Been watching a bunch of horror movies lately and inspiration hit me when I went to watch some One Piece anime. Thus this fanfic was born.
So sit back, enjoy and remember the popcorn if you have any.
There is a certain way the world behaves in your mind once you've become scared.
The shadows of inanimate objects reach out to grab you. Small sounds become honorably frightening. And any sudden movement makes you jump out of your skin.
It was a dark and eerie night when an eight year old Hordy had finally gotten a nineteen year old Arlong to agree to watch a horror movie with him.
The kid had known better, extremely aware scary movies left him in a fit of fear for several days afterward. But Arlong promised to keep him safe from the bad things away (and only said if merely to get this over with a bit faster).
However, one side of Arlong's mind argued beforehand that it would scare Hordy a little more than he'd like, but Arlong simply shrugged that thought away. Hordy was eight years old, he could handle something like a simple, classic horror film. Of course, Arlong was nineteen and ended up giving the kid more credit than he should have.
Arlong sat with Hordy, side by side on a pale blue couch, as a particularly tense scene started to play out in front of them in the beginning of the movie.
It was starting out with a teenage girl with a flashlight that was following his friends into an old, abandoned house on a moonless night that just happened to be on Halloween night. The girl tiptoed down the same corridor that her friends had gone down only moments ago. Her eyes then scanned over a pile of blood on the floor before her. The girl's light blue shoes clattered about upon the tiles beneath her as a pair of eyes appeared behind her.
"Are you ok"? Arlong asked, turning to face the considerably nervous boy.
Hordy twitched. "Y- Yeah, I'm fine".
Silence fell upon them again, and their focus fell back onto the movie. The eyes had vanished into thin air. That left a long corridor. The never-ending darkness. One woman, no melody in the background to accompany her. A footstep, or two. A shadow against the wall that she didn't notice.
"L- Look out…" Hordy whispered under his breath. He so badly wanted to look away, to find something better to do with his time. Though as the mysterious shadow drew closer and closer to the character who had to be one of the first to die, his eyes only drew closer to the screen.
He shivered. "R- Run… run… you dumbass…"
A turn of the head. A sharp jolt of music. And…silence. Her breathing was starting to become ragged, and pacey. But there was no one behind her. No one at all. Just the shadows of various branches hanging from a tree outside, trailing along in her wake. She was safe. Or so she thought. She turned back around, reassured, and met an axe that was right in front of her neck.
"AGHH"! Hordy jumped, his knees rising to his chest. He covered his eyes with his webbed hands.
"Hordy," Arlong said. He put an arm around the boy's shoulders. "It's ok, it's just a movie. Besides, she ain't even dead yet".
"Y-yeah". He shuddered. "But that dumb bitch should have run away or never gone in there in the first place"!
"I know," Arlong shuffled a little closer. "But that's the direction this movie is going in".
"I mean, what did she think was gonna happen when she walked into a haunted house on Halloween"?
"Like hell I don't know and like hell I give a shit".
"You don't go taking a stroll around an abandoned house like that"!
"Well if no one in this damn movie did that then there'd be no movie, now wouldn't there"?
"Yeah I guess so…"
"Can we just see how this plays out now"?
"Uh… yeah, ok".
As the group of teens was starting to dwindle in numbers, young Hordy was starting to become more and more afraid. During one of the murders, Hordy screamed and tightly hugged the older male, who was seemingly bored as he heard another dying girl's screams in the film. The blood that was splattered across the walls was clearly fake as hell, the separate limbs looked like plastic and it couldn't be more obvious that the ghost of the butler was the killer.
One full hour into the three hour movie, the boys were still watching their movie on a couch, popcorn half gone. Hordy was half watching as his hands were partially blocking his gaze until he spotted the crazed killer pop out behind another victim and sliced the teen's head off.
He managed to stifle a scream but wore various expressions of shock and disgust. "H- How'd t- they get the b- blood to s- splatter like t- that, A- Arlong"?
"Ehh, it's a fairly simple mechanism, really. If it wanted to, I could rig up the same thing with an air pump and some corn syrup". Arlong shrugged as he laid a hand on Hordy's back.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"!
Rolling his eyes at another scream, Arlong looked down as the pressure on his side increased. His gaze shifted down to find a trembling Hordy who, at this point, couldn't even bear to look at the screen and was one scream away from crying his eyes out.
With a sigh, Arlong leaned forward and grabbed the remote to pause the film. When the screaming stopped, Hordy looked up at the teenager with teary eyes.
"W- Wat…"?
"Heh," Arlong smirked down at the boy with reassurance as he laid both hands on his back. "It was getting a little too much for you, wasn't it"?
"What the hell are you talking about," Hordy growled, baring his teeth. "I wasn't scared! Not for a damn second, you bastard"!
"So you wouldn't mind if I turned the movie back on"? Arlong slowly leaned forward, threatening to finish the movie.
"NO"!
The next second, Arlong found himself on the floor with Hordy lying flat on his chest.
Normally, Arlong would have shoved anyone who landed on him off but the obvious signs of fear written blatantly across Hordy's features were enough to convince him to do otherwise.
"And here I thought you wanted to watch the movie-" Arlong started to say but was cut off.
"No," Tears threatened to come out from the young boy's eyes. "It scares me, ok?! I don't wanna finish it! Don't turn it back on"!
"Quiet down, kid". Arlong whispered. "You'll get yourself killed if you don't calm down".
"I-I'm…" He pulled his knees up to his chin and wriggled backwards onto the floor. And he waited. "I…I'm scared, Arlong…"
"Aw, for the love of…" Arlong trailed off as he shook his head. He sat down on the floor and picked the kid up before holding him in his arms. His hands rubbed Hordy's back slowly and softly to reassure him that there was no serial killer coming to murder him. "Eh… I'm too nice sometimes".
Hordy looked up with a smile. "I like nice".
After that little fiasco, the two boys stopped watching the movie and started watching some TV cop shows instead. Around midnight, Arlong helped Hordy to bed since it was way past his bedtime.
Once the kid was in his bed, Arlong retired to his own bed as well, but several minutes later the door creaked open and Hordy tip-toed to his bed.
"Oi, go to bed"!
"But I'm scared".
"You brought this on yourself, forcing us to watch a horror movie for over half the night".
Arlong looked up from where he was laying and saw Hordy's little pouty face. "Damn… he's too cute…" He thought to himself before he said, "Fine, you can sleep next to me, but just for tonight-" He felt something snuggle close to his chest and knew that no other words were needed.
"Thanks, Arlong".
"Eh, you're welcome. Seriously though... just let me sleep".
The young boy then curled even closer to the teen. He ended up burying his head in the crook of Arlong's neck.
"Love you, Arlong".
"Love you too".
Thus, the fluffiness has concluded for this fic.