AN: Back for moooooar. By the way, if you haven't, you should read The Diary Of Ellen sometime. It's pretty neat.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Witch's House and such and such.
xxWHxx
Breakfast was often an interesting affair in the Fummy household. Or at least it was ever since Viola's ghost moved in. And mostly at Ellen's expense.
"…Viola, honey, how did you get the egg yolk in your hair…?"
Ellen's eye twitched. "…I-It was an accident…" She bit out, smiling a rather hilariously forced smile.
Dolin sighed. "Again? You've been having a lot of those lately." And by 'lately' he means roughly one month. About once or twice a week in fact. Sometimes more if Viola was feeling particularly bored/vindictive/mischievous/take-your-pick, not that Dolin knew the reason behind this, since he didn't know the ghost girl was there.
"O-Oh, it's just…" Ellen glanced at Viola, who was floating nearby, unseen by Dolin... and smiling rather smugly. "…you know… puberty, and hormones, and such…"
"Hm. Alright then," Dolin accepted, the poor oblivious sod. "But if you bring any boys home, just remember: I have a shotgun and am obligated as your father to be overprotective. Especially after the incident in the woods back then." You guys know the one.
"Noted, father dearest," Ellen un-smiled… she was pretty sure she was kind of asexual anyway, considering all those centuries she went with nothing. But on the other hand, she did in fact have hormones now because of Viola's body, and those did in fact do their job on occasion. Even if they made her think about bizarre things, like how the most intimate connection she'd had over the centuries was technically pretty much with Viola by default because of the body swap, which made her bile rise just a little higher in her throat each time she thought about it just a little too hard. And then there was the odd time or two it didn't do that and made her feel weird instead, but she'd prefer to shove those moments to the very back of her mind and forget them for the rest of eternity. Damn hormones, making it so much harder than necessary to have a normal, aging body. And damn Viola, for… existing… and not completely dying… and existing.
"Well Viola, you should go wash up. I'll make sure the food is still warm when you get back." Dolin said, breaking Ellen out of her mental tangent.
Ellen nodded, heading upstairs to do so. And, naturally, she was followed by Viola.
xxWHxx
"…Have I ever told you you're a pervert?" Ellen grumbled to Viola as she turned on the shower and began to undress.
The ghost girl raised an eyebrow. "Occasionally, yeah… I'm not sure it counts if it's my body I'm looking at, though. And who're you to lecture me about morality anyway?"
"…" Ellen didn't quite have a rebuttal for that and so settled for pointedly ignoring Viola's existence instead. She was… fairly certain they'd been through this sort of conversation before, although given how often she actively tried to forget Viola was around, haunting her, it was hard to be sure through her denial sometimes. If she were to go by that twinkle in Viola's eye though, the former witch would guess yes.
"…Shouldn't you be trying to find a way to get your father to see you or something?" Ellen finally managed to say as she entered the shower.
"Nah, I'm good." Viola replied. It was quickly noticed by Viola upon beginning her haunting of Ellen a month-ish ago that her father couldn't see her. According to Ellen and Cat, it was because he didn't have any sort of real experience with magic (the brief encounter with Viola in Ellen's body in the woods was nowhere near enough exposure); mundane people couldn't see Viola. It saddened her a bit, and yet at the same time she supposed it might've been for the best, for as much as she wanted to tell her father she was there and that Ellen was a fake by, say, writing a message or something, she wasn't sure she wanted to hurt Dolin with the knowledge that he'd killed his daughter in the woods outside the witch's house that day three years ago.
… Also, the proverbial devil on her shoulder (who'd been quite a vocal little scamp ever since escaping from Cat's stomach) was quite happy to take advantage of it, since it meant she could mess with Ellen with relative impunity. Sure, Ellen had threatened her with telling Dolin about a ghost haunting the house, but Viola had been pretty quick to point out how likely that was to backfire on her for various reasons (like Viola just laying low for a while and/or the likelihood of Ellen just looking like she was ill in the head), which got Ellen to x that idea pretty quickly, what with the unnecessary risk to her dream life. Incidentally, the possibility of losing the life she'd dreamed of for so long was also the reason why she didn't simply kill Dolin to spite Viola, though it was hardly due to a lack of wanting to so much as practicality. She would probably resort to it or something roughly as bad if pushed far enough, though, and she made sure Viola was well aware of it.
