all here to discuss the fate

[coffeeandscream]

There's no doubt the murderhouse is haunted. Far from a rumbling, the place had fallen into terrible fact, and fact came strolling in with vandalism, disrepair, and condemnation ages ago. Seventy years, she's been in this place, and it only took twenty for the federal officials to make up some bullshit administrative reason to tape the place off. Since then, she's seen on yearly wanderings out, the neighborhood has gone bad. The rot began in her house and spread malignantly down the street, across the electrical wires, blacking out homes and dreams and businesses along the way. Twenty-five years into her tenure, she had to start walking at sunrise Halloween morning to even catch a car to hitchhike her out to anywhere like civilization.

No new owners in the house meant no connection outside. No wi-fi, no cell service, no kids delivering paper. The years have gotten harder and harder to keep track of. Something happened to the sky some years back; it never clears anymore. The house is always cold, unless some resident forgets where they are, forgets they're years long dead and imagines the place like it was when they moved in all those summers ago. There haven't been new residents in a long time. There haven't been new neighbors lately either. Violet shoplifted a crank radio from a mall sometime back, but no matter where she twists the antenna, there's no signal.

Maybe the world is dying. Maybe just California. Maybe something is finally taking the house, but it seems like this house is the only thing that's staying the same.

Violet Harmon isn't afraid of anything. When her mother points out the man lingering at their front gate, hovering in their lawn, she sounds apprehensive. It's odd. No one's been here for years. Nobody in this house is in the mood to chase anyone away either. (It's a lie; the other's are just as restless any given day as Vivian is lethargic now, sitting in the clean kitchen with her baby asleep on her chest.) Do we need someone to chase him away? But Violet is short on apprehension; he doesn't need to be chased away. Keep the others at bay--I'll talk to him, whoever he is.

So fearlessly, she bangs out onto the front steps, eying what can only be a guest skeptically. "Y'know, the whole home invasion things works a hell of a lot better if you come at night."

Comments

[bubonic]

The thing is, this house has been an issue for as long as it's been standing. Jack has known of and about it since poor Nora blew her husband's brains out and cursed the place (or maybe it was always cursed, maybe there's just evil in the foundations), has been aware of its slowly climbing body count - either way, Murderhouse hasn't escaped Death's attention. Never been a priority either, though, not when they had so much of humanity to handle, and particularly not now, with the End of Days fast approaching. The sky is a sooty red in most places, sulfur-stink in the air and blood in the gutters, humanity cowering through its time of tribulation; Jack should be glad, he knows, to be in a place where it isn't.

But the house is wrong in a way the rest of the world isn't. He's seen war and bloodshed enough to handle it - but this house is something else, it's an obvious black hole on a picture of constellations, an absence that terrifies even Death's hand. He stands in the yard for a long time, smoking cigarette after cigarette as he stares up at it, steeling his nerves and trying not to show it. The house is sick.

Violet snaps him out of it, dark eyes (dark circles under those eyes, dark hair, dark clothes, dark everything) dragging down to meet hers. Idly, he uses his ring finger to tip his (dark, of course) sunglasses down on his nose, raising his eyebrows at her.

"I'm fairly sure the lawn is free game." Once shit started going sideways, there really wasn't a point to dumb his vocabulary down anymore, to keep normal humans from wondering why he spoke like an Edwardian ponce. Now he's got the opposite problem - he slips into his fake-slur more than he'd like, grinding down the rest of his cigarette in a few hard puffs and flicking it across the yellowed, overgrown lawn. "You think you'd appreciate guests. Been a while since your last block party, hasn't it?"

[coffeeandscream]

"So it's a quiet street." She's barbed, wise to smartalecks and none too friendly about it. Violet slouches down the few stone and gestures loose and hard after the flung cigarette. "Are you trying to set the place on fire? I wouldn't have taken you for stupid just looking at you through the window."

Her nose scrunches as she makes a good show of appraising him up close. "So what are you here for--taxes? You're late."

[bubonic]

She's sharp. Hasn't kept up with the residents personally, but he's only been warned about the blond little fuck with the hard-on for homicide. She must be fine, or at least something Jack can handle a little easier. He licks at his teeth, willing his feet to take every uneasy step forward.

"Yeah, taxes." Yes, taxes, of course, he could fucking kick himself for letting Susannah's long, tiring linguistics lessons go to waste. His thumb rubs across his bottom lip in a nervous twitch, eyes more on the house than her. "I'm an interested buyer, actually. It's got... character."

The character of a fucking slasher movie, sure, but character.

[coffeeandscream]

Her eyebrows climb up at that, and her step in front of him is far more confident than his step forward. "Yeah. It's got owners, too. Who do you think you are?"

