buttviper | too salty to stay dead

[Up until now, Afton had bothered nobody else since that fateful night at Freddy's. The Spring Bonnie suit was simply put somewhere out of the way, stashed where nobody should ever find it again. Nobody cared about the broken suit or the dead man enough to get to the gory task of separating them. There would be no burial, which is just as well because nobody would have come. Afton and his memory would be left to rot with his victims.

Unfortunately, Afton had no plans of staying inside the diner where he died. And even more unfortunate, at least for Charlie, there still seemed to be a connection between them. Perhaps because she'd been the one to seal his fate, or maybe it was because of his ties with her past. Either way, he soon found himself sitting in the back of a car without really meaning to do it, and after the initial confusion he notices who is driving.

A slow, lopsided smile spreads over his face. Oh, this is going to be fun. What if...]

...Chaaarliie...

[He says it quietly, almost sing-songy, but he keeps himself out of sight. He wants to know if she can hear him, first.]

[Charlie doesn't seem to react at first, beyond a furrowing of eyebrows that could just as easily have been due to the road. Darned thing had more than a few cracks, hadn't been maintained in a while...maybe it was just her being too cautious at night? After a few moments, though, she puts on the turn signal and...pulls over, shifting the car quickly into park once it's stopped.

She heard. She doesn't recognize the voice (doesn't want to recognize it,) but she heard someone speak in the silence of the car and it unnerved her.

It may have been an auditory hallucination, though. Hearing things because it's dark and lonely and far too quiet. There's no one in the car besides her, though. After thinking about it for a moment, she exhales in annoyance and turns on the radio, flipping it to AM. She doesn't actually care for what's being said, but the noise grounds her, brings her back to reality.

Maybe she'd better head home for the night.

With that thought in mind, she puts the car back into drive, waits carefully, then pulls a U-turn and starts driving back home. The noise will keep her from being distracted again, she's sure.

(But why does it feel like her throat's closing up on her?)]

[At first he isn't sure she heard, but when she pulls the car over he chuckles to himself. He waits patiently for her to start driving again, and then leans in. He's pretty sure that she can't see him if he doesn't want her to, so he gets close to her ear and whispers:]

It's rude to ignore people, you know.

- hell!

[That one's let out as she pulls over again, this time in something like a panic, slamming the brakes with enough force to send her forward just a bit. Thank goodness for seat belts, and for the fact that nobody else is actually on this road. She's shaking and white-knuckled anyway, though, and she turns off the radio again. Another wide-eyed look around the car confirms it, there's no one there.

This can mean only one thing: she's losing her mind.]

I'd better check the phone book...

[Hopefully there's a doctor in town who can help with a case of the crazy. She starts the vehicle back up again, pulls back into the road, and starts driving once more, this time slow and careful in case she has another fit.

Still she refuses to acknowledge the voice. It's just a hallucination after all, her mind playing a nasty trick on her. ...still, she refuses to connect the dots.]

[He sighs and shifts around to sit in the front seat beside Charlie while they're stopped, where he props his feet up on the dash and rests his arms behind his head. After a moment of silence, he starts to whistle the Toreador March.

He's actually kind of pleased with how everything is working out right now, even if Charlie is refusing to acknowledge him. Nobody has to see him if he doesn't want them to. Of course it might turn out that only Charlie can hear him in the first place, but that's okay. He never really was a people person, and he'll never have to fake it again.]

[The minute the whistling starts up, Charlie's expression turns very, very sour. Great! Wonderful! She never wanted to hear that song again but did her apparent mental issues respect that wish? Not in the least.

To try and drown it out, she turns the radio back on with a tsk, changing it from AM to FM and, at a stop sign, messing with the dial until some hard rock comes on. There. Something to focus on that had nothing to do with her apparent encroaching insanity.

She should probably have been more distressed about it, she supposed, or shocked, but somehow this didn't surprise her at all. Maybe she just didn't care at this point. At any rate, the drive continued along with her not randomly speaking to thin air. She was, however, starting to rub at the thin scar slicing across her cheek - the one Foxy had given her - at red lights and stop signs.

It was a nervous tic, no doubt about it, and it'll only stop once she gets back home.]

[Well that's rude. He eyes the radio, then Charlie, then reaches over. Can he... ah, there we go. The radio switches itself off, and he sits back with a triumphant sort of smirk. If he's going to test the limits of his body, he might as well have fun with it. He goes back to whistling, waving one hand lazily in the air as if conducting.]

[THAT got her attention, and she takes a quick look - yeah, the radio switched itself off. It...did that. Well, the car is getting old, but more importantly-]

Hearing and seeing things...not good.

[It feels a bit colder, somehow, and she can't help the shiver that causes. But then, she's alone in the car, with nothing but her apparent hallucinations to keep her company.]