In short, the two former friends had formed a bit of an uneasy truce of sorts during their first month together. As far as Viola was concerned though, she got the way better end of the deal, since as long as she didn't go overboard with screwing with Ellen she effectively had the former witch wrapped around her ghostly little pinky finger. Seriously, the worst Ellen could really do to Viola unless the ghost pushed it too much was make hammy shows of receiving affection from Dolin, which… didn't really bother Viola that much. In fact, it mostly just made her wonder whether Ellen realized the man was technically showing love to her since that's who he thought Ellen was, or if Ellen knew and just didn't care. The ghost girl made a note to mention it to the former witch sometime. Anyways, unsurprisingly, Viola loved the role reversal, and more than once she'd made that readily apparent to Ellen. It was an easy and fun way to piss her off~
"…I can hear you giggling out there. I don't like hearing you giggling out there." Ellen groused from within the shower. These days, if Viola started giggling like a maniac for no apparent reason, it usually meant bad things for Ellen. Seriously, why did the ghost girl always have to be so annoying? All she did was steal her life and stuff! No big deal, right?
"You don't like hearing me in general, Ellen, hehe." Viola joked. Although she knew it was true, but it's not like it bothered her much. On the contrary, that one time Ellen tried to claw her own eardrums out was actually kind of funny other than the fact it was her body Ellen was doing it to. Thank goodness Ellen was determined (desperate?) enough to keep her dream life that she wasn't willing to actually damage Viola's body in any meaningful way except as a last resort…
"True. So be quiet and contemplate… ghost things or something, I don't care."
"Yeah yeah," Viola said nonchalantly. It's not like she had anything better to do. Other than maybe peeping on or otherwise messing with Ellen while she showered, but she wasn't sure she was bored enough for it.
The ghost girl ended up pondering about how lonely it could get as a spirit at times. Sure, she had Ellen and Cat to talk to but… well… they weren't exactly the best company. The girl who killed her and the demon who ate her. Yeah. Naturally, Ellen was… Ellen, so she wasn't really great company anyway. And sure, Cat at least was kind of nice, but Viola still couldn't help but wish she could have some company that hadn't tried to kill her at least once. Company that wanted her around (Cat might have been nice enough to humor her but she was pretty sure he was ultimately quite apathetic about her presence… much like an actual cat, arguably). Sure, she'd had fun this past month and was glad to still be undead and kicking and able to protect her father, but, well… she was still kind of lonely.
Ellen happened to step out of the shower at that moment. "You look glum," she said, noticing Viola's face had taken on a melancholic look. "You should use that expression more, it's a lot more tolerable than your usual ones."
Viola just stuck her tongue out at the former witch as she dried herself off. "I'll use it every day if you give me my body back."
"You wish I was that gullible." Ellen smirked.
"Well hey, you did fall for that prank last week. Remember, the one with the banana peel?" Viola smirked back.
"…Shut up." Ellen blushed. Whether it was out of embarrassment or anger, it was hard to tell.
xxWHxx
After showering off, Ellen managed to finish her breakfast without further incident. Shortly after, Dolin left the house. Whether it was to shop or hunt or whatever, Ellen wasn't sure (mostly because she had been kind of tuning him out when he said where he was going out of apathy), but regardless, she was now in the living room, and alone in the house with Viola and Cat. Joy.
Well, at least she had her video games to ignore both of them with. And, for that matter, to vent some of her frustrations with. Mostly by playing a fighting game and beating up a character she'd customized to look like Viola (and which she'd rather cleverly named 'Punchingbag-chan') with a character she'd customized to look like herself. Viola could almost roll her eyes watching the little long-haired blonde game model with a bow in its hair beat up the blonde game model with braids and one red eye.
