surprise - not to mention what she said. But any questions he may have had about that were put on hold by JW's reaction.
...Well. That answered... some of that. He glanced curiously between them as they talked. "I, uh... take it you're a friend of JW's, then?" And that she had heard some about him.
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"Dueteronomy," JW said with that same forced WE ARE A NORMAL HOUSEHOLD folks use when the object of their affections has just encountered a really embarrassing relative. "Don't you have your stories to watch?"
The wolf didn't even turn an ear his way. Instead, she studied Ginko. He was weird looking. Had a big nose too. She could see where JW thought he had a chance.
"Thank you for bringing him back."
JW muttered something and turned back to the coffee pot to pretend this wasn't happening.
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He shrugged a little, sitting back slightly against the chair. "I would say it's more like he brought me; I couldn't find my way around here on my own if my life depended on it."
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"Is that ssssooo," the wolf grinned as she hopped up onto a chair. She was polite enough to keep her paws off the table. "Where on Earth did he find you? You must be some kinda special for him to walk such a long ways every other week." She had no way of knowing most of JW's hunting trips were unsuccessful.
"That isn't any of your business." JW was suddenly behind her with a coffee mug in one hand. He hooked the other arm under her forelegs and carried her to the kitchen door. She was as light as she looked and wore a face of utmost indignance when she was removed. When he put her down she looked over her shoulder at the two of them before giving Ginko a wink and trotting off.
James rolled his eyes and groaned before placing the mug before Ginko. He then fetched himself a cup and brought a fistful of probably stolen sugar packets with him when he sat back down. "She came with the house. Can't get rid of her."
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"She doesn't seem too bad. ...I... don't suppose it would be too rude of me to ask, ah... how she can talk?" That seemed... relatively safe to ask about. And frankly, he would wonder about that even if she seemed to be a normal wolf otherwise.
He took a cautious sip of the coffee, then jolted a little, setting the cup down and managing to keep himself from spluttering this time. "--okay, that's really bitter."
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A single brown ear was poking around the frame.
"A thing about zombies is THEY'RE NOSY."
Click clack click clack click clackclick clack.
"Ahem."
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