Originally, this was going to be one veeeeery, mind you, VERY long one shot. However, now I think I'll be posting in installments! One shot no more! \(^o^)/ Haha, I'm not actually perky. 0u0 My social networking personality is coming through, teehee~ … :I Oh, wait...I don't social network! ^u^;
Anyway, this fanfiction has a Halloween based plotline. The story behind that is, well…that's around the time I started writing this… u; It was only going to include fan characters (random anon: Oh, God nuuuuu!) at first, but now canon characters will also be making an appearance! …most likely…unless I change my mind… Comment and you'll definitely influence my choice! That's just the type of person I am! :D Ah, but then again sometimes I can't decide, even then… u.u;
Anyway, anyway…you'll probably have to endure and wait for them a bit! If you feel the story needs more of a certain aspect feel free to make a suggestion! Like perhaps you'd like to see comedy, or romance…? 0.0 DRAMA?! ACTION?! WITTY ONE-LINERS?! CRACK?! Yeah, but please, if you would… like to…comment… I mean, only if you would really, really truly want too, and like the story…! Ah, but I'd also like critiques please! I won't get mad! 0u0 I think… Anyway, really let me have it! :D I want to improve… u.u I know I mess up a lot… Like right now, how this introduction is too long… Ah, well then, enjoy the story! ^/^
Chapter 1
Fawn blinked twice after opening the door to the house she shared with two other people. The very moment she had a clear view, the dog required less than a Super Sonic second to identify who was occupying the space in front of her.
"Oh geez…" The German shepherd groaned, suddenly laying her head against the frame of her doorway with a bang.
"What do you want…?" An annoyed sigh huffily left the dog.
"Hey, Fawn, my dog~" This unexpected (or maybe more so: sadly presumable) visitor was an orange mongoose adorned in an orange and black striped turtleneck. He was waggling his eyebrows in a playfully suggestive way as he greeted Fawn, who blushed and grimaced at his chosen words.
"J-just…shut up…" Fawn shook her head in distaste.
Slowly the shepherd began to turn away from the visitor, her hand beginning to inconspicuously push the door closed.
"One, I'm not your anything. Secondly, what you said is just plain stupid." A grumble left the dog's throat as she attempted to slam the wooden barrier the rest of the way between herself and the mongoose, whose name is yet to be mentioned.
"H-hey!" The very orange male called out indignantly as he realized what the German shepherd was plotting. Shoving his foot in between the remaining space in a flash, the mongoose managed to use his boot as a doorstopper before Fawn could lock him out.
"Ow." He said blandly a few seconds after his sole was smashed harshly in the doorway.
"Flash…" Fawn growled out the mongoose's name, continuing to grind the door against his shoe in a frustrated way.
Quickly tiring of the damage his toes were taking, Flash, with very little effort, pushed his way into the house. Nowhere near as strong bodily wise herself, Fawn could only stumble back with an agitated huff.
The agitated female German shepherd, who had been pushed aside, glared with bright, emerald green eyes as her brown fur stood on end. Her tail thrashed angrily back and forth every few seconds, making her long, and straw colored, hair sway in its ponytail. Today the dog's attire consisted of plain, slightly baggy pants, stuffed into black, leather combat boots, and a green t-shirt draped over her meager chest. (lol, wut…) (0.0 )
"Well, you've managed to gain forced entry into my home. You might as well tell me why you're here." The dog turned her face away crisply, too annoyed to make eye contact with the mongoose.
"Hm…" Flash murmured, making Fawn's ear twitch in irritation before continuing cheekily. "You know if you'd just look in my general direction, you could see for yourself…"
Resolving to just humor the unwelcome visitor Fawn mechanically snapped her head around. Her eyes focused to find that the mongoose was cradling a smaller vegetable…or…fruit…?…of some sort in his arms.
"What? You want to make pumpkin pie…?" Fawn snorted, eyeing the mongoose with an exasperated expression. "Since when did you have that, anyway?" The dog asked as she tentatively squinted her emerald green eyes, and then allowed them back to their normal size.