…Okay I just tacked on the last bit to check and see if you remembered the differences in appearance established previously. Be honest, how well did you actually remember those?
After alternating between watching Ellen play the game and staring out the window at birds and stuff, with the occasional glance at the light purple couch they were on to contemplate taking a nap, Viola eventually settled on something to do.
"…Hey, mind if I play the game with you?" The ghost girl asked; as it would turn out, Dolin had bought more than one controller to none-too-subtly hint to Ellen to try to socialize more. Naturally, she ignored the hint.
Ellen paused the game. "…Give me one good reason to indulge you." She deadpanned, turning toward her former friend.
Viola gave it a moment of thought, but it really wasn't hard to figure out a way to appeal to Ellen's tastes. If she weren't a jerk it might actually be kind of cute how easy it was. "You could prove your superiority over the real me instead of a game model whose AI is set to zero?" And just to seal the deal, she added, smirking, "Or are ya scared I'll kick your butt?"
Ellen glared at Viola for a moment. And then she unpaused the game, exited to the menu to select a VS mode, and went to plug in a controller for Viola before tossing the controller at the ghost girl, who managed to catch it with only a bit of fumbling, before stomping back to the couch and falling back onto it. "…I hate it when you do that."
"What do I do that you don't hate?" Viola giggled.
Ellen pretended to think for a bit. "Well, I wouldn't be opposed to you pissing off. I would like that."
"Ooof course." Viola let out, smiling despite herself. It was hard to be mad when it was accepted by both parties that this sort of interaction was normal and routine. Being stuck together for a month and for the foreseeable future does that to people.
"Yo," greeted Cat as he sauntered into the room. "Got room for one more player?"
The two girls stared at the demon. "…How exactly do you expect to play? You have the body of a cat." Ellen deadpanned. Viola nodded in agreement, looking a tad apologetic. How was he going to play?
Cat's tail swished. "You let me worry about that."
Ellen stared at him for a few more moments before shrugging. "Fine, whatever. I can't say I would dislike being able to beat the crud outta you, too." She said as she set up a controller for Cat.
Cat smiled. Or did something close to one, since cats don't really... smile, per se.
xxWHxx
Viola stared at the screen, dumbfounded.
Ellen glared at the screen, seething with rage.
Cat licked a paw smugly.
"…How?!" Ellen shouted, gesturing to the screen, which was displaying the win/loss ratio of the game's players. There were three 22s on the screen. Two of them were under 'loss'. The third was under 'win'. That plus the reactions equals do the math, folks.
"It's not my fault you two are terrible at this game." Cat stretched lackadaisically. "Perhaps you'd like to make a contract to fix that?" The demon teased, though he was quite aware that about the only thing the girls readily agreed on was 'no making contracts with Cat or getting mixed up with demons in general'.
"B-But-" Ellen started, disbelieving, "You have a cat's body, and you've never played this game, and, and – a goddamn cat's body!"
Viola lifted a finger and opened her mouth, as if to say something. But then she realized she wasn't sure what to say and put her finger back down and closed her mouth. And then she somewhat drunkenly floated upstairs in something of a daze to ponder how exactly it was that her life came to a point where she was a ghost being horribly beaten in video games by a demon cat that ate her once.
"Hmm, what's that expression all the modern humans are using nowadays?" Cat mused. "Ah, yes, 'git gud' I believe it was."
Ellen's eye twitched.
xxWHxx
Cat went flying out the front door with a yowl, landing on his feet as the door slammed shut. "My my, such a sore loser Ellen." He stated nonchalantly. "Although I was more expecting to be skinned alive or something equally colorful that would involve this body dying horribly. I wonder if she's getting soft?" He mused, wandering off to do… uh, demon cat things.
… And so another day passed in the Fummy household.
xxWHxx
AN: It sort of amazes me that I somehow mustered enough motivation to do this whole chapter in practically one go.