"I think I can trust you with some simple enough tasks."
Johnny stared in polite incomprehension at the large dining hall before them. A cardboard box full of fat, fall-colored rolls of streamers was roughly placed next to him. Martha looked on at him expectantly, a bright smile on her face.
"Um, I thought Mavis's party wasn't until, like, later this week?"
"Oh, it is." the vampire agreed, "This isn't for her. The Autumn Equinox is around this time, and some of the guests still celebrate it for tradition's sake. They've rented out this space for the occasion, and it just occurred to me, since I have such a helpful volunteer on my hands," she clasped him on the shoulder, giving him a 'friendly' little squeeze and shake that made the human try to stifle a pained whimper, feeling like his shoulder was going to dislocate, "I thought you could do with the practice..."
"That's cool, haha, practice, yeah, all for it." he replied in a strangled voice, giving a pained grimace of a smile, nervously trying to shuffle his way out of her grip.
"Wonderful!" She released him with a light shove to clap her hands together, "I'll leave you to it then, Mr. Planner. Just hang those streamers along the walls and across the ceiling there, there, there, and there, in that pattern, and be sure to clean the floor spotless. If you have trouble with the streamers, the ladder is in that supply closet over there at the end, as well as mops, buckets, soap, and the closet sink. I'll be sure to send someone to check on your progress in a few hours. Have fun."
She swept out, swiftly closing the doors behind her. Jonathan rubbed his shoulder as he stared, then inhaled and slumped in dismay at the closet that was all the way at the other end of the hall, and all the floor it held. This was a really huge room. He jumped with a yelp when the door sharply creaked open again, and Martha leaned inside again, smiling, "One last thing: if I were you I would start with doing the streamers first before you tackle the mopping. It'd be a shame if the ladder were to slip on some carelessly left puddle, causing you to fall and break your neck. I've heard that young flesh golem heads can be very tricky to reattach." She winked at him, before shutting the door again.
Johnny watched it uneasily until he felt she was gone for real, before turning to face the hall again. Grumbling, he grudgingly stomped his way over to the closet, steps echoing loudly until he reached it. "Some 'fun'. Ooh, Mr. Planner, watch out for killer ladders, bleah, bleah, bleah, ooh, Mr. Planner, watch out for breaking necks, bleah, bleah, bleah. Geez," he rolled his shoulders with a grimace, still feeling the strength of her grip and the scary fake feeling of her smile, "What's that lady's deal?" He opened the closet and immediately screamed as a tangling of cleaning supplies fell on him with a crash!
". . . Oww..."
He eventually struggled through the mess to get at the ladder that was all the way at the back of the closet, causing noise all the time to echo awkwardly through the room as he dragged it out. "Gah, freakin'—! Give me one dang - hah!" The ladder retrieved, he managed to stuff the whole mess back into the closet, struggling to shut the door, before dragging the rickety wooden ladder back towards a corner of the room, making an ear-splitting scraping across the probably pretty fancy and expensive floor paneling. It was another awkward moment getting the thing set up, and another figuring out how to untangle the red, gold, brown, and orange-colored streamers. "Some freaking 'fun'." he muttered again. A while later he was trying to tack some of them somewhere to the ceiling. It was quiet in the room and already really, really boring. "For a lady who can walk on walls she might wanna try hanging her own freaking stream—"
"What are you doing?"
"MAAAAGH!" the poor human screamed again, flailing and falling off the ladder, landing uncomfortably in the box of streamers he'd left at the foot of the ladder.
Thwump!
Mavis winced, "Sorry."
"No, hey, Mavis, hi, no problem." he squawked, struggling to get out of the box's trap of streamers as she came down from the ceiling. She yanked him up and out by the front of his shirt, sending the decorations flying, and was already dragging him back across the room towards the doors. "Woah, woah, what's—?"
"What are you still doing here? You were supposed to be getting out." she hissed.
He tugged himself free from her grip, nervous, "No, I know, I-I was, I mean, I was gonna, but your mom was - streamers, I was trying with the streamers and—"
She snatched his hand and tried to move on again.
"Forget about the streamers, I can find some zombies to do it, but Mom's breathing down my neck and I just can't leave you alone if somebody suddenly—"
"Yo, Party Planner!"
The doors burst open again before they could reach them, and Murray strode in with a grin on his face, looking around until he spotted them frozen in the middle of the floor, his eyes brightening up. "Hey, hey, there's my guy!" Then he suddenly noticed them holding hands, and the grin turned a little sly, "Ooh. I'm not, uh, interrupting a little something here, am I?"