Flash rolled his own amber colored irises.
"Fawn. I have been holding this the entire time. How could you not notice?"
Glaring through her blush Fawn tried her best to come up with some sort of retaliation.
"Well it's the same stupid shade of gray as your shirt... I mean, as if you can seriously just expect me to instantaneously notice you're holding a pumpkin!" Fawn mentally face palmed at the weakness of her own grumbled retort as she turned away from the mongoose again, crossing her arms. There was no way she was going to show him any more of her flustered demeanor than he'd already seen all the years the two had known each other.
"Gray…?" Flash muttered to himself as he looked down at the obviously orange colored pumpkin, and then the matching hue of his shirt. They both seemed to flaunt the fact that they were bright, eye catching colors.
Flash had been aware of Fawn's terrible color blindness for quite some time, but sometimes it was still ridiculous to hear her call the bluest of blues or pinkest of pinks just darker and lighter shades of that one boring slate color. Of course in this case it was the incomprehensible problem of deciphering the most vibrant of oranges. It made the boy wonder what type of color palette he was made up of in Fawn's eyes, especially since it was composed mostly of shades similar to the fruit/vegetable he was carrying. And then what of his hair, which stood out from the rest of him as a darker red?
The mongoose then tried to fathom what he was doing thinking this through at such a random time. Consequentially, he decided to stop being stupid and ceased pursuing the topic any further for the time being. Thus he causes this tangent to come to a conclusion, allowing for the continuation of the rest of this ridiculous fanfiction.
Setting the pumpkin gently onto the floor, Flash straightened back up and began making his way over to the cold shouldered German shepherd. Fawn heard him of course, but refused to take notice as she felt his presence right behind her. The mongoose then gently took the end of Fawn's long, pony-tailed yellow locks between two of his fingers and gave it a few small tugs. The only response his playful action earned him was a grumble from the dog herself.
"Fawn~" The mongoose called breezily into the air.
"What…?" The word grated out in a metallic fashion.
"We're going to carve pumpkins." Flash said it simply.
This time Fawn rolled her eyes, turning clockwise to face the boy with her forehead furrowed.
"Well, I kind of expected that already. One does not simply show up with a pumpkin this close to Halloween, and not have the plan of carving it." (Dur…yup. It's still Halloween.) In fact, at the moment, it was very early in the eve of Halloween, Devil's Night or, most commonly known as, Mischief Night.
A confused expression overtook Flash's features.
"No…but…then why did you want to make pumpkin pie…?" He said with his face full of question. This girl was constantly baffling him to no end. And this time the misunderstanding was over something as transparent as a Halloween vegetable/fruit.
Instantaneously the dog face palmed.
"It's called sarcasm, idiot." She growled.
"Oh…" Flash said, feeling a bit sheepish. The mongoose wasn't stupid. In fact this moment was a perfect example of what had just been said before: he could just never know with Fawn.
Inadvertently, Flash let his gaze wander to another direction away from Fawn, allowing an awkward silence settle over the two. The time stretched out, layering upon itself with a blank feeling every tick of the theoretical clock. Rubbing her arm, Fawn gradually gathered her courage to break the uncomfortable semblance of the moment.
"S…sounds fun…" She had meant for the fragment of sentence to sound unwillingly accommodating, but it had just ended up overshadowed with a slightly anxious and quiet tone.
"Hm?" The mongoose's ears perked up distractedly as he was shaken out of his own thoughts. Apparently he had not been experiencing the same vexatious lapse as Fawn. "Uh...were you saying something...?"
The German shepherd, now reverted back to her usual self, frowned, but repeated herself.
"I said it sounds like it might be nice. Just listen next time and I won't have to say it a second time." Once more she puffed out some air, a deliberately annoyed expression on her face. "Seriously..." Muttering, she glared unintentionally at the pumpkin on the floor.
"You brought more than just one, though…right?" Fawn inquired.
