They could see Al Barsha on the horizon later in the day, towards noontime, over a day earlier than they would've seen it on foot. The distant buildings looked like they sizzled or glittered in the air, an interesting sight after all the sand. Distance in the desert played tricks on the eyes, though, and by later afternoon Mavis looked ready to chew up her burqa when that town didn't seem to be getting any closer.
"Y'know what?" she finally said, "Bite this. Hang on, Johnny."
She promptly turned into a bat, the mass of black robing slumping over the camel as Jonathan squawked, "Woah, Mavis, you—!" Little bat Mavis quickly scrambled up under Jonathan's shirt, causing him to shriek and squirm and generally flail around in the throes between pain, surprise, and ticklishness.
"GYAAABAHAGWAHAHAH?!"
The camel plodded on without care as the strange human on its back panicked. "Calm down!" he heard her say, she was nearly laughing, and he finally settled down enough to peek down the neck of his shirt, feeling strange little bat claws and skin and fur against his chest and stomach. He laughed uncertainly as she looked up at him, safe and looking pretty snug, and smug, in the shade offered by his shirt.
"Is...this is okay, right?" she asked, but used the little pouty bat face while doing it, leaving Jonathan no choice but to say, after opening and closing his mouth a few times: "Y-yeah." Little fangs peeked cutely from her muzzle as she managed a smile on said bat face, "This's easier on the camel," she added, and then snuggled closer, "And...I kinda like this better than the barker..." Jonathan stared a little more before nodding, going back into his easy smile as he let the shirt settle over her, absently petting the lump. "Yeah, me too." he looked at the discarded black cloth and stuffed it back into one of the backpacks, careful not to jostle her too much, "Heck, I don't know why we hadn't thought of this sooner. It's all good." He looked down at the lump again, blinking, "But, uh, don't want to sound like a jerk, but please don't scratch. It's a bad shot if you get open scratches or sores with all the sand. I'd be itching for weeks." He frowned, "Like that one time I got poison oak in Boy Scouts. Still, that had kind of helped us get more involved in the First Aid lessons. I even got the badge for 'Wilderness Survival' that year." he went on, smiling fondly.
"I won't," she assured him, and her ears perked up in interest, "What are Boy Scouts?"
The rest of the trip was spent with him telling her about Boy Scouts, and his many crazy adventures in them. Sometimes, though, Mavis would zone out while he talked, in the little cozy cocoon between cloth and skin. She could feel him more than she could sense anything else, and he felt good. Like, really, really good. He was warm, huge at the moment for her little bat form, and if she pressed her ear on his chest right, she could hear and feel his great heart beat inside of him. Along with his breathing in and out, his talk, and the swaying of the camel, it was like she was being rocked to that beat... It was both incredibly soothing and strangely exciting, though eventually all the talk and the warmth and the lulling rhythm relaxed her, and Mavis soon fell dead asleep.
. . .
"Mavis? Maaavey? Wakey, wakey, bugs and snaky?"
He heard her grumble and yawn as his fingertip scratched and poked gently at her head, ruffling the fur. He couldn't help a chuckle when she wriggled. Eventually he'd gotten used to it, but fur really tickled. ". . . I didn't hear 'bout the Boy Scouts..." she mumbled apologetically, rubbing an eye with one wing. He patted her affectionately, "Don't worry, plenty more where that came from." He assured her, "But we made it, look. It's cool now, no sun." Her head poked out of his shirt collar, bonking him under the chin, and they both looked at the edge of the city as the lights came on in the dusk. Jonathan was sitting against a rock he'd staked the camel near to.
"A town! Al Ber...Al Barsha!" she said excitedly.
Jonathan nodded, grinning. "Yup, better brush up on my Arabic if we wanna get some more supplies and stuff to pay back this dude," he patted the camel, "Maybe see if there're any docks open." He tilted his head as she climbed to perch on his shoulder, her eyes wide as she scanned what she could see, "Maybe see if any of Murray's homies are around!" he continued to suggest.