"What?" Mavis blinked, then they both looked at where they'd joined hands. Johnny grinned like a goof before she quickly let go of his hand, taking a step away, making him blink, "No! Oh, no, no, you weren't - we weren't - he was just - we were just gonna—"
"Great!"
The mummy quickly slid between them, slinging his arms over their shoulders, smirking at Johnny, "Seein' as Casanova here seems to already be hitting it off, maybe you could give a brother a few tips on picking up some chicks, huh?"
"I-I, um, Murray, right?" Johnny swallowed, seeing Mavis's stare/glare at him from around Murray, "Look, sorry, man, I, uh," he looked around the big empty room, before ducking out from under the monster's arm, "That'd be cool, really, but I already got some 'chores' that...that Ms. Dracula's got me doin'..."
"Psh, she's got you on this? Dude, you were here to plan a party," the mummy protested, taking in the room, "And this don't look like a party to me, I mean, c'mon."
"I know, right?" Johnny chuckled nervously, seeing Mavis's silent, frantic gestures towards the door, and the young vampire girl was confused and slightly frustrated when he held up a finger in a silent 'wait' gesture. He was looking back towards the mess of a closet. "But you know," Johnny went on to the both of them, letting the door open and all the supplies spill out, "She did tell me to have fun. I think I gotta way to kick things up a notch and get this over with..." He grinned at Mavis, "You in?"
"Well, whatcha got?" Murray asked. Mavis stared, still confused and looking a little exasperated. Johnny's grin widened as he held up a mop.
. . .
Martha had only the faintest frown showing on her face as she walked her way back along the halls. Of course as soon as she'd left the boy in there she'd tried to keep an eye on her daughter, to distract Mavis from this unusual 'guest', and yet the child still manages to slip away. If she found Mavis with him, well...
"Johnny?" she called as she approached the doors to the hall, "Johnny-Stein, is it going well?" Maybe if he'd 'accidentally' hung himself with the streamers...
The doors burst out before she could touch them, and a veritable wave of soapy water flooded out from the room, momentarily blinding her. With a startled shriek she levitated, spluttering as the outburst ran and petered out into the hallway behind her. Pulling wet strands of her hair out from her face, her wide livid gray eyes finally managed to focus on the scene in the hall.
The first thing she noticed was Murray, skating past her across the soapy wet floor with sponges on his feet, nearly laughing his head off as he went, streamers trailing behind him and practically woven into his wrappings. Then - her eyes widened even more - were those the Equinox guests?! They were. They were early. No, couldn't be, they were never early, they were always on time. But here they were. Being caught up in whatever this madness was, the streamers were being used for jump ropes, rope swings, limbo, and was that monster over there bungee-jumping from the 18th century Florentine chandelier?!
Mops being used as stilts. Bubbles floating everywhere. A trampoline made of streamers.
No.
No.
No.
NO.
. . .
Mavis was running laps around the ceiling, giggling as she looped streamers around the room again and again, Johnny trying to keep up under her by skating on those sponges, and the thought of it made her laugh out loud as he nearly skated into one of the guests. Skating. On sponges. Seriously, who thinks of that? She thought they'd been in trouble when the guests suddenly showed up - apparently Murray had gotten word out. It surprised her when these old traditional monsters had taken one look at the mess and just joined right in. She'd been reluctant at first, but this...this was actually kind of fun.
She was twirling the streamers down around Johnny, trying to trip him up and wrapping him up like a mummy in the effort, when she noticed the doors were open again, and looked over to see who else was going to join in. Then she noticed her mother, hovering there and dripping wet. Even when Mavis was upside-down and a room away she couldn't mistake the creepy calm stare her mom was giving the room, the one that made her skin clammy and her stomach drop all the way to the floor below, bringing the plan of 'Get The Human Out' all that more urgent.
Mavis suddenly knew she'd been spotted.
"Oh, rabies."
. . .
Martha's eyes narrowed as she saw Mavis on the ceiling, the girl's blue eyes widened before she quickly dropped down into the crowd, out of sight. Mouth pressed into a thin line, Martha was prepared to go in and fetch her daughter before one of the guests came up to her, waving its tentacles excitedly.
"Madam Dracula, ooh, so glad to see you! I just wanted to say, the entertainment this year is outstanding!"
