Weird-looking, half blind, spook wrangling world-walkers that smoke.

[goldeneyeball]

THREAD DIRECTORY

One Fine Day
A Taste of the Future
Pumpkins
Aches
Trauma 50% Off!
I Got a Disease and You're the Cure
Taco Night
Buck Eyes
The Turns Have Tabled
JW and Ginko's Fancy Dinner Date
You Know What They Say When You ASSume...
Sit, Stay, Beg

Comments

[onegreeneye]

Bees...?

Ginko kept staring at him doubtfully. "...Yeah, that doesn't seem like a good idea. Honestly, as nice as looking normal would be, I think I can deal with this after this long."

[goldeneyeball]

The antlered man shrugged and leaned back in his own seat.

"If you change your mind, lemme know. I'll hook you up, no problem."

FINGER GUNS.

[onegreeneye]

Another amused huff, and Ginko hid a slight smile behind his mug. "Thanks for the offer. I'll keep it in mind."

[goldeneyeball]

"As for the rest of you," he gestured, hoping Ginko wouldn't mind a little more gentle ribbing. "I got nothin'."

[onegreeneye]

"Ah, that's too bad." He huffed quietly, not seeming too bothered by it. "And here I had been hoping the future might have a way to get my eye back."

The comment came without him really thinking about it, and it wasn't until he said it that he remembered that that was a subject that sometimes seemed to make people uncomfortable. Oops.

[goldeneyeball]

The grin ran from his face like a cat on fire.

"Your eye?"

JW had spent plenty of time looking at the man's face but had never, not once, wondered about the obstructed half of it. He thought it was a fashion thing! Ginko really did look like the bleached people he saw at the gas station who were passing through on their way to a vacation on some distant Mississippi shore.

"Uh--" BACK PEDAL BACK PEDAL.

[onegreeneye]

"Ah... yeah." He shrugged, a little sheepishly, and brushed his fingers over the skin under his left eye. Maybe JW would get it a little better, given his own damaged eye. "Been missing for as long as I can remember."

[goldeneyeball]

James opened his mouth. Then he shut it. Then he laughed--an obviously thin, nervous laughter.

"God, I almost asked you if someone took it. I'm sorry." Still laughing. He can't stop. Help!

[onegreeneye]

Ginko looked at JW with some concern, raising an eyebrow. "Well, for all I know that could be what happened... though there would have to be a little more to it than that, in any case."

[goldeneyeball]

JW eventually covered his mouth with a hand and made a few muffled, distressed sounds before calming down. Wow, that hadn't been fun. Thanks, brain, that was totally something that he should have laughed at.

"AH-HER-HEHM. Sorry. Sorry about your, uh, eye. I don't know anything for that. I can't even fix this one." He pointed to his bad eye. "Cursed."

[onegreeneye]

"It's alright. I'm pretty much used to it, really." Given that he's never had another one to begin with. "Too bad about yours, though."

[goldeneyeball]

"It helps that I stay in regular contact with the person who did it so I can continue to remind them of their sins." He finally got a handle on himself again and leaned back, arms folded behind his head to give his neck a rest. He was so ready for those antlers to drop off so he could make something with them.

[onegreeneye]

"Huh. That's... good." He guessed. What do you even say to that.

[goldeneyeball]

For a while, JW was content to sit in silence with his smuggled goods but his good eye kept wandering back to the corner where Ginko said there were mushi.

He wondered.

James sat upright again and put his empty cup down. "Lemme show you around. If you see anything, let me know."

He stood and waved for the mushi master to follow him. The House of Twisted was very old and very cramped but still felt empty. You didn't have a lot when you were just a man and your not-quite-a-dog living on top of a hill. The majority of the things left behind by the previous owner had either been burnt or sold at a yard sale. To the right of the kitchen door was a staircase going up. Directly in front was a living room dominated by the ugliest green sofa in existence, a clock, and a fireplace. And to the left, which was where JW turned, was a closed door that looked older than the house itself.

"If this house does have mushi, I know one place they'll be."

If Ginko had ever seen a haunted house film in his life, he'd know that the door sounded exactly like the doors that led down to a mad scientist's lab or a torture chamber or a serial killer's body freezer room when it opened. It was dark and the steps were made of ancient, eroded concrete.

"Watch your step."

JW descended into darkness, having the advantage of the muscle memory of the whole house. He knew when to step clear and where to reach for the string dangling from the one naked bulb.

The air swam with mushi. Most of them harmless, a few with the tendency to live in ears and open wounds, but the ceiling was plastered with the slug-like ones that fed on anxiety.

[onegreeneye]

Ginko nodded and stood up to follow JW, examining the door in quiet curiosity.

