The gloom had spread to each and every hidden corner of the cemetery, and with the coming of night it seemed as if all sounds of the world had died with the light. But none of this particularly bothered Heisenberg, his eyes - uncovered - were sharp enough to pierce the darkness and hearing crisp enough to hear anything of note. Even when the Village was at its busiest during the day, it was seconds from being a ghost town so there was hardly anyone to cross paths with.
While there was a heathy coating of grave dirt decorating him, he was far from ready to take his clandestine harvest and return to his factory. He had been just about to crouch to examine a grave at random, able to tell that it was not fresh from a glance and so was had instead intending on entertaining idle curiosity, but the sound of buzzing from behind him, the sort that could have been mistaken for angry hornets if he didn't know better, drew his attention away from the final resting place of one Edgar Graedy, which was not a name that was familiar to him and so held no real weight.
"I didn't think anyone would be out here so late," called he to figure he could see out of the corner of his eye, putting on a mighty show of pretending to be oblivious to who it was joined him, "Don't you know they say monsters roam at night?" Even if his voice had not been audibly wavering with poorly contained laughter as he spoke this, an amused grin appeared on his face as he spoke this.
"And if I'm one of the monsters?" the young lady who had manifested from the swarm of flies, leaning lazily against a cracked headstone that had been there long enough for the name to have quite successfully eroded away.
"Then I would have to ask if your mother knows you're out so close to winter." the man returned, finally letting his attention land properly on his niece.
"Mother sent me to find you," Daniela replied, not reacting to the scoff that her uncle offered in reply, "She said you were supposed to have arrived at Uncle Moreau's an hour ago."
The swarm of flies that took the form of a pretty and dangerous red haired woman was not so successfully playing off the fact she was wearing an undeniably impractical amount of layers. On top of her usual attire, which was more for aesthetics and a practicality in the shifting of solidity rather than protecting her against the elements, there was at least two coats making it difficult for her to properly bend her arms, a scarf that seemed a little too long to wear with ease, and a hat to top it all off, and while it all meant she wasn't going to be freezing any time soon, she also wasn't going to be moving all that much either. It was a necessary precaution, of course, but also one that was absolutely necessary.
"Oh fuck, was-"
"Mother said she doesn't like it when you swear in front of us." the vampire cut in, though she was joking even if the actual words were genuine.
"I don't think your mother likes much of what I do," the man returned, "But as I was saying, oh fuck, was that tonight? I thought it wasn't until Thursday?"
"Today is Thursday, Uncle Heisenberg." Daniela said with a touch of a laugh in her voice.
"Well, fuck."
Given that it was, in fact, Thursday and he was late, Karl let out a long, exaggerated to excess sigh as he turned his attention to his macabre harvest. There was no way he'd be able to get the bodies back to his factory then go to the reservoir, not without being even later than he already was.
Damn it all, stupid obligations getting in the way of his work! But he had agreed and so with yet another sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, he relented.
"Tell them I'm on my way, I just gotta finish up here."
It could not have been all that much longer than fifteen odd minutes after the fly swarm dispersed when the somewhat Frankensteinian figure knocked upon the door of his destination. While it was completely to be expected, the fact the door was damp and uncomfortably viscous for a wooden door, and it really must have been bad given that he was wearing gloves and could still feel it. He wiped the back of his hand on his trousers, though this really just meant his gloves were now both damn and now muddy with whatever grave dirt that had refused to fall off him on his brief way over there.
There was a scowl upon his face right up until the very moment the door swung open, the displeasure replaced by a measured, tapped sort of smile. He hadn't even needed to knock, if the quickness of the door being opened was anything to go by, though he would have preferred it if he had been able to collect himself for a moment before his arrival was announced, his niece having had slipped her way in through a cracked open window to let the others know he had finally gotten there.
"I didn't think you were coming. I'm glad you made it even if you were late, but you weren't so late you missed anything so it's okay." the anxiety laced voice of Moreau exclaimed before the door had even fully opened.
"Oh you know, I wouldn't miss it for the world," Karl lied pleasantly, waving a hand dismissively, "I was just caught up, work and all that." This, which was said as he was overeagerly ushered into the television room, was technically not a lie so he at least deserved the credit for that. "What're we watching tonight anyway?"
"I got us Bridget Jones's Baby!"
While the aquatic creature spoke his decision with much enthusiasm, it took a single glance at his family, who he was able to see once he was shoved inside, to suggest this was not the most popular decision. For their credit, however, the varied looks of disgust and disapproval on the others' faces were masked with gritted teethed enthusiasm when the scientific fish happened to look over to where they sat.