Martha automatically smiled, eyes darting about in confusion, "Ah, thank you, yes, we're always happy to provide."
The guest continued on with an excited "Wheeeeee!"
She tried to continue on, and barely made it a yard before being interrupted again, this time she stiffened in surprise. This one was an esteemed guest who'd been attending the Equinox celebrations for decades. "Ah, Martha, good to see you participating, too," he croaked pleasantly, "The change of pace this year is quite refreshing, and between you and me," he nudged the damp vampire gently with one of his many elbows, "I haven't had this much fun since that time when old Basil spiked the punch bowl. You've found quite the helper this year, milady."
"I - he - w-we're very happy to hear you say that, sir." she mumbled, stunned.
The elderly salamander bobbed his head happily, before sliding off, using a streamer to trail a bunch of younger monsters after him across the wet floor.
Martha watched on in faint shock. This wasn't going according to any sort of plan at all.
Murray was skating around another time, before he was suddenly grabbed by the front of his bandages to be brought face to face with the dripping Lady Dracula.
"Hey, Mar!" he chuckled at her deadpan stare, "Get a little wet?"
"What did you do?" she asked flatly.
"Oh, this wasn't me, girl," he protested, still grinning, jabbing a thumb behind him, "That Johnny-Stein guy you got there, I kid you not, on a scale of 1 to 10 he brought stuff up to an 11. What were you thinking, keepin' a dude like that under a rock?"
"I know." she sighed quietly, releasing her friend to go in the direction he'd pointed. "Evidently I'll have to find a heavier rock next time..."
. . .
Mavis was trying to backpack a streamer-trussed Johnny around the bustling room to get to the doors, she'd done what she could on such short notice, but there was no hiding that shock of red hair sticking up from the mummy-like bundle.
"Kinda hard to breathe in here..." her burden muffled out.
"Just hold it then."
"I can't just hold it!"
"Well play dead or something!"
"I don't think I'll be playing in a min—urk."
Mavis's sudden halt tightened the streamers on him, as her mother was suddenly standing in front of her, arms folded, gently dripping on the floor.
"H-hey, Mom." Mavis squeaked, while Johnny asked what was going on.
"Mavis," she replied calmly, before pointing at Mavis's 'stowaway', "Drop."
The girl swallowed, stepping back awkwardly, "But this's - I-I wasn't—"
"Drop it."
With a pout, Mavis finally obeyed, making Johnny flail in surprise as he was dumped to the damp floor, "Ow! Okay, can't see, what's—?" He was finally free enough to see who they were facing, and went pale under his makeup, "Oh, hi..."
Dracula smiled down at him, which didn't make Johnny or Mavis feel any better, "Clearly this wasn't a simple enough task. Let's try something else. Come along."
Johnny stumbled awkwardly to his feet, kicking free of the streamers, looking nervously at Mavis. She stared back in alarm, before she tried to intervene, "M-Mom, please, it's okay, we were only trying to have a little fun and—"
"Why don't you try and play the hostess for now, Mavis?" Lady Dracula overrode her smoothly, giving her a pointed look over her smile, "Seeing as the celebrations started earlier than expected, and entirely without planning, I'm afraid this is out of my hands. You wanted the experience, right?"
"I-I didn't mean—"
"Mavis?"
The girl looked around nervously, aware of the attention they were close to drawing from the crowd.
Mavis slumped reluctantly, "Right..." she muttered.
"Very good." Martha patted her on the head, making the girl wince, "We'll talk more about this later..." Martha continued quietly, hand on her head, "Okay?"
"Yeah..."
Mavis met Johnny's confused eyes again briefly before he was guided out firmly by the shoulder, and grimaced to herself when the doors closed after them. She quickly searched for Uncle Murray, hoping to get him to cover for her. She'd messed up, and felt stupid for letting Johnny distract her, they hadn't had time for this stuff, and now her mom was definitely going to be on high alert. Stupid Mavis, she chided herself. Stupid, stupid.
. . .
Lady Dracula was already dry by the time they made it outside, glancing to her side to regard the scowling young man as they walked.
"Is there something wrong, Mr. Stein?" she asked idly, raising an eyebrow.
"I just don't get what your problem is," Jonathan grumbled, "There wasn't anything wrong with a little rocking out. And I think you were being kind of mean to Mavis."
He flinched back when she was in front of him, somehow casting a shadow over him, eyes narrow, her face disturbingly devoid of expression.