[bubonic]

"Death."

She may have home advantage, but he's not going to budge - she's welcome to take that as a joke as he moves to slip around her, going for the stairs. They've got home advantage, the ghosts, but he's got a job to do. Mrs. Harmon's bouncing baby boy is more than handling killing off humanity, so here Jack Usher is, mopping up the little trouble spots left over.

"The last owners died horribly, didn't they? The... Harmons, I believe." Not strictly the last owners, but the last ones who didn't run screaming a week in. "My real estate agent has assured me this neighborhood is prime turnaround material. You know, trendy hipsters turning the ghetto into coffee bars and IKEA stores, it's very lucrative."

[coffeeandscream]

Where is he going? He marches forward, and Violet looks up to see the last owner looking for a queue from the far corner of the house. She shakes her head vehemently--disappear. "Yeah, well, we like everything American-made in this house. It's an antique."

As his feet hit the stairs, she skips a few steps to catch up and grabs him by the elbow. "Hey!"

[bubonic]

His clothes are all black, but there's just a hint of color - the leather jacket he's wearing is perfectly cut, the accents a bloom of raw red, sixteen car pileup on the highway red; the leather's so black it's nearly matte, and when Violet's hand falls on it, for a brief second it's hot, slimy, the jacket's surface slides under her fingers like the skin from a bloated corpse--

"Watch--" Jack moves to snake his arm out from under hers, and the leather is noticeably warm, but perfectly solid now. Just normal, just fine. "The leather, and what's the issue? I want to look, I won't tell anyone you're squatting."

[coffeeandscream]

It rings loud in her memory; she's handled her share of bloated corpses! Violet falls back a step, wary gaze jerking up from the leather to his eyes. "I'm not squatting. This is my house. But y'know. If you would stop being an asshole for a minute and introduce yourself. Y'know. Not like an asshole?

"Maybe I'd show you around."

[bubonic]

Okay, okay, he can pause visibly at that, hand digging unconsciously at that jacket. He just doesn't like this place, it's making him fucking edgy. Sloppy.

"Jack," he breathes, finally, meeting her eyes again. "Jack Usher. Look, my company's making me do this, I just wanna get in and out. Maybe they fucked up the paperwork or something, but just - I dunno, just spin me through the first floor so I can say I was here."

He really needs to pick just one vocabulary set to stick to, he knows, but it's hard to reconcile they're ghosts with they're humans, especially when he's as on edge as he is.

"It can be quick. No offense, but I, uh, I'm not too keen on staying in the Murderhouse for too long anyway."

[coffeeandscream]

"You know who calls it that?" She hums, wiggling by to hold the door for him. "Tourists. I'm Violet, by the way. Come on."

The house, inside, is clean. It's beautiful, pristine, even. A little cold, maybe, but it's well kept through no small effort by the residents. Violet swings a lazy arm up the stairwell. "This is like...the lobby. Or--atrium or something. I don't know what you call it in real estate. That chandelier?" Her eyes stick on him even as she eases into the next room. "That's where the last owner hung himself.

"Are you superstitious? Jack?"

[bubonic]

Tourists. Not inaccurate, so he doesn't argue it - just follows her in, hands stuffed in his pockets to keep the bugs from crawling out at an inopportune time. (Death's hair has a nasty habit of producing them, see, and he doesn't want the residents to think he's some unnatural centipede-smuggling freak just yet.) Over his glasses he can see that the house is gorgeous, not from his age but decidedly un-modern. If it didn't have a nasty habit of slaughtering anyone who set foot in it and wasn't full of pissed off ghosts, he'd be a little charmed himself.

"Foyer," he mumbles, eyes dragging over the fixtures, old but clean. He's not one for spending unnecessary time down on Earth or anything, but even he knows enough to know that this house is practically a living pre-Armageddon museum. Her eyes stick on him, and his stick to the chandelier even as he shuffles after her, slow and leisurely. "And yeah, you could say that. You're about to tell me something ominous and horrifying so I'll leave faster, aren't you?"

[coffeeandscream]

"Foyer. Sorry." Her fingers catch on the French doors to the studio, but she's leading him past, talking a little louder over the scuffling upstairs. "I dunno. You call it Murderhouse, so it sounds like you know something already. Did you know about the miscarriage in the living room?"

[bubonic]

The scuffling gets his eyes going up immediately, warily. Like he knows what's up there isn't natural, isn't alive.