"No, Fawn, we're all going to take turns stabbing one pumpkin, and that will be our jack-o-lantern this year." The mongoose teased light-heartedly and began heading for the door, passing a, suddenly, much grumpier Fawn on his way. Turning the handle and shoving the entrance open Flash stuck his head out, and then swung his gaze back around to the green eyed dog. "Actually, I've been thinking I brought way too many... I mean, I always had, but even more looking at them again… But pumpkins can be pretty large, right? And we needed one for everyone, at least." His shoulders went up in a small shrug and his eyes shifted off to the side. "There's only…dunno, bout' nine…"
Incredulously Fawn eyed him, her mouth dropping open about half an inch. Was he serious?
"What the hizzle? (Cough, I don't think Fawn would say 'hizzle' but 'hizzle' it shall be) Aren't pumpkins, you know… relatively expensive…? Or, I don't know, at least in that quantity?!"
Disbelievingly the dog shook her head as she somewhat shouted. Perhaps her current lack of funds was interfering with her ability to gauge the reasonable price of that which did not originate from a discount store. And even there she sometimes found the prices unreasonable!
"Well, are they the small ones then…?" To get a look at the pumpkin haul for herself, Fawn walked over to the entry way and stuck her own face past the mongoose and into the cold October air.
Her eyes quickly located the large carrier cart that had been attached to Flash's motorcycle with the fruit/vegetables secured underneath a net. Damn. They were fluggin' huge.
Blankly she turned her gaze to Flash.
"You know, I'm just wondering… But…how did you afford these?" The dog ended her words bluntly. It wasn't exactly obvious, but Fawn knew he was in the poor house just about as much as she was.
A shadow of uncertainty continued to creep into the mongoose's orange eyes as he thought of how to explain.
"Um… Well ya see…I didn't actually buy them. I may have mentioned my idea for this whole pumpkin plan to Marcus- and I swear I didn't force him or anything-"
The thunk of Fawn's head hitting the wood of the door sounded once again as she cut off Flash's rambling.
"Of course... Just…of course Marcus is the one spending all his money!" Groaning in frustration she partially threw one of her hands in the air before bringing it to pinch the area where her muzzle connected with her face. (Lol. Furries.)
"I seriously didn't make him!" Flash put his hands up, displaying his innocence. "I even told the guy not to, but he just kept insisting it was fine and then randomly disappeared. And when I saw him again, what do you know…five freaking ton of pumpkin!" He attempted to reason with the German shepherd. "But really, if he was okay with it, I don't see why it should be that big of a deal. He was completely willing."
"And…well…" the mongoose went on, still in an attempt to calm Fawn, "at least I bought that one..." He gestured toward the pumpkin he had brought in, which continued to sit on the floor.
Its overall size was downright puny when contrasted with the majority of the sudden harvest of pumpkin that had appeared at the TDA household. As was to be expected, all his statement earned him was an unrelentingly cold glare from the German shepherd's green tinted irises.
A few more high-strung seconds passed as Fawn mulled things over, a slight head ache that had appeared since Flash came growing even more apparent. Finally the dog let a small, defeated sigh slump her shoulders forward under the pressure of the day. But, mainly, it was really just the dog feeling the force of gravity that rests on everyone's shoulders. Fawn's encounter with Flash seemed to enervate both her mind and body, leaving every movement near him to feel laced with effort.
"Well we're just bottom feeders, aren't we...?" The German shepherd grumbled. "Fine, whatever, I'll go get Amai. And Hoshi too, if she even wants to do this thing…carving flippin' pumpkins…"
A smile lit itself upon Flash's face, his eyebrows rising with the pleasure he felt at Fawn's unexpectedly easy compliance. The dog herself blushed at his joyful expression, and then set a small glower on her own features in an attempt to retaliate against the heating of her face.
"Don't just stand around you lazy sack!" She barked at the mongoose. "Go get everything set up or something!"
With a sarcastically wary look adorning his features, Flash backed up and out the front door, both his hands up in mock surrender the whole way, before pulling the knob until the wooden rectangle closed in an overly cautious manner. Fawn pursed her lips with narrowed eyes at the act, and then briskly turned on the heel of her foot to pursue her own business. After all, she had no more time to waste dealing with the mongoose's idiotic shenanigans.