It isn't real. Gotta remember it isn't real, [and with that the light changes and she's off again. Almost home, just a little further. Just a bit, she can do that. Just a couple more blocks.]

If you say so.

[He wonders what his limits are here; so far he can talk to her and interact with things, but he doesn't know how to make himself visible. Maybe he just needs to want it to happen. So he turns to stare at her, still smiling, willing himself to be seen.]

[It feels like time stopped in the worst way for a moment. Her face drains quickly of all color as she sees something very wrong out of the corner of her eye. Another look confirms it - the person she never wanted to see again.

Which means there's another explanation, one less plausible than the first- but is it, really? After all, at Freddy's, hadn't the children's ghosts refused to move on too?

Time resumes, and when she slams the brakes, she ends up whacking the back of her head on the headrest. She doesn't let out anything more than a small grunt of pain, though, because showing weakness to a ghost just seems like a bad idea.

This time, she is deliberately not looking at him, eyes forward and mouth set in a thin line. After a moment, though, she does speak. Boy, does she sound irritated.]

... Go away.

[Ah, there's the driveway, time to pull in.]

Edited (too nice) 2016-10-28 13:48 (UTC)

You should be more careful.

[He says it casually; he didn't do much more than rock slightly with the car as it stopped. Even if he'd hit the seat, he probably would have just gone through it. He clasps his hands in his lap and tilts his head slightly, that unpleasant smirk still lingering.]

Is that any way to greet an old friend?

[Ah, that must be rage she's feeling. Everything just seems so surreal that she almost doesn't acknowledge it, but that last phrase brings it up. The anger, the revulsion, the disgust, everything.

She needs to go to sleep, she thinks idly. It's a little late to be up.

Ignoring the unwanted presence again, she turns the car off once it's where it needs to be, gets out, and heads indoors. If she slams the car door a little hard, well...it's been a long night. This happening here and now is too much to take. The 'now' was always a safe haven, after all...]

[He pointedly blinks and raises his eyes a little as the door slams, mouthing a "wow". Not that he's actually surprised, but this little game he's playing is amusing to him. He gets out of the car and follows Charlie into the house, hands shoved in his pockets, whistling a tune to himself as he goes.]

Rough night or something?

I said go away.

[It's said quietly. She tries to keep her tone cold, but between the earlier incidents, how strange this situation is, and oh, the fact that it's the murderous dirtbag, she's starting to get annoyed. It's not something she likes, especially now that she's home. Everything feels wrong.]

Rude.

[He keeps on following, fully aware of the fact that he's invading her personal space but not really caring. She's the reason he's here, after all.]

Your fault I'm here, isn't it?

No. You're the one who decided to leave the pizzeria.

[She's really starting to get annoyed now, which surprises even her. Annoyed - maybe that's an understatement. Revolted, disgusted, enraged...yes, that sounds better.]

So get away already.

Oh, I wasn't going to stay there. Didn't mean to end up in your car, though.

[He shrugs.]

When life gives you lemons... or death, I guess.

[The only thing standing between Afton and a punch to the face is the fact that Charlie is perfectly aware of how useless it'd be.]

So go somewhere else.

[It doesn't look like he can do much damage as he is, anyway.]

[It was just a bad dream.

(Yeah, right.)

Charlie passed out from sheer exhaustion after the mess with the spook, and woke up with a headache as a result. Gone about her daily routine as usual, though it took her a moment to remember why she hadn't changed into her nightclothes (too tired, take care of everything in the morning, Aunt Jen isn't around to possibly raise eyebrows.) Yes, she certainly had been tired if she'd hallucinated a ghost in the car, especially that one.

(Don't think about it. It wasn't real)

So she just goes about the morning routine, slightly exhausted but ready to take on the day now. There's no ghost in the house, after all. It's over, and that's all there is to it.]

[For what it's worth, Afton let her pass out without much protest. It gave him a chance to look through the house, though it bored him quickly. After all, he'd already seen much of it. For a long while, he'd simply watched Charlie as she slept. If he thought she was going to wake up, he hid himself. Convenient, that. He may not be able to do much physically just yet, but he can disappear at will.

When Charlie finally wakes up, he practises his newfound skill. He follows her at a distance, not wanting to spook her just yet. He soon gets bored of that too, though. He starts to move things slightly out of place when Charlie's back is turned. Sometimes he'll make a small noise nearby, only to disappear as soon as Charlie looks. This is the kind of game he can get behind, and he wonders which conclusion her mind will jump to first; is it a ghost, or is she going mad?]

[When she hears a noise behind her, she chalks it up to the house settling. It happens. When she sees something out of place, though...