"Well, they're sure out there," Mavis chuckled, gesturing to the desert they left behind, "So they might be around here. Nighttime's the best time to see if there is anybody. And..." her ears tilted back and she looked a little embarrassed, chuckling, "Murray's told me about some hangouts monsters have in the human towns."
"Monster hangouts?!" Jonathan asked, excited, "Oh, now we totally have to find one." Then his face fell, mouth quirking, "Man, I think I'll need the Johnny-stein disguise again... 'No humans allowed! Bleh-bleh-bleh...'" he snarked, comically clawing his hands.
"No you won't," she told him, chuckling, turning back into her human form to hold onto his arm, grinning, "You'll be fine, because you're my human." She blushed slightly when she said this, but felt his hand take hers where their arms were wrapped together. He laughed, brightening up and grinning down at her, "I think I can roll with that."
After feeding the camel and letting it go on its way, they discussed how they wanted to tackle the town. They eventually settled on a sector to explore. Thanks to Mavis's mad gravity-defying skills, they got to stash their backpacks in a place no human would be able to get, keeping the essentials with them. Johnathan managed to give his a backpack pat before they left.
"How did you do this stuff before? With your backpack, I mean." Mavis asked.
"Usually I just keep it with me, but I dunno, even if I lost my backpack I never lost it, like, no one stole it or anything, which I'm really grateful for." he explained, "I always end up finding it again with nothing gone." He joked, "It might be humanity's good vibes, or it might be the natural deterrent!" When she looked blankly at him he had the grace to be embarrassed, grinning nervously, "Uh, my laundry." He watched her laugh, happy that she seemed more relaxed now. She thought of him as hers. He grinned to himself, strangely pleased by that, and relieved. He never liked making her nervous. Then another thought stopped in, and he blinked. "Hey," he began to ask, and she looked at him, "When you walk on walls and stuff, your hair stays with you, right? Does that mean you could carry, like, a cup of water and not spill it? Or drink it, and it won't go up your nose or anything?" his eyes lit up as he kept thinking about it, "Woah, could you stick stuff to the walls?!" She laughed again, and started to explain vampire's gravity to her boyfriend, who was grinning like crazy. "You're like a super Spiderman! . . . Oh, geez, I mean woman! I mean, uh, I—you're awesome?" he finished, and she took all of it as a compliment.
. . .
Mavis watched from around the corner as Johnny tried to get directions, not being able to help her slight laughter.
"Aw, man, uh... الغذاء؟! الغذاء؟ الغذاء الرخيص؟ Food place?!" Jonathan asked desperately, hands nearly clutched in his hair.
The man was grinning tiredly, replying in rapidly spoken Arabic mixed with heavily accented, broken English as he and Jonathan tried to communicate, though it seemed pretty good-natured, and they clapped each others' shoulders when they were done. "Thanks, dude!" Jonathan called as the local left, and the man waved him off, shaking his head, "Tourist!" the man laughed.
"How did it go?" Mavis asked, still feeling slightly nervous around humans she didn't know. Jonathan paused, looking at her, and then Mavis blinked as the flash of a camera sparked her eyes. Johnny grinned, pocketing it like it was nothing, "Awesome! He pointed me out to this spot two streets over. You'll get to see humans in their habitat naturale!" He blinked, "Uh, I mean, if that's okay, I don't want to rush anything or—" "It's good." she interrupted, smiling, and pointed at his pocket, "Can I see?" Jonathan immediately turned red, "Uhh, I don't know if—you might think I'm—uh," he took it out anyway to give to her, "Creepy..."
He looked away nervously as she pressed the buttons on the camera, and it wasn't hard for her to navigate to the pictures. She blinked, both surprised and not surprised.