"News to me." His thumb drags over his lip again, the other firmly keeping what feels like a decently large and very unamicable spider pushed down. As soon as Violet turns her back, he's tossing the damn thing across the room so it won't blow his cover. "I've heard the stories of the original owners, the homosexuals--" Still hasn't learned this modern terminology thing quite yet, cut him some slack. "And the Harmons. Bits and pieces, mostly. Nothing important, mind."

He can't see them, but Jack knows they're all around, they must all be watching - keeping tabs on their first visitor in decades. His spirit can't be trapped here, but a death would still be a nasty, painful, time consuming business that he really can't afford. He can't help but feel a little uneasy.

"This place has a nasty history to it."

[coffeeandscream]

The homosexuals. She snorts, a little taken aback. It was a pretty liberal area back in the day--apparently the world beyond is getting more evangelical. "Well. We like to call it colorful, not nasty. Come on, nothing bad ever happens in the kitchen.

"It was kind of the last thing updated. It's not the Jetsons or anything, but June Cleaver might be a little mystified." The kitchen doesn't look as warm as it used to. There's a (clean, folded) afghan draped over one of the stools by the counter, which Violet pulls out for Jack. This is probably the best place to be; the nursery above is low traffic, sure to be quiet. She pushes herself up on the high counter. "Where did you say you were coming from?"

[bubonic]

He gets absolutely none of those references, but the kitchen looks nice enough. Not the first time something's gone over his head, so he hums like he understands and takes that seat, glasses pushed up on his head - the dark circles under his eyes are more apparent that way, which is why he usually keeps them on, but these are his people. Sort of. They'll have to find out why he's really here sooner or later.

"New York." One of the few cities he knows decently well; now it's a hellish walled-in gangland, survivors slaughtering each other for scraps, sometimes just something to eat. But he remembers it when it was beautiful, mystifying - alive, in a word. "That's where my contractor's based from, at any rate, I stay on the road."

A light shrug, like what are you gonna do?

"We find older houses - older neighborhoods in general, try to renovate them. Like I said, it's a trendy new age sort of thing. Not entirely sure why they want to put a slaughterhouse on the market for unsuspecting hipsters."

[coffeeandscream]

"Yeah. I mean, we've had plenty of yuppies--" Look at the place, but that's a little telling. She shifts where she sits, actually, hops off the counter again. "--y'know, want to take a look around. Like we don't know how to take care of the place. Tell the hipsters how bad the dirt is here. Their window gardens will really suffer."

Nursery is mostly quiet, but upstairs the baby starts to fuss. Running the water, Violet doesn't seem to notice. It's a common noise. The baby wants to be heard. "We used to live in Boston. I really miss the East Coast. Do you want some coffee or something? You look trashed, Jackie."

[bubonic]

Jack hears the baby just over the water, quiet enough that he has to strain to catch it - dead people, dead infants, what's he supposed to do with a ghost baby? Death hadn't offered any suggestions on unraveling the house's spell, and Jack's obviously never had to deal with this exact situation before.

His eyes come back down with Violet's voice, hands tapping an absent staccato while he glances over his shoulder to look at her, and then glances up at the ceiling.

"Coffee would be - great, actually," great, not fantastic, he needs to get upstairs, barely has the presence of mind to watch his wording. "What does the upstairs look like? I'd like to get a few photos before I leave."

[coffeeandscream]

"No." He gets back soundly as she puts the kettle on, going to the cupboard for a press. It's not real coffee, or it's not corporeal coffee; it's a manifestation of her want for it to exist, but she forgets sometimes too. The grind smells nice anyway. "You said you just wanted to see the first floor. Those rooms are private."

[bubonic]

"Mm." But his eyes are still up, trailing along the ceiling - the coffee isn't real, but the smell takes him back centuries, back to helping Susannah grind the beans by hand in the manor's grand kitchen, the way the rich smell would stick to their hands and clothes for the rest of the day, he and his beautiful sister.

Incorporeal coffee. He could laugh, and he does, already pushing one booted foot up from the stool.

"Honestly, I'm not interested in your house." But he's already inside, and they're just ghosts. They're strange, but he's stranger, fingers tapping a nervous little staccato on the bar as he throws a look back through the doorway. "But I am working. Heard much about the End of Days, Violet? Or do they not teach that in school anymore? You start losing track of that shit a century or two in."

He's trying to assert dominance, here. The ghosts he's had to clear out in the past were never so alive as the ones in this house, but it must work on the same principle, right?

[coffeeandscream]

Go ahead, strut. Her back is to him as the pot begins to boil, as she tends to the press. "End of Days? You are superstitious. Now who's trying to scare who?"

[bubonic]

"Believe me or don't. I still have to find out how to kick you and every other tenant here into the next life before the Second Coming." The cabinetry is very nice, he'll just casually be peeking into a few of them. "Or the supposed Second Coming, anyway, religious prophecy isn't exactly my forte. I'm the messenger, that's all."