It was a safe assumption that a similar expression had crossed the newest arrival's face but unlike the others, he had not been able to mask it under a guise of enthusiasm before his brother noticed him.
"You don't like it?" asked Moreau, the smile on his mutated features - a rare sight if ever there was one - dropping a little.
"Nah, that's not it," Heisenberg replied with a wave of his hand, lying expertly so that a scene was not caused, "I've just heard it is the worst one out of the three. Should still be good as part of the set."
"There's three of them?" the voice of one Alcina Dimitrescu exclaimed from where she sat oddly regally for someone on a couch, "I have only seen one until tonight. That can't be right!" The vampiric lord looked about her siblings to confirm that she wasn't missing out on something.
"I've only seen one too..." Donna added, though her voice was nearly drowned out when the doll that had been doing a good job of behaving herself chattered to life.
"What the hell d'ya think you're playing at?" Angie squealed shrilly. The only thing that stopped her tiny body from flinging herself off the couch to interrogate the others was a delicate hand being pre-emptively draped around her, clearly from too much experience, "You tryin' to keep shitty movies from us? Your own family! Woe and shame! Woe and shame to the fish brother! Woe and-" Angie's screeching, insincere lamentation was cut off by Donna quite literally holding the hinges of her jaw shut to stop her. This was also something that had come from experience.
"No no," the fisherman doctor exclaimed, worried that he had offended the others, "It's just that sometimes when I'm watching movies Karl borrows the television when he's back home so we can watch it together so he-"
"Shut your damn hole! The hell're you talking about?" Karl cut in before his brother could expose anything that might have made him seem like he cared. With an almighty huff, he stamped across the floor to where the others sat.
It did not take long for him to notice that there was no space for him on any of the seats, and that included the occasional, very much not matching chairs that had been dragged out from goodness only knew where. Despite her custom, Donna had placed Angie beside her, filling the gap between her and her big - literally - sister. Moreau's chair was clear enough, as it looked just damp enough to be unpleasant for anything that wasn't amphibian in nature. Despite the fact that the Dimitrescu sisters could quite easily take up the smallest space out of any of them, including the literal doll, they somehow managed to take up the remainder of the seats between the three of them as they flung themselves about in a hedonistic series of heaps.
"And where am I supposed to sit?" Karl near growled, perhaps a little embarrassed still.
"On the floor, like the animal you are," the vampire stated with the same nonchalance that she might have used when discussing a new tea set, "If you had bothered to be on time rather than keep us waiting you might have almost deserved a seat."
"What the fuck did you just-" the engineer began, it not taking all that much of a push for him to choose violence, but he was cut off before he could try to say something smart.
"You were late," Donna informed him, surprising even herself that she had interrupted them herself rather than Angie taking the initiative, "It's only fair."
The man looked helplessly to his brother, hoping that he would feel guilty enough to find another chair.
"You were late..."
With the outcome universally against him, the man let out a series of disgruntled and altogether illegible grumbles as he plonked himself on the ground, legs crossed and making sure it was obvious that he was not pleased with the outcome. Bela tossed a rock she found at him, just to kick him when he was down, which only managed to amplify his grumbles as if a radio playing a station that played exclusively disgruntled mutant man grumbles had been turned up to full.
"Get on with it then!" exclaimed the man, gesturing with far too much emphasis in the direction of the television. If he actually was bothered by the time they were taking, he could have easily begun the movie, but he didn't and so this suggested he was trying to drown out his nieces' giggles at his expense.
"But Mother isn't here yet!" fretted Moreau, his worry obvious in the way he turned his attention entirely towards the door as if he had still managed to hold some feeble hope that their mother - creator - really was going to walk through the door at any moment.
If one were to see the way that the others managed to all flinch and cringe in such perfect synchronisation the viewer would have claimed it was far too staged to look real and had clearly just been done performatively. Ordinarily this impression would have been accurate, however in this instance it had been completely incidental and not at all planned.
In sibling groups - these being Alcina, Donna and Karl, and Bela, Cassandra and Daniela - they exchanged uncomfortable glances with one another, this also coming with uncanny synchronicity, the awkwardness of the moment biting in a way that none of them could deny.
"She's not coming," the man already in the shame spot on the floor stated bluntly and, following several glares that would have been sharper than knives added, "Not this time. She'll come next time, I'm sure." He had managed to sound impressively sincere with this considering he knew that every single syllable that he uttered was even more of a lie than if he were to say he was enjoying having to sit on the ground while everybody else got a proper seat.
"I'm sure that she meant to come," Alcina agreed, lying through her teeth despite the fact that agreeing with Heisenberg was worse than having teeth pulled, according to her at least, "I can imagine she has simply gotten herself caught up." Even the way that she waved her hand managed to be perfectly and completely sophisticated, and perhaps she was exaggerating this a little as she thought she was better than the others and needed them all to know this, and maybe it was just a force of habit by this point.
