Lukas was feeling pretty good.
He was warm, he was hugging something pretty soft (maybe it was a stuffed animal?), and he was feeling much better than last night-
Oh Notch.
Last night.
Lukas shot upright, eyes widening. Where was everyone? Where was he? This wasn't his room. What had happened? He'd just been so tired after everything had happened where who what when howwhy-
"Something wrong, Lukas?"
Lukas blinked rapidly, before looking down.
He immediately felt his cheeks color.
That 'pretty soft' thing he'd been hugging was not, in fact, a stuffed animal- it was a very sleepy-looking Jesse, the girl in her pajamas and wrapped up in a very tight hug by the blonde. Sitting up must've jolted her awake a little bit, although that neckl-
He paused, before bending down and having a closer look.
Yep... there was a nice choker on her neck. In the center was an iron disk with a small, green jade pressed into the center. There was a thin chain around her neck... but then it looped back around, and then did some sort of strange intertwining until it reconnected with the iron disk. And- well, sure, it was really, really pretty, and it matched her eyes, and she looked very good with a necklace on, and- what had he been thinking about? Oh yeah- why was she still wearing it? Wasn't sleeping with it on uncomfortable?
"Lukas...?"
Oh yeah; Jesse had been blinking at him in confusion.
"Oh. Um... no, nothing's wrong, Jesse. You can back to sleep if you're still tired," he told her, gently patting her hair as if she were some sort of kitten.
"... mmkay. Night, sweetie." And Jesse snuggled deeper into his arms and promptly went straight back to sleep.
Lukas felt his face go even pinker.
Not that he was displeased, though.
Not even a full minute later, the door eked open, and Lukas looked up to see Olivia poking her head into the room. "Hey, Jesse, it's about time we-" She stopped midsentence as she spotted Lukas cuddling Jesse on the bed, blinking at her with his cheeks steadily growing pinker.
"... breakfast'll be ready in half an hour," Olivia finally finished, giving Lukas a strange grin and letting the door slide shut. "I'll- um- I'll leave you to it."
If Lukas had gone any pinker, he could've been mistaken as the Pink Panther.
Dan was walking briskly down the hallway to go get ready for breakfast when he spotted Stampy slowly meandering his way down the hallway, looking totally exhausted.
"Stampy? Y'all right there?" he walked around so that he could see Stampy a bit better and meet his eyes, the shorter boy leaning rather heavily on the wall.
"Tired." With that being said, Stampy slid down the wall, blinking heavily from where he was sitting on the floor, up at the currently gray-haired boy.
Dan just stared down at Stampy, feeling a slight headache coming on as he stared at the shorter boy curled up on the floor and looking like he might pass out any second now. "... Stampy, it's time for breakfast."
"Wake me up when the pancakes are ready," Stampy mumbled.
Dan let out a long, slightly irritated sigh. Only slightly, because it was Stampy he was talking about here. "Stampy, really...?"
Getting no response from the cat-hoodie-wearing boy, he let out another little sigh and looked around to make sure there wasn't someone he might accidentally whack with what he was about to do next.
Of course, there was no one. (Who would willingly be up at this time of morning? Oh yeah, Dan would.)
Stooping down, he looped an arm around the boy's shoulders and then lifted Stampy into the air bridal-style, staggering a bit with a slight grunt- Stampy was a bit heavier than he looked, but still much lighter than, say, I dunno- Sparklez or something. "Alright, c'mon Stampy- it's time for breakfast and you need food," he told the very sleepy other boy briskly.
"Okay," Stampy said, in a slightly sing-songy voice.
"... you are not a morning person, are you." And Dan was off down the hallway, being careful to keep Stampy in a relatively compact space so that he didn't bang the poor boy on a wall or something.
Although I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have minded just banging StAZIRA GET THE FLIP OFF MY COMPUTER
The morning was pretty peaceful so far. The sun was shining after the VERY violent storm from the previous night, the birds were singing, and everyone had basically slept in until ten, so they were all feeling pretty refreshed.
Right now, though, most of the occupants of the room weren't focusing on any of these nice things.
No, their main focus was that Stampy was leaning heavily on Dan, essentially hugging the other boy's arm. Dan was simply looking slightly embarrassed, hair a faint shade of brown.
Jesse was beaming cheerfully at this, though this may have also been partially due to Lukas braiding her hair. It also a bit of a mystery to most of the other 'guests' that she greeted Aiden and Cassie very cheerfully and gone back to letting Lukas braiding her hair. (He was doing a pretty good job- there was a reason his hair usually looked so good.)