She grits her teeth, growing more annoyed as she finds more things out of place. Before she realizes it, her hands are clenched into angry fists, though she knows the gesture's useless. She closes her eyes, tries to regulate her breathing, but only for a moment. Keeping her eyes closed is just inviting danger.

In a furious whisper, she finally addresses the spook that she knows is there.] Stop touching Aunt Jen's stuff, and get out already.

[He doesn't say anything at first. He simply knocks over a mug in protest, letting it fall to the floor and shatter.]

Oh, whoops. How clumsy of me.

[He lets himself be seen finally, leaning casually against the wall with a smug grin on his face.]

[Her first thought is that she's gonna have to scour that wall, and pretty much the entire house, when this gets resolved. She's not gonna engage in the conversation, though, not going to respond to the bad jokes and the smug grin and - just - ugh.]

The door's right there.

[She points at it, still looking very grumpy.]

Leave.

Edited 2017-08-19 20:45 (UTC)

That's rude, you know.

[Pretending to look hurt, he pushes himself off the wall lightly, pointedly avoiding the door.]

...Aren't you going to clean that up?

[He waves at the remains of the mug scattered on the floor.]

[She's not buying it for a second, and scowls at him.]

You made the mess, you clean it. And if you don't want to, you can always just leave.

[With that, she's gonna just turn her back on him and go back to whatever she was doing before.]

Well, I don't really feel like doing either of those.

[And if Charlie doesn't clean it, well, nobody will. He walks over to stand uncomfortably close behind her, peering over her shoulder.]

Soooo. What're you doing?

[She WAS preparing breakfast. Now she's pretty sure she won't be eating, she thinks as she shuts off the stove and gets as far away from the spook as possible, making an incoherent noise of disgust.]

No. No. This is not gonna happen. Get the hell out of Aunt Jen's house, you creep, or I'll find some way to make you leave.

[She doesn't normally curse. This is how aggravated she is, and probably how sleep-deprived too. With a scowl, she goes about sweeping up the shards of the mug now, since they're a danger to her at least, and she really doesn't feel like leaving the spook any ammo. Into the dust pan they go, then into the garbage. Good. Yes.]

Oh, I wasn't going to do anything.

[Debatable. Especially given that his creepiest smile is back on his face again.]

I really don't think you have any way of making me leave, though.

[He sits on the kitchen table rather than just taking a seat, though that's more because he doesn't know if pulling a chair is something he's capable of doing yet. He'd rather not try it and then look stupid. It'd ruin the mood.]

[You mean him being there and being annoying and breaking a mug isn't "doing anything"? Shocked, I am shocked at this.]

I'll. Find. One.

[Yeah, she's never going to go near that table again, it's tainted now. She thinks about it, though. How to make a spook leave...pretend they're not there? Well, she's still not going near the kitchen table, though. And she's really not hungry anymore, so...hmm...what else to do?

There isn't really much of anything else to do. Maybe she'll go flip through one of those college course catalogs. It's something to keep her mind off of things, anyway. Something to do. After snagging one from the pile, she heads to the living room, sits in a chair, and proceeds to read the thing.

She has to ignore it.]

[Of course it isn't! He is totally innocent in this.]

Well, good luck with that!

[Oh, she's walking off again. He thinks on it for a moment, then follows. Because of course he does. He peeks at the catalogue, and makes a thoughtful noise.]

...Definitely Mandarin.

[He's helping!]

[PERSONAL SPACE YOU CREEPY BASTARD. Cue barely-restrained screech and scooting away because no.]

Why won't you just go away already? Don't you have somewhere else to haunt?!

[Like, oh, a half-constructed mall, far away from pretty much everyone. Just a thought. And he's not helping at all!]

Well, if I did I'd be there, don't you think?

[He says it drily, gesturing with his hands in maybe the first display of exasperation she's seen from him since he appeared in her car. He didn't choose to appear there, but why shouldn't he have his fun while he's around? Especially with how it makes Charlie squirm.]

[He needs to stop using sane person logic. It's super effective, and she has no retort to it. An annoyed exhale is all he gets in response for now. At least he's not killing anyone like this.

Still.

She grabs a pen that was lying around and scratches out the Mandarin class, just to spite him. It's petty, but right now it's all she has.]

[Hey, he may be a socially awkward child-killing psychopath with personal space issues, but he has a brain! Twisted as it is. And hey, he won that argument! Neat.]

What did Mandarin ever do to you?

[He's back to smugly smirking again.]

Nothing. You, though - you killed my brother and drove Dad to kill himself, in case you forgot.

[Is it really any wonder she wants nothing to do with this creep with that info in mind? And that's not even going into all the other murders. Yeesh.]

So get out, already.

too salty to stay dead

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