Another spider inches its way down his forearm, a fat black thing with a red hourglass on its gut, and he rolls it lazily between his knuckles as he turns to her again.

"I already told you, Violet, I'm Death. But I really do prefer Jack."

[coffeeandscream]

"Bullshit." She's heard some crazy talk. She hears it all the time. She doesn't mind it a bit, but to hear that this hobo has any thought about kicking them out--

The kettle starts to whistle as she turns a daggery look at him (and the spider, huge spider latticing between his fingers). "Listen, Jack, I like the goth thing? But you're way out of line. You probably should leave." Pale hand spiders around the handle of the kettle, which is real, which is hot as she lifts it off the burner. The air is charged with threat, and in her instincts, she forgets again. "My boyfriend's gonna be here soon. He's really protective."

[bubonic]

"Don't play with me, Violet."

Tate's already watching, probably, or maybe the spirits cycle in and out of consciousness - the point is, Jack seems less than threatened when she waves the kettle, although he's sure to keep his back against the counter.

"You died seventy years ago from an overdose, your mother shortly afterwards in childbirth, and your father hung from that chandelier." Black widows aren't aggressive spiders, really, they don't bite unless threatened - so he doesn't think it's much of an issue to let it slide its way down onto the counter that separates himself and Violet, particularly not when everyone here is dead anyway. "Your little blond Adonis with the murder fetish died a decade before you, do I need to go on?"

[coffeeandscream]

"No." Play-pretend coffee, real hot kettle, real mud-black boiling water. The guy is wrong. He shouldn't be here. He wants to mess everything up. "No, I've heard plenty."

Plenty enough to get her marching up, cool and confident, reaching out a hand to take him by the front of his jacket (dead jacket skin jacket sloughed skin) while the other goes to empty the kettle down his front, over her own hand even.

[bubonic]

It's a solid jacket underneath Violet's hand, a body that doesn't fight the pull or push away the kettle - he feels the pain, of course, not even Death is immune to that, so his jaw tightens with an audible wet grit of teeth as she pours the water down, hands clenched into tight fists. Skin sticks and burns an instant shade of bright red, but his eyes stay set - stay dark, maybe even a little darker than before.

He doesn't breathe. Hasn't been breathing for a few minutes now, actually.

"Try napalm next time. That worked for the Vietnamese." A step in, smooth as ever. "But I'll just come back. Violet, didn't I tell you who I am?"

[coffeeandscream]

Her seared hand stays stuck to his chest, rubber soles catching on the kitchen tile when she tries to keep him in place. "You're lying. You can't do anything to this house. This is our home!"

[bubonic]

"You're dead, honey." No pulse under her hand either, and he makes to slide around her instead, a leisurely shuffle like he isn't dripping boiling water at the moment. "You're all dead. The dead can't linger here forever, none of us can."

His clothes stick to him uncomfortably, skin throbbing. He's had worse (hundreds of trips to Earth to start wars and cause catastrophe means you're bound to end up tortured and thrown in a ditch sooner or later, after all), but still, this vessel is pretty much shot. He'll have to get another one for the next trip down, and that's always a pain.

"Why anyone would want to stay here is beyond me. I'm helping you people, let me do my job."

[coffeeandscream]

"What do you care where we stay?" She shakes the empty kettle at him. "We aren't hurting anyone! Not anymore, not for a long time, so what's the problem? How do you think you're helping us, exactly? We lost everything to stay together, you can't just dissolve it like that!"

Like what, like the snap of her fingers here, but she realizes with the gesture that if he had a solution--would he really be in here, chatting? Violet peers at him, moving around him in turn. "...You really can't, can you?"

[bubonic]

She's caught him. It reads open on his face, the way he snaps up his glasses and tosses them on the counter - the way he drags his hair out of his face in a practiced motion, almost irately.

"I'm going to." Somehow, some way. He licks at his teeth again, strolling across the kitchen to grab at a dishcloth. It isn't going to help the mess of his chest and shirt, but after so many years in Death's dry, quiet realm, he doesn't really like how water feels anymore. "Believe it or not, there is a grand scheme to things, and this house isn't a part of it. I'm not trying to be a dick, that's just how it is."

Done with the rag, he turns and tosses it to (at) her, wiping his hands off on his jacket. The water literally boils off of it.

"You really think you want to stay here while the world's ending? Because honestly, you don't."

[coffeeandscream]

She tosses the rag, in turn, into the sink, demanding roughly, "What do you know about what I want? What do you mean, the world's ending, what happened?"