There were pictures of her, she expected that much, but they were...random and abundant... "I usually turned off the flash." Jonathan explained quickly after a period of silence. The first pictures she knew about, the ones where he'd gotten her to pose with her backpack in front of Hotel Transylvania, first by herself, then with her dad, then with the whole gang before someone finally took a picture of her and Jonathan together. Towards the beginning of the trip the first major highlight had been the Sofia Metro in Bulgaria. He'd gotten a few pictures of her dancing to an awesome street musician they'd met. Some looked cool, while some looked goofy, blurry or out of focus, but she was still flattered. Then there were a few where they were sitting in the train itself. She smirked at the wide-eyed expression she'd had on her face. She looked weird. But that was her first time on a train. It had been awesome. There were a few more pictures of the station itself, the train, some funny-looking people, but a lot of the pictures were either focused on her or had her in it. There was the Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak, still in Bulgaria, and looking sufficiently creepy and cool in the nighttime. Then there was a picture of the mural from the tomb, taken from behind her, catching her up on the wall, when they'd made sure no one was nearby, nearly tracing one of the figures. She remembered the mural depicting what looked like the story of a couple attending a funeral ritual, and it had been strangely sweet. Bittersweet.
There were pictures of her bat form, too, though not as much. There were some pictures of them monkeying around the Parthenon of Greece, they hadn't stayed there long. Then there was that humongous palm forest in Vai, Crete, which had made her think of the HaWeeWee postcards. She chuckled nostalgically, blushing a little. They'd really had practice with kissing that time. There was the boat ride, then some desert horizon pictures, then a few of that pyramid. And, yup, there was a picture of her bat form hanging on to the camel's face, and then her wrapped up in the burqa. She laughed again, and Jonathan winced, "I don't see what's so—" she began, grinning, then clicked to the next picture, and blinked, ". . .?"
The angle was funny, and some of the light blurred the lens, but there was little bat Mavis, curled asleep under his shirt. She blinked again, tilting the camera to line up the view, then tilting her head. Johnny, who'd been peeking over her shoulder, started babbling. "I can delete it if you want, I mean, it was rude, yeah, not cool, though I'd really, really like to keep it because I like it but if you don't like it I can just—"
"It's sweet." she interrupted him, looking at the picture.
He stared, "You're not mad?" he asked tentatively.
"Nope." she replied easily, smiling.
She clicked the button to view the last one he'd taken just a few minutes ago. He'd really thought she looked cool in that one, curiosity making her eyes wide, adding some beastiness to that sneaky-ish pose when she was leaning out of the alley, like something wild, or mysterious. He saw her blush and nod to herself, clicking the camera off.
"I like it." she told him, handing the camera to him with a kiss on the cheek. Johnny immediately felt better, chuckling.
"Alright then!" he replied, relieved, and they laughed. Then he went on to add, "I should get you a camera. I mean, if you want one."
"I'd like that," she agreed, and he jumped when she moved in front of him, tilting her head to peer up into his face, that slightly scary little kitten grin on hers, "Then I can take pictures of you while you sleep."
He could feel his face warm up, but it didn't feel bad. She was awesome. "Cool..." he mumbled out, grinning. Aha, made her laugh again. Then he blinked, "Ah, right, food place this-a-way." he stated, pointing, and felt her take his arm and hand again, and as they walked he took a moment to enjoy the zing that gave him.
. . .
They both stared at the building, one in horrified shock and the other in polite bewilderment.
". . . Failed to break the language barrier." Jonathan said weakly.
Mavis tilted her head, squinting, "It's...interesting." she conceded, as the neon lights flickered in their vaguely evocative patterns, needing no written words to advertise.
"Must've taken a wrong turn," Johnny babbled, starting to steer Mavis, "C'mon, I swear I smell something food-smelling this way!"
"We could just take a look?" Mavis asked, blue eyes squinting as they tried to pick out what was behind the dark blinds.
"Your dad will drain my blood." Jonathan said bluntly, facing her with desperate eyes, "He will track me down to any place on the planet and drain all my blood."
She gave a quirked smile, taking pity on him, "I know. I'm joking." she told him. He chuckled with relief, "Oh, great..."
They walked away, following the 'food-smell', and it was a real place this time.
. . .