"How I deal with my daughter is my concern, not yours," Dracula told him sternly, "And my 'problem' is that I gave you a specific, supposedly simple chore that you took completely out of line." She seemed to tense up the more she talked, eyes sharpening, "This hotel has hosted the Autumn Equinox for nearly a century now, respecting the traditions with dependability and order, every year, near perfectly every time, and then you - you come along and you just...!" She seemed to freeze when she saw how Johnny was almost cowering, and found she was nearly looming over the boy. She subtly backed off a little, brushing her disheveled hair back self-consciously, before exhaling tiredly. Johnny blinked when he realized the lady almost looked hurt, until she quickly put on a smile, fangs glinting, almost cheerfully angry, "But I'll let it go this time. Alright? Alright. We'll try something a little easier this time, second chances, yes? Everyone likes those."
She walked on, leaving Johnny standing stock-still for a moment before he followed, mumbling, "Jeez, somebody's stressed..."
He jumped when she looked at him over her shoulder, "What was that?"
"N-nothing."
They reach a large deck kind of thing in one of the castle's courtyards, multiple gazebos interconnected by boardwalks, lit only by tiki torches, the moon, and the lights from the castle itself. She snaps her fingers, and another, larger cardboard box appears next to Jonathan, startling him. He looks at it, and he looks up at the vampire, confused.
"Electric lights," Dracula explained briskly, "I'd like this area decorated with them, along the railings of the decks and the roofs."
"Um, okay." Johnny looked around, noticing it was just him in this large, open, lonely space, "You mean me?"
"Yes."
She was already leaving him there to go back to the castle.
"Wait, b-by myself?"
"Is that too much trouble?" she asked, blinking at him.
"No, it's just - why?"
She smiled dryly at him, "This is where some of her party is going to take place. It'd be good to know if all the bulbs work when they're set up, I'd just like you to check to see if any are burnt out beforehand when you set them up. I'll send someone to check on you later. Stay out of trouble, now."
Johnny's eyes widened, "J-just checking if the bulbs work? But we could just plug 'em in and—"
Too late, she was a bat flying back towards the castle, and Johnny was alone. He stood there for a moment, suddenly hyper-aware of all the sounds being made in the dark. Sure, he knew this was a hotel for monsters, and passed close enough for one himself, but there's still that niggling little human instinct that dark + alone – backpack = not a good thing. Especially now that he knew there were things out there that could potentially eat him. He'd be better off trying to set up these light things quick. He searched through the tangle of electric light cords until he finally found the thing's plug, and then looked around, holding it up awkwardly from the box, before he realized something.
"Hey, you didn't tell me where the outlet was!"
. . .
When Martha returned to the dining hall, she looked around but couldn't find her daughter. She quickly found Murray, though, playing for the crowd, trying to recreate Johnny's style of music on his guitar. Martha fluttered over in bat form, landing uneasily on the headstock.
"Will you stop that noise?" she hissed quietly through a rigid smile on her bat face for the crowd, "And where is Mavis?"
Murray shrugged easily, concentrating on the tuning, "Dunno, sorry. I didn't know you wanted me to bat-sit. Could you tweak that knob there just a bit, Mar? Thanks," he strummed experimentally before adding, "She said somethin' about getting more drinks."
"And you believed her?" Dracula asked flatly, making the mummy chuckle.
"Hey, girl, I'm not gonna get in the way of that. Should've seen 'em earlier, they were really hitting it off, y'know?"
She scowled, "Who's hitting what off? I have know idea what you're - ugh. Fine. Just keep everyone here distracted until I get this sorted out."
"Will do, chief, I think I got it now!" Murray agreed happily, before making the guitar blare out a chord that had the vampire give a startled shriek and fly for the hills. Now out of her bat form and in a bad mood, Martha paced her office, rubbing her ringing ears to try and will her headaches away.
"Where is my daughter?" she asked one of the knights tiredly.
"Hang on, we're looking... And... She's currently searching the dungeons, ma'am."
That made Martha smile slightly. Smart, sweetie, but not quite. This gave Martha some time to breathe. She took a moment to ponder on her daughter's protective stance of this young man. Was it an act of rebellion, or a form of young adult's curiosity? Or perhaps, heaven forbid, an ill-conceived attraction? And she didn't even know what his objective was in all of this. Whatever it was, she just could not trust the boy. Until she could find out precisely what was going on, Martha wasn't going to let either of those two be alone together, or out of her sight...