Within the house the dog began making her way down a corridor that ran out from the foyer. At the end one could turn into a squared area sunken into the wall, which held a large creaky stairway. Once it had probably been refined and sturdy, but time had definitely taken its toll on the ascending slabs. The same could be said for the rest of the tall building where the German shepherd resided as well. These rundown steps led to the upper levels of the TDA household, which housed each resident's sleeping quarters, a couple bathrooms and quite a few spare rooms layered with particles of floating dust.
Mid-way to her destination, however, the dog reeled in the direction of an unsavory scent that was filling her slick black nose. Curiously she poked her head around a wall divider into one of the various doorways sprinkled along the hallway's sheetrock walls. Of course, as she had thought, the scent belonged to yet another person, not previously mentioned, who made his home with TDA. More accurately described, it was a certain wine colored reggae wearing echidna; equipped with his easy going attitude and Jamaican accent.
"Xavier!" Fawn called out, snapping her fingers multiple times at the echidna, who would probably perpetually linger in a state of euphoria and unawareness if he was allowed to. Getting his attention was comparable to trying to get your dear old deaf grandmother to realize you're speaking to her.
The thirty-four year old echidna slowly turned his blurry eyes in Fawn's direction before focusing them. He had been resting; his body slumped down on the couch in a comfortable manner. After a few moments of smiling dully he lifted his hand and gave a lethargic wave within a single fluid motion.
"Hey Fawn," his words were slow and thickly accented, "what's up...? It's so great to see ya here. What brings ya around, anyway...?"
The female shepherd resisted the temptation to remind Xavier this was her house and demand he crawl back into his pot fume filled hippie van, which was for some reason taped to the side of the TDA household and joined to the interior through a nicely sledgehammered hole in the wall, where he belonged.
Now Fawn understood that the echidna was nothing but lovable at the majority of times…to most people… Despite this, on more than one occasion, she could not find it in her presumably large, doggy heart to look past his…quirkier qualities. She tended to try to completely and utterly disregard them, when possible, (which is rarely) but otherwise, dealing with his many issues was just another head ache wrapped, bow-tied and perched on the doorstep, waiting to be opened.
"I just thought I'd let you know that Hoshi, Amai and I might be carving up some pumpkins soon, depending on whether they want to or not." Fawn narrowed her eyes, attempting to gauge the older man's state of being. "So unless you're, you know…busy, or not up to it…or…something else…you can join in."
"Oh yeah, sure thing, Fawn..." Xavier easily gave his compliance, steadily straightening himself until he stood upright and apparently ready to go. "Sounds like it should be a real good time~"
Fawn blinked; her brows and other features tightening to form a scrutinizing expression. Never before had she seen the echidna so prepared or responsive for any sort of action, even if the matter had been something so exceptionally meager or menial it would seem like a simple feat.
Perhaps he had thinned out his stock of mind ravaging substances? That was the only rationalization of the current situation that the German shepherd's mind could conclude with.
She decided not to personally question the echidna about how he had come to find himself in such an uncharacteristically normal state, as it would probably end in an undesired and awkward fashion. And after all, it wasn't like it was such a horribly unpleasant thing for him to be sober for once. It was more like the complete opposite, really!
"Ok…" Fawn nodded her head, satisfaction brimming within her subconscious. "Glad you can join in, but we're not quite done with the uh…preparations for this little fiasco yet." She crinkled her nose a bit before continuing.
"That annoying mongoose is out in the front yard though, doing whatever with the pumpkins and, I'm assuming, setting things up. It wouldn't be so difficult for you to go and help him out, would it?" Even while asking the favor, Fawn retained a bit of a commandeering reflection within her voice.
"Not a problem, Fawn~" Xavier said in a bright tone. Once again Fawn was surprised by his personality when in sobriety. Sure, he was still exceptionally weird, but at least he wasn't completely out of it, which was the usual for him.