"Love you," Stampy mumbled to Dan.
Lizzie was grinning like a maniac, before leaning over and whispering to Ivor in a very loud stage whisper- who happened to be nearest to her- "Stampy's still dreaming. I think he might be dreaming of Dan as his husband."
"Is it that obvious that he has a crush on him?"
Lizzie nodded, grinning smugly. "Yes."
Dan muttered an incoherent 'shut up' in her direction.
"Shhh," Stacy giggled a bit for some reason, grinning before she turned to Stampy and said, in a hushed voice, "Ooooh, do you like Dan~?"
"Mmhm."
Lizzie stifled a loud giggle, before whispering over to him, her own mischievous grin not fading one bit, "And what are your kid's names?"
Now half of the room's occupants were desperately stifling giggles, excluding Jesse, who was simply laughing quietly, or Lukas, who was still concentrating on braiding her hair (albeit with a huge grin on his face).
"Mmm... Jack and Harry."
Laughter was getting more and more acute, as Sparklez chimed in, in his own low voice, his own grin growing incredibly huge, "Do you promise to love and cherish each other as long as you live?"
Dan's hair was now a very vibrant mix of brown and pink, the brown being a lighter shade of brown but still very vibrant, leaning his head into one hand to try to hide the horrible blush coming over his face.
He was kind of failing.
"Yes now lemme just kiss him-"
Aiden abruptly got to his feet and walked out the door. The moment it shut, hysterical laughter rang out, which set Jesse off into a round of giggles, and in turn made everyone else explode into laughter. Poor Dan's hair was so vibrantly brown and pink at this point that it was actually really pretty.
"Um..." Olivia cleared her throat as she came into the room, some maple syrup on her pants and her lips twitching desperately as she tried to keep herself from bursting into laughter, "Breakfast is ready."
Stampy blinked awake, looking around at the roomful of hysterically laughing people, then at a horribly embarrassed Dan. "What's going on?"
"Okay... so... there's a lot we've got to discuss, isn't there?" Soren's smile faded, adopting a more serious tone.
Breakfast had been so much more cheerful than the previous morning's, especially after Stampy's little gaffe (both he and Dan were now blushing their heads off)... but, well.
Now it was discussion time.
"Oh... yes." Ivor cleared his throat, pushing his plate away. "Should we start with that... um... 'final' vision of the... ghosts or whatever they are?"
"Oh... yeah." There was a long pause, before Axel cleared his throat. "Well... they're not dead. That's good, right?"
"What makes you say that?" Mevia asked, sounding slightly surprised by the assertion.
Axel shrugged. "I mean, we saw that vision with them fangirling over something after the one with all the zombies- sooo, that means they didn't die, right?" he reasoned, looking around at the rest of the room.
"Yeah... he's right!" Gill perked up a bit, looking around the room. "That would work like that, right?"
"Well, I don't know..." Harper frowned. "We don't know how the visions work. They might not be in chronological order or anything. For all we know, the one where they were being all excited happened two years or something before the one with the zombies."
A grim silence fell over the audience as they considered that, before Maya frowned thoughtfully. "Do you think that they lived here?"
"Well, it's definitely Ariza's house- she mentioned that at some point," Jesse pointed out. "I'm not sure about the others, though- for all I know, they just visit Ariza a lot or something."
"True... but... if they did die..." Aiden spoke up, voice faltering as his eyes widened, an almost horrifying thought coming to mind.
"... then are they haunting this place?"
An uncomfortable silence lingered, before Cassie cleared her throat a bit, shifting a little bit. "So... about last night." She took a deep breath.
"WHAT THE F*CK WAS THAT?!"
Everyone flinched a bit at the sudden shout, Cassie wincing as she realized that most of the audience was now attempting to lean away from her in case she had another outburst. "I'm sorry- it's just- everything flying around the living room is still on my mind like- what the hell was that?"
"There was... a reaper," Ellegaard said slowly, as if she was trying to piece everything together. "And her ghost... Spooky?"
"Smokey," Ivor automatically corrected her. "And they didn't have a gender. They were just a reaper, I think. Their name was Gray."
"Right, them. And... and they... mentioned someone else towards the end. Dian, or something." Petra frowned, Lukas glancing up from Jesse's braid as he tied the whole thing together. "That's who was... 'possessing' Lukas, or trying to- right?"
"I'd assume so; I don't know why he'd-"
"They. We shouldn't assume their gender."
"They, then," Mevia corrected herself, shooting a slight glare in Isa's direction, "why they would be throwing vases and books and stuff at us all willy-nilly and trying to grab using those- those hands."
Reginald frowned. "Did Gray know that... uh, 'Dian' was going to be there?"
"I think they were just there as a precaution or something- they did mention something about a friend calling in a fav-" Jace abruptly cut himself off, eyes widening in near horror.
"... Jace? You okay?" Petra asked, frowning at the boy in concern and giving him a little shake. Reuben gave a little whine as well, pressing his nose into Jace's hand.
Jace remained stock-still for a few moments, before slowly whispering, "They mentioned being there for the night because a friend called in a favor... and those inky hands that grabbed Jesse and told us to watch the 6th episode at night..." His face grew even paler. "... does that mean someone else has been watching us this whole time?"
Shivers shot up everyone's spines in fear, and even Aiden, Cassie and Ivor exchanged worried glances at that.
Way to make the whole situation so much more paranoid than it really had to be...
"Well... if someone is watching us, they have to slip up sometime," Em said, putting emphasis on sometime. "And when they do, we are getting them to explain everything."
A loud chorus of agreement from the rest of the group, the tension relaxing somewhat.
Somewhat.
"Should we watch the next episode, then?" Gabriel asked, at last.
Petra, surprisingly, shook her head. "Nah, I actually need to borrow Jesse for an hour or so."
Jesse blinked at that in surprise. "Um... okay."
"So, we'll meet in the living room in an hour or so?" Ellegaard asked, looking around at the rest of the room for confirmation. Most of them nodded as well.
Jesse blinked, still looking a bit surprised. "Um, yeah, I guess so. See you guys later. Bye, Lukas, thanks for braiding my hair," and she kissed his cheek and proceeded to quickly exit the room.
Jace looked at a now goofily-grinning Lukas, before over at the door Jesse had just exited through. "... she might've just broken him," he said at last, watching Gabriel, Isa, and Reginald also file out of the room after the two of them.
"I'm pretty sure I did that earlier when I caught them cuddling in bed," Olivia said, taking a sip of coffee.
There was a loud fangirl squeal from Nell and Gill that absolutely nobody was surprised by.
Meanwhile, one of the paintings one the wall switched their eye to stare at them, eye suddenly glowing blood-red.
They'd have to slip up sometime, hm?
Well.
Time to prove that wrong.
"Petra, what's up?"
The redhead took a deep breath, turning around to face Jesse in the armor room. The petite girl simply looked bemused at the sight of Gabriel, Reginald, and Isa also standing around in the room, having a small chat.
"Well, I've been tossing this idea around for a while since we started watching the episodes, but I think it's about time we actually put it into action."
Gabriel, Isa, and Reginald all looked up upon hearing Petra's voice, before turning around, all three of them pulling out a set of weapons- wooden, of course.
Jesse looked even more confused when Petra drew another wooden sword and tossed it to her, her hand automatically shooting out and catching it, although she very nearly fumbled and dropped it.
"Petra, what's going on?" Jesse repeated.
"Sword at the ready, Jesse," and Petra spun on her heel, eyes gleaming in a dangerous way as she grinned at the petite girl.
"We're going to teach you how to fight."
A/N: Sorry, chapter's a bit short, but I really didn't have much I wanted to put in this chapter, so I just decided to leave it short- I'd rather leave it short than drag it out, y'know?
RQTC: I've been relentlessly working on this story haha, do you like the two chapters in the current bingepost?
LunarStarsMoons: I'm glad you liked it! x3 / Cramps are indeed the worst. / Ahhhh. xD
S4SH4L4SH4theGaMeR101: Yay! x3 / What even? Your name isn't even that hard to pronounce!
homeworkoverload: Hi! I'm glad you're enjoying summer camp :3 / Bai!
AquaK13: Lolol sure xD / (laughs) / Dude, your mind is so dirty hahahaha xD / Ahhh, I see. xD / Dogs are cute, though, so xD at least you haven't been called literal shit. xD
RapidSammi: Hehehehe xD / Yeah... / Well, it's while one is super sleepy, so xD / Are you serious? xD / Love ya~
LittleAngelbun: How tf does someone do that -_- / (laughs)
Toni42: It did, unfortunately :/ / I'm glad you liked it! :3 / I know, it just popped into my head.
Dr . MKNoble: Oh no, that sucks xD / I'm glad you like it! :3
x.X. A.L. X.x