Of course, he hadn't seen any such films, or any movies at all, but something about the door certainly struck him as significant. In a way, it almost reminded him of the door to the Karibusas' records - maybe it didn't really resemble it, objectively speaking, but there was the same sort of feel to it.

"Got it." He stayed a bit behind James, and at first he did make a point of watching his footing, making sure to step carefully. Eventually, though, as they got further down the steps, it got harder to ignore the little glowing forms flitting about all around them.

Ginko hummed thoughtfully, waving a couple of mushi away and making a mental note of the slug-like ones on the ceiling. "There's quite a few mushi down here... a lot more than upstairs. Might be enough to qualify as an infestation, unless they haven't actually been causing you any--"

He really should have kept watching the stairs. Maybe he just took a step at the wrong angle, maybe slightly too far, but suddenly, where there should have been concrete under his foot, there was nothing. He made a quick effort to regain his balance, but, of course, it didn't work too well. "Shit--"

Aaand there he went.

[goldeneyeball]

JW managed to turn on the light in time to see Ginko hit the ground.

He never did get around to installing a handrail on that staircase. He never imagined needing one with only him and Deuteronomy in the house. Nobody came into the basement.

"Ginko!" he rushed over but paused, hands outstretched but reluctant. Oh god! What if he made it worse? "You okay?"

The basement, meanwhile, was a mix of all of the things the door made it sound like. There were long freezers, there were shelves full of jars, there was yet another closed door crisscrossed with chains. The floor was concrete with a central drain and long shadows played on the walls as that naked bulb swung.

[onegreeneye]

The only response JW got at first was a pained groan. Which, on the bright side, did mean Ginko was at least conscious.

He shifted to get a hand under himself and sit upright, but winced and dropped again when he tried to put weight on his shoulder. "--dammit. I'm-- yeah, I'm fine."

[goldeneyeball]

JW hesitated again before offering his hand in earnest. He was not yet familiar with Ginko the Liar. He was too busy being James the Liar.

"Shit, sorry. I wasn't even thinking about there not bein' a railing."

[onegreeneye]

"It's alright - my own fault, anyway. Wasn't watching where I was going." He took JW's hand gratefully, making sure to use the arm that didn't keep sending shooting pain through his shoulder.

He wobbled a little upon making it to his feet, but managed to stay upright, rubbing his forehead. "...Might've hit my head. I don't think it's too bad, though."

[goldeneyeball]

"If you say so..." He didn't see any blood. Thankfully, with hair like Ginko's it was hard to hide. Problem solved (or so he thought) he looked around the room with his hands on his hips, quietly proud of his macabre little hole in the ground. It was ridiculous and campy and once he was no longer afraid of the things in jars coming to eat him in his sleep, he felt like he was in on some big, really great joke.

"Whacha think? Hey, check this out." He reached for one of the jars--a big one with some kind of snake spider hybrid floating in it--and held it out. "Deuteronomy said they pulled this out of a guy."

[onegreeneye]

"It's... pretty impressive." He looked around thoughtfully, his eyes drifting between the jars all around them and the mushi floating about.

Ginko took a couple steps toward JW to examine the jar in his hand, wincing a little as he moved and keeping his palm pressed to his head. "...Huh. Is it some kind of parasite, then?"

[goldeneyeball]

"I think so. Or the guy had one hell of a weird hobby." Another one of the jars caught his attention."Here, hold this, I wanna show you this lamb Deut says grew outta a plant." Ginko would find the jar thrust at him and JW turning away to reach up to a higher shelf.

[onegreeneye]

Ginko fumbled to take hold of the jar, wincing as he initially tried to use his injured arm. He managed to catch hold of the jar with his good hand in time to keep from dropping it, but he was starting to suspect he might have hurt himself worse than he thought. He had kind of hoped he had just hit a nerve or something when he first hit the ground, but maybe that pop wasn't his imagination after all.

"--'S that so." Time to keep pretending nothing was wrong and hope he could ignore it until later!

[goldeneyeball]

"Internet says it's called a Vegetable Lamb." JW turned with the jar in-hand. Indeed, floating within it was a fetal sheep with its lower end buried deep in what looked like a cotton bloom. "She never said where it came from though..."

He tilted his head. Wow, what was with that face? He never took Ginko for a squeamish man.

[onegreeneye]

"Yeah, that's pretty odd..."

A few moments' examination would likely make it clearer that Ginko's expression had little to do with the macabre specimens surrounding them. He held the jar in his hand easily, now that it was situated properly, and examined the preserved Vegetable Lamb with genuine interest (even if he was a bit distracted). In fact, besides his pained expression (which he was gradually working on hiding), the only sign that anything was wrong was the way he kept shifting uncomfortably, the fingers of his free hand curling and uncurling.