"If we watch this now, you will be able to impress her with your knowledge when you both watch it together," Donna added, supporting the lie with a complete certainty that there was not a single scrap of truth in anything that she said, "I think that she would like that." She would not like that and the speaker knew this with more certainty than she knew many things, but sometimes, she knew, it was important for a person to cling to a delusion if it meant they were able to hold onto their happiness a little while longer.
Relenting, the Lord of House Moreau returned to his seat and began the film.
"You're wrong and stupid and that should make you sad!" Angie shouted, stamping her tiny little feet on the ground, "She shoulda ended up with that Jack guy! He was super rich and was gonna try and look after them!"
"Nuh-uh! If you think that then you missed the whole 'love finding a way' theme! She could have only ended up with Mark! It just makes sense!" Cassandra retorted with the same volume, practically folding herself in half to make eye contact with the doll she was bickering with while keeping her legs straight.
"That's so obvious it'd be boring! He'd be boring! I know I'd be bored with him! Jack'd just make sense! He'd make things exciting!" The doll was practically clattering with the intensity that she was saying this.
Donna let out a little giggle, a sound so rare that the others could barely recognise it.
"After all her confusion and running around," Daniela replied, agreeing with her sister's choice of love interests from the film, "I think she'd want a bit of boring to make up for it! At least that would mean she doesn't have to worry about another movie being made at her expense if she gets the boring!"
"Jack let her go back to her true love," Moreau pointed out, "He was just happy because she got to be happy. Mark took the time and effort to learn to be supportive for her sake. They were both willing to make sacrifices for her sake so it only mattered what made her happy."
"Only what made her happy?" scoffed Lady Dimitrescu, "Did that pathetic worm, Mark, not betray the heart of the first woman he claimed to love? Surely it just sets her up for more pain and hardships in the future!"
"You don't even know the point of the story!" Angie squealed, trying to scurry up to the largest individual in the room, who nudged her away with her foot, "It says it doesn't matter what the path taken is, what matters is that they love each other!"
"Mother's right," Bela stated, ignoring the scandalised gasps from her sisters, "So what if they got married? He was married before only to ditch her to run off with the next lady wo came by, so why would we think they would end up any different?"
"He left his wife for her! Because he loves her! That's why its a happy ending!" Each of these statements was punctuated by Cassandra swatting - not enough to damage the flies that created her form but enough to be very very annoying - her sister with a pillow, still having not sat back down but had shifted closer to the seat she had claimed as she felt a tad uncomfortable standing in the centre of the room like she had been.
"You're all wrong!" Heisenberg declared with far too much certainty considering it was a cheesy - in this instance literally cheesy as the only things they had in the way of snacks for the viewing came in the form of cheese platters that really were just cheese, no crackers or olives or anything to break the consistency - rom com, "None of them deserved her, she should have just told 'em all to get fucked and ran off to look after the kid with none of that bullshit whodunit! She was better than-" Whatever verbose film analysis he was surely going to utter was cut off as he was hit by a barrage of pillows curtesy of his nieces, who had set aside their differences to chose violence against their uncle.
"I liked the ending. She was happy and managed to win the heart of the man she loved with no hard feelings from the other guy." Moreau stated, fidgeting with a frayed hem on his cloak, making it significantly worse, which he thankfully didn't care all that much about the state of his clothes. People already thought him to be a monster - because apparently monsters cried during fictional weddings from films made in 2016 - and that did nothing to improve his already poor self esteem.
"No hard feelings? Don't make me laugh! You speak as if the manthing's sacrifice was noble! Sure, he let her believe there were no hard feelings but we cannot say what came after the picture came to its end!" Alcina evidently forgot she was not holding a fan, and so the way she waved her hand looked a little less than natural.
"Exactly!" Karl said with a clap, having claimed all the pillows that were used as ammunition against him, finally having something to sit on and so was riding on the high of that enough to not realise he was agreeing with his sister, "After getting run around like that it'd just make sense that he'd be at least a little bitter! There's no way he'd be so blasé about it! And to invite him to the wedding too! What a bitch! She deserved better than both of them!"
Yes, it was true that following the completion of the film each and every member of the little viewing party ended up caught up in their bickerings about it, but that was, perhaps, what made it so important that they did it. Their very real concerns could be put aside for a couple of hours for some silliness that did not come with the weight of the world, and, despite the complaints they might have had about having to go at all, they left with a slight lightening of dispositions, even if it was not to last, and would undoubtedly find themselves waiting for the next day they were to meet up and forget the woes of their miserable existences.