Fawn showed her gratitude politely with an empty smile and nod before the two simultaneously began making their way to their designated destinations. Fawn, being closer to the arching doorway, was the first to exit. Once the wine colored man joined her in the hallway they headed in the opposite directions, Xavier towards the front of the house, while Fawn paced quickly towards the stairway.
The German shepherd made sure her ascent was quick, her thick, black army boots moving at a rapid pace accompanied by the heavy thumps of her footfalls. In no time at all she appeared on the second floor and crossed the plush, but worn down, carpeted halls to the open doorway nearest to her.
Fawn lurked in the room's opening a bit before a grunt from the current occupant was directed at the dog.
"Hoshi-"Fawn began, addressing a Tasmanian devil.
This devil was about eighteen years old, covered in fur that was a dark, bear pelt colored black and brown mixture. Her semi-short, fringed hairstyle, however, was a hue with more deep reddish tinges. She was clothed in a pair of baggy sweat pants and a tight, red cut off tank top. Looking at the devil's feet one could see she had chosen to vie for a lack of footwear, probably for the sake of comfort.
The Australian originated mammal was sitting at a desk cluttered with many various tin and metallic pieces. Whirs and gears were littered about too, looking much too disorganized and complex to Fawn's own tastes. It was apparent that Hoshi was absorbed in some sort of tinkering, not even taking the time to look up and properly acknowledge her canine housemate.
"You know," the Devil began in her own, slightly sarcastic voice. Her eyebrows rose while she remained focused on her work, "Just because I choose to ignore you standing in my doorway, which I apparently forgot to close, doesn't mean I don't realize you're there."
A pout set itself on Fawn's face; her cheeks puffing out slightly as she eyed the devil that somewhat intimidated and rivaled her.
"So, Hoshi-" The German shepherd decided to just try to pick up where she had been cut off before, being as civil as possible.
"Yes, sure." Once again Hoshi interrupted with her own words.
Fawn was instantly confused, and somewhat irritated. She obviously hadn't even been given a chance to request what she had wanted, so the devil couldn't possibly give an answer.
"Hey. Listen to me, I just wanted to ask if you wanted to carve pumpkins-"
"Yup, I'll get on that real~ soon~." Hoshi picked up an amalgam of pieces compressed and fixed into a larger product, eyeing it with a bored, yet critical, gaze.
By this time Fawn's own eyes had begun twitching erratically. And, you know what, she was done here. She had brought her news; if the devil didn't want to listen she was not going to waste her time any longer. It had already been clarified that Fawn was through with any sort of shenanigans.
"Great." Fawn packed all of her lack of enthusiasm into the single word and turned on her boot covered heel, pulling Hoshi's door closed behind her.
"Thank you~" Hoshi called out in a cheery tone as the lock clicked into place. A small, devious grin adorned her face as the dog left with her fur all ruffled and teeth gnashing together. A small chuckle escaped the devil's mouth as she thought of just how much fun it was to mess with people.
Back in the hallway Fawn rubbed her gloved hand roughly against her face while her sharp teeth ground against each other with an enormous amount of pressure. Quietly, a rumble resonated deep within the dog as she tried to wrangle in the angst rearing up towards her teammate.
The two girls were considered 'friends'…or friendly acquaintances…at least from Fawn's point of view. However, due to Hoshi's slightly rugged and sometimes antagonistic personality, the dog couldn't always be sure of how the Tasmanian devil saw her. Fawn was just surrounded by a whole assembly of difficult people.
Letting another frustrated sigh escape her mouth Fawn decided to just forget the incident that had taken place only moments before. After all, there was still one person left in the house she had been tasked with fetching; no dog puns implied.
Ha, ha…so do you like it so far…? I feel it's a tad dull… just Fawn running through a house… u.u I apologize. I'll try harder next time! ^u^ Eh… what? There's only one mention that it's the day before Halloween because I just decided that it was going to be that before uploading… And I'm glad this is in installments! :D Nobody want to read that much at once, anyway… u.u