IM FULLY CHARGED && prompt

[beatae]

//permission granted from [member=1264]musey[/member] to do this owo

had it been an easier, quietter decision, mikolaj would have made him home in the outdoors. the cold. the rain. the heat. it did not bother him as long as he were someplace quiet to sleep when his body needed it. taking up the common tradition of a little town home was merely because most of the inhabitants here understood the privacy it came with. all of his windows had been boarded up. his home was barren of anything that could be considered décor or furniture at all.

the only things in his home was an old dusty curtain, now in becks possession, and a small sapling that had come from the ghost boys pet plant.

it ate whatever rodents scurried around the walls as he never really cared to deliberately feed it anything. it was lucky to have a name, ridley, that it answered to occasionally. most of the time it simply waited for mikolaj to return home and waited till he slept so it could chew on his ears. he hadn't noticed, but the tips of both his ears were beginning to bald from the plant biting away at the fur.

now what little he already had was diminished. he had fetched ridley in time as he heard the creaking from the roof and made a quick exit, looking back to see the house cave in on itself. it was loud. messy. dust and dirt bloomed several feet in the air before settling back down. the sapling coughed a couple times into mikolaj's chest before he set it down. the sable shepherd let out a long, tired exhale. maybe he should have done something about those termites... watching them writhe and crawl between the exposed wooden spokes they lived him only fueled his frustration. now he was without his quiet space.

he bitterly scuffed dust in its direction before picking up ridleys pot in his mouth and walking away. no use in ogling when he would need to find somewhere else to keep himself away. far away now... maybe outside of the town entirely? the thought made mikolaj curious about the possibility, listening and keeping his nose up for anything that might be around. he had not gone far, though, when he came to the library's doorstep. it appeared mainly empty an unoccupied for the most part. his senses had caught something within its walls. soft whirring sent almost untouchable vibrations through the entire structure. had it not been for his paranormal abilities to his senses, it may have been impossible to pick up on.

his eyes squinted slightly, something in his head already stewing on what it may possibly be. he followed the vibrations as they grew closer and closer, stopping before an empty broom closet. ridley's pot was dropped rather recklessly as he hurriedly nosed the door open. it appeared as nothing at first until he began to rummage around. he pushed aside brooms and moldy mops to get to where the hose was for refilling the mop buckets. he turned