sliceitwithwind | Haunted Housing

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Haunted Housing

In any given town there is always at least one house with a Certain Reputation. In the case of their town the house had two reputations, making it an excellent place for teenagers of all kinds to go hang out.

Yup, the local abandoned house was a haunted brothel. Drab on the outside, but the tales of the inner furnishings promised over-abundant decadence, and it was something of a rite of passage to go there. Break in during the day for hanky-panky, stay overnight for courage.

The brothel had been abandoned a good thirty years before, but nobody could ever figure out, through the tangle of legal red tape, who even had the right to tear it down. So it sat out on the inland edges of town.

Which is of course why Braig decided that since he and Dilan were back from college for the first break, they needed to drag Aya along to the haunted brothel as a bonding activity to make sure she knew that they still were a trio.

Cue camping gear, dusk, and Dilan giggling nervously.

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Aya looked down at her currently bare feet. She tended to shuck her shoes as soon as she could get away with it. As a consequence..."I might have outgrown them? They were kind of tight last year, so either way the furs a bit worn."

"Rabbit it is." Dilan chirped from where he was scrubbing down the floor. For him it was a pretty slack job, he was trying his best to keep it from becoming a "Dilan spent the night cleaning" thing instead of a good memory. "How hungry are you, Aya? I bet I could eat two myself."

"Just one for me, dude."

"I'll probably eat one?" Aya offered after a moment of thought. She had been starting towards a growth spurt, but it just made her appetite fluctuate weirdly. Some nights she ate a lot, sometimes she had no appetite at all...and it was really hard to actually judge.

"I'll get four, then, and share if you need more than one." Dilan decided. One last glance around the room, then he nodded sharply, "Back in a bit. You guys can finish setting up."

He really was trying hard.

"Sounds good!" Aya started pulling the compact sleeping bags out of their packs and laid them in a nice circle. Sure, it was too hot to really sleep in them but they made nice bed pads?

"Should I...set up a place for Veronique? Does she sit?"

"Don't worry about me, dear." the ghost said calmly. Braig added, "We'll probably get most of the night to ourselves anyway."

"Oh...okay." Aya managed not to jump this time! It was actually really weird for her not to know when there was someone around. She hadn't really noticed it before but...yeah, weird.

"Oh, are you busy Veronique?"

"Well. Usually we get to settle in and just...talk after a while? Veronique likes to check up on things so that if something needs repair to keep the place from totally falling apart she can, like, tell us."

"Oh, okay. That's why I was going to make her a spot." Aya turned her attention back to Braig gratefully. "But no big deal. So, what else are we getting ready for dinner?"

"Green salad stuff, drinks, and stuff for s'mores for you and me."

"Dibs on making the salad." Aya called, jumping up to dig through the bags. "What does Dilan get for desert?"

"Tupperware thingy full of huckleberries." Braig says, waving it around cheerfully, "See? Some of mom's friends went out picking. He doesn't know, yet."

"How did they manage to go picking without him finding out?" Dilan had SUPERNATURAL BERRY SENSING POWERS. No, really, he did.

"I have no idea. But it'll be awesome to give him a chance to be surprised."

Braig picked out a couple of things that he knew would still be bothering Dilan and gave them a slightly better cleaning while Aya made the salad.

"There is that!" She grinned and set to making the salad with a will. "We should keep them hidden so he doesn't guess about them until later." Because he tended to gravitate towards berries if he had even the slightest suspicion!

"Mmmm, good idea, babe." Braig put his hands on his waist and turns to look around so that he can figure out a berry hiding place. Eventually he shrugs and says, "Gonna have to just keep them in the cooler. They're behind the muffin stuff, so he won't poke at it until after we're ready to give them to him anyway."

"Although if we leave them there, we get huckleberry muffins." Decisions, decisions...

...yeah, Aya couldn't deprive Dilan of berries.

"No, we get ten hours of pouting and sad kitty eyes." Braig is logical.

"Well, if we're lucky those ten hours would be interrupted by 'But...muffins.'?" Yeah, even she wasn't buying it. "We should make huckleberry muffins sometimes this break though, because I have them stuck in my head now!" She finished putzing around for dinner and grabbed a clean dust rag for herself so she could keep dusting and polishing too.

"How are the muffins going over on campus? Are you guys feeding your classes or just passing them out to whichever starving college kids follow their noses to you?"

"That would be awesome. We can go berry picking later today? Or tomorrow?" Braig thought about it for a while, moving plans around in his head. "People love them. They line up at our door in the morning."

"Totally go picking later today...tomorrow. What time is it?" Hard to tell in the gloom of the haunted brothel. "It can't be midnight yet, so tomorrow."

Awww, muffin lines! "Careful, campus security may decide you're running an illicit bakery! They'd take the lions share in bribes!"

"About ten?" Braig said after a moment of thought, "So, yeah, tomorrow. Campus security is usually first in line. Sometimes Dilan actually makes extra muffins to avoid the puppy eyes."

Dilan heads back in, finally, and holds up a couple of rabbits. "Dinner! I cleaned 'em outside and buried the offal, so we don't have to worry about that." It also let him lick off the blood without dealing with 'eww' faces.

"Tomorrow," she confirmed. "Noonish, when it's hot and the berry smell is enough to make Dilan buzz just by breathing!" Because it was fun to see the goofy grin?

"Dinner!" Aya grinned and held up her hands in a classic 'victory' sign. "So, are we spitting them or slicing and grilling?" Braig was the meat cooking expert, she'd let him decide!

"Heh, awesome." that was all he had time for before Dilan got back so he changed topics to, "Slice and grill. That way we can do them to taste without over-cooking Dilan's part or under-cooking ours. Knife?" that was to Dilan, who passed the knife over and flopped down near Aya.

"Rabbits are getting smarter around here. I am creating super-rabbits through my hunting skills."

"Sounds good to me. I'll get a fire going in a minute then." Aya leeeeaned on Dilan for a moment then turned to start arranging wood in the fireplace. "Well, yeah, that's what happens when you introduce a foreign predator right? The prey population suffers...then adapts. I"ll worry when they decide to start tying up your friends or something."

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