It was some strange, small 24-hour pub that offered the typical beverages as well as juices and water, the specialty being sandwiches of all things, scaled to local fare. Mavis was happy, as the background music had that slightly grainy, jazzy, exotic feel that she got to hear around this country. Johnny still had the local lingo left to order them some things. The place was quiet, and the clientèle low. He liked to mingle with crowds, but he liked to hang with Mavis, too, so this was cool. However, he wasn't sure he was too cool with the way the bar guy was watching Mavis. It wasn't really offensive or anything, the man tried to keep it subtle, and Jonathan couldn't really blame the dude: he liked to watch her too. Still, that didn't mean Johnny had to be too comfortable with it.
He looked at Mavis, hoping he wasn't being too much of a downer, but she was busy staring at the table's linoleum, curiously picking at a place where that plasticky layer was peeling, and he smiled, watching her. She'd shown curiosity at murals, manhole covers, pigeons, phone booths, sand, lots of random stuff, and it was pretty awesome. It was kind of like, through her, he got to re-see some of the fantasticality of everyday things. And of course seeing her was pretty fantastic. It was kind of strange, too, sometimes, to walk around and remember someone was walking with you, especially when they'd gotten lost a few times. He still had to get used to that. He was happy about it, no doubt about that, and it was cool to talk out loud and have someone actually talk back to you for once, but it was new, having another body around, having to watch out for the sun, having to, well, watch himself. He was understanding more about Drac's wanting her to be safe. But she was cool.
He just hoped he was doing right by her.
"Excuse me."
They both looked up as the bar guy had come to their table, glancing between Johnny and Mavis, and smiling at her, "You are a monster, correct? You are looking for downstairs?" he asked politely, and then glanced at Johnny, "He is your guest?" he asked, pointing at Johnny. The young couple looked at him in confusion. "Yes?" Mavis asked, and the man blinked, "Ah, newcomers!" he grinned, "Welcome! First time coming? The first time is choice. Here, this way."
They wrapped up their food to go, still slightly unsure. When he opened a trapdoor behind the bar, though, Mavis's eyes glowed briefly, seeing beyond where she could look. "Oh, wow!" she shouted excitedly, and thanked the man before jumping down. Johnny stared before shrugging, "Thanks." Jonathan told the guy quickly, before slinging himself down the ladder to catch up with her.
It got very dark though after the guy shut the trapdoor over them. Jonathan stood there, looking around blankly, and not seeing much.
". . . I remember kind of being in a situation like this, once." he mentioned aloud, "Was not the coolest moment." He squinted, trying to pick her out in the dark, "Mavis?"
The dark reached out a hand to grab his wrist and tug him through what he now knew was a storage rooms.
"A monster hangout! This leads to a monster hangout!" she said simply.
"What—woah—what are the odds?!" he laughed as they speedily wound through the narrow, indistinct rooms, and she snorted, "Probably the same as finding over one-hundred people dressed as Draculas, or you finding the Hotel in time for my birthday." she suggested, humor in her voice. He laughed as he kept up, making it so he was holding her hand instead of her holding his wrist, trusting her night vision, giving her hand a squeeze, "Ha, yeah."
". . . I guess that kind of made you my birthday present, huh?" he heard her ask. He might've stumbled, but she went on.
He flushed, grinning, and what he said next spilled out without checking with his brain first, "Yeah. Next time we should try wrapping me up properly."
He quickly shut his mouth, looking ahead in mortification.
She might've nearly tripped, but they both chose to ignore it. Jonathan was metaphorically smacking himself in the forehead, though.
All embarrassment and awkwardness and metaphorical self-punishment was forgotten when they found the source of the lights.
The young couple stood in the doorway, staring with equal surprise and fascination.
It was a lot like the Hotel lobby when the season just opens, but not as...busy.
It was less chaotic, more casual, and not as brightly lit. It was a dusky, warm atmosphere, smelling like old wood and sand and something like grapes and almonds and coffee. Quiet conversations buzzed the background while a band made up of skeletons played their instruments (made from skeletons, how did that work?) in the corners. The conversationalists themselves were surreal. There were werewolves that looked more like were-jackals, hanging out in couples, what looked like shadows glistened like oil while looking around with glowing eyes of pale colors, birds with people's heads. Between people's feet were looked like a bunch of snakes, until closer inspection revealed it was one very, very long snake. What looked like a sphinx lady was sprawled on a lounge chair in the background, talking with gators that stood on two legs. Another lady who looked like a human, but was white and translucent, almost watery, was singing on a stage with a clear, carrying voice that still managed to stay in the background. And then there were the mummies. Different styles of wrapping, different stages of 'decay', it was something...
Johnny stared, grinning. This was awesome! What did a snake that huge eat? Did sphinxes really give riddles? Did they know English?
He was surprised when Mavis yanked him back through the doorway, out of sight.
"This is amazing!" he told her happily as she stared at him, "It's like a bar for monsters and it's―that human dude up there knew about it!"
Then Johnny blinked, "Unless he wasn't really human but―are you okay?"
She didn't look too good. "I'm...it's weird. I'm used to the people at my dad's place. But I don't know any of these guys." she explained, peeking around him to the doorway, where the chatter and the gentle music drifted out. Johnny glanced at the doorway, then at her, smiling, "New people, right? You nervous?"
"Like I've got moths in my stomach." she grimaced, "I don't get it."
Oh. Jonathan nodded to himself. He got it.
"Well, it's a new thing. It kind of starts out weird, uncomfortable, but then you'll start enjoying it. It'll be fun," he told her, ears perking as the music's tempo picked up slightly, and they heard the occupants inside start to move like they were dancing. "Like meeting humans, right?" he asked, "Just roll with it and say hi."
She looked again at the doorway, then at him, ". . . Wanna dance?" she asked.
He grinned, that was a good start too, "Yeah."
She took his hand to take him back into the room, but she hesitated at the doorway. He smiled, and took the lead to take her along the wall, away from the main crowd to get some space. It wasn't music they were used to dancing to, and it wasn't a type that Johnny really felt was okay to rock out for, but in the end they settled for a sort-of slow dance, Mavis looking like she was getting more relaxed as they did, and Johnny had a quiet happy moment when she hugged him in the dance.
The crowd was starting to spread, but they blended in, until another dancer shoved against Johnny, who had to move around awkwardly to avoid stepping on the giant croc monster guy's tail. He grinned nervously as Mavis laughed, and they were getting back into the dance when a freaky reptilian hand grabbed the back of Jonathan's shirt. The young man yelped as he was dragged off the ground, Mavis panicking.
"Woah, hey, hey, hey!" Jonathan protested, struggling, then stared at the freaky eyes, yellow and bright, and now glaring at him like that one time he'd volunteered at a zoo and had to face hungry animals who looked at him exactly like that. He didn't think this guy would be pacified with steak, though. ". . . Hi." Johnny said uncertainly, waving.
The monster growled, showing an impressive set of very sharp teeth inside of his mouth.
". . . English. Tourist. I thought something bumped into me." he rumbled.
"Sorry." Jonathan laughed, uneasy, "My bad. But hey, good crowd tonight, huh?"
His captor nodded, but instead of letting him go, it lifted him higher, yellow eyes squinting. "You are a human." he observed, sounding a bit ticked.
"Ahhh, yup, last I checked, yup. Funny world, I right?" Johnny managed to say, the hold on his shirt nearly cutting him off.
"Humans aren't allowed here."
"He's with me." Jonathan heard Mavis speak up, and felt her tugging on his leg, "Let him go, alright? He's my guest."
Jonathan watched the dude look down at Mavis, and the guy laughed of all things, "That is a joke, yes?"
The other monsters were watching, and Mavis tugged on Jonathan's leg again, growling between her teeth. The alligator guy let Johnny go with a smirk.
". . . Woah." Johnny said to the floor, then got up and brushed himself off, watching the monster. What did guys that huge eat?
"You okay?" he heard Mavis ask, and he nodded, "We're cool, right?" he asked the monster, and jumped back slightly when it scowled.
"No. You are a smelly human. Leave."
Jonathan frowned. He didn't smell that bad, did he? "Isn't that kind of racist?"
The guy hissed slowly, and Mavis stood in front of Johnny, "He's with me," she repeated, "It's allowed."
"Mavis..." Jonathan said uneasily, putting a hand on her shoulder, "It's alright. We can just―"
"It's fine." she snapped, taking his hand to take them to a part of the room away from the ticked monster, but it rushed around to block them, snarling.
"He can't stay." he told them.
"Yes, he can." she replied, glaring.
"Don't make me―"
"Yes he CAN!" Mavis retorted, and then she ROARED. Blue eyes to red, kitten teeth to saber tooth fangs, there in one moment, gone the next.
The music and the muttering stopped, and Jonathan slowly got out of his instinctive cringe pose.
The croc stared down at the vampire girl, dazed, before something lassoed him around the scaly fist he'd been raising, yanking it down.
"That's enough drink for you for the night, Mkhai, leave the kids alone." a voice scolded, and a mummy woman appeared from the crowd, one of her wrappings being the roping. "Let's get some good ol' Nile water back in you." She herded the other monster firmly to the door, before smiling at the two newcomers, but mostly at Mavis. "Thought I knew your face," she chuckled at the girl, "Martha's Mavis, right? Stick around, I'll get right back to you." Then she rounded back on the croc, hissing something in Arabic. It was a strange contrast, a huge bulky beast being scolded by what was pretty much a well-preserved husk. The crocodile man looked to protest before a couple of what looked like his pals came too, taking him from the mummy woman and out of the bar, and the crowd resumed as normal.
Mavis and Johnny quickly retreated to the room's edge again to sit at a booth and stare at each other.
"She knows your mom?" Johnny finally asked, "And by the way, awesome roar back there," he added, thrilled, "I didn't know you could do that!"
"Me neither." she mumbled, looking unsettled, then dragged her hand across her face, "Ugh, don't tell Dad I did that, please."
He looked at her, confused, "What, he'll be mad?"
"He'll make a big event out of it and give me lessons on how to do it better." she stated flatly. Jonathan then grinned at her, mocking Dracula's accent, "'Mavey-Wavey'," he jokingly chided "'The form is good, but you must project from the back of the throat, showing more of those fierce fangs!' Rawr!" he made a face, pretending to snarl.
She grinned, shoving him, "I didn't look like that!" she laughed.
He paused, "Woah, no wait, I can do it, hang on." he protested, fingers dragging at the corners of his mouth to try and imitate that vicious toothiness. Instead of laughing though, he noticed she was just staring at some point below his nose. "Wha'?" he managed to ask through his facial contortions.
He watched her blush and look away, "You...have nice teeth..." she mumbled, and he stopped trying to mangle his face, bemused, "Thanks. . . I had braces once, y'know." he thought to add, and before she could ask what those were, the mummy woman had found them again, sliding in across from them.
"Sorry about that brat," she apologized, showing surprisingly clean if gapped teeth when she spoke, "He's really not that bad. I think he just got conked by a human's speedboat earlier and couldn't shake it. Don't take any of it personally." she added to Johnny, "It really is fine if you're here."
Jonathan nodded, grinning, "It's cool, ma'am."
Then she surprised them both by getting up and grabbing Mavis by the shoulders and hugging her, "Oh-h-h, you've just gotten so big, baby girl!" she exclaimed, and Mavis uncertainly patted the bony, bandaged back. Then the woman backed off again quickly, chuckling, blue eyes glowing from the head wrapping, "Sorry, sorry, you just―you look so much like your mama."
"You knew her?" Mavis asked, and the woman nodded, and began rummaging at the bandages near her hip, "You bet I knew her. We were what you might call 'sistahs' or 'homies'―that's what they call them these years, right? homies?―way back in the day, until she 'zinged', then I was the bridesmaid," she laughed, holding out some pictures to them, "I'm Mara, by the way."
"Dad never told me about you..." Mavis said out loud, looking over the two pictures, Jonathan looking over her shoulder. One was a small, painted picture designed to go into a locket, showing a little baby Mavis, playing with her feet while staring at the viewer with big blue eyes, little blunt stubs of fangs showing in her gums. Jonathan thought it was completely adorable and weird to see at the same time, but good weird. The other, an old sepia-toned photo, worn at the corners and slightly faded by sun and time, showed Mavis's mother and Mara posing in front of one of the Giza pyramids with fanged and tombstone grins, Martha wearing a big, funny hat to shade her, the both of them decked out in full gaudy Egyptian finery and obviously loving the goofiness.
The mummy shrugged, smile turning a bit wistful, "Martha was the only thing your father and I had in common," she admitted, "After she...after she died, well..." There was a silence between the three of them, Johnny looking with concern at Mavis, who'd stared at the old photograph. "I'm sorry." Mara added. The young vampire shook her head, handing back the pictures with an equally wistful smile, "It's okay." Mavis replied easily, "I'm glad to meet you."
"And I'm glad to finally see you again. Don't the decades just fly?" Mara returned, grinning, before rounding on Jonathan, who jumped as he was startled out of the somberness, "And I want to be filled in on them. A vampire, the cherished Princess of the Hotel, out in the sweet, sunny desert, in a monster pub, with a human." she peered at Johnny, grinning, "A pretty cute human at that. Your lover, Mavis?"
"Boyfriend!" Mavis quickly told her over Jonathan's wordless squeak, the two of them blushing.
"Nuance," the mummy smoothed over, smirking, sitting down again with her chin on her hands, "C'mon, give an old ka something to tell the Sand Gardening Club about!"
Johnny and Mavis looked at her, and then at each other, before smiling and shrugging, and told their story from the moment a Johnny-stein had wildly flown into Mavis. The enthusiasm was shared between them, one sometimes supplying for the other and vice versa, at points laughing or smiling or blushing or cringing, adding in certain parts, carefully omitting others, using broad gestures, imitations and sound effects, and even showing the mummy Johnny's camera. When they were finished, getting some water to slake their thirst, Mara grinned at them.
"You two are adorable, you know that? It's been a while since I've seen such fresh love," she commented happily, bringing up the twin blushes again, "And you've met my husband, too, what are the odds?" she mused, which caused Mavis to choke and Johnny to outright spit-take.
"Murray?!" they asked incredulously, and Mara burst out laughing.
"Oh, that―?! That punk?! Hah, oh spirits no! Oh-h, my gya-hah―!" Mara gasped, laughing breathlessly, fist even thumping the table.
Did mummies need to breathe? Jonathan wondered.
"Hah...bwa-ha-hah... Oh-h no, no, no, I meant that dry old dummy you kids met earlier: you met Ptankh..." she wheezed, recovering.
Jonathan frowned, "Tank?" he tried, and Mara shrugged, chuckling, "Close enough." she allowed.
"He doesn't look like one." Johnny went on confusedly, and the mummy's smirk turned into something creepily wistful, "Oh, he was one, back in the day..." she sighed.
Mavis and Jonathan shifted uncomfortably in their seats as the Mara visibly went off down the back streets of Memory Lane.
Mara suddenly blinked, then shook herself, coughing, "Ahem. Pardon. Well, any way, you two are planning on going on the Nile, next, right?" She smiled as they nodded, "Why don't you hang around this small place for a while?" she asked, "I could give you the local's tour. You know, the old locals." she hinted, grinning.
Jonathan immediately brightened up, "You mean like sewers or something?" he asked excitedly, and the mummy snorted.
"Kid," she began, "If there's one thing to be said about sewers, it's that they're pieces of crap; full of crap. Other things to be said is that they're cramped, dark, and excessively unpleasant places to go through, if you'll remember the purposes for sewers. I don't care what those moving picture things are telling you. No," she grinned, "Around here, we monsters reside in the Underground. We really are in people's basements, kiddies."
They were both staring, Johnny looking psyched while Mavis looked stunned. A community of monsters, coexisting with humans?
"Never heard of this stuff." the young vampire commented, sounding curious and excited.
Mara smirked, "It's a story." she told them, "One best told at the source. You in?"
The couple glanced at each other, then at the mummy, and grinned.
Author's note: Aaand this once again flies out of my hands and looks like it will be another chapter longer. I apologize that I cannot seem to write simple 'sexiness' without wanting to throw in an overdose of context and corniness. Bwuh. Well, c'est la vie.
Sincerely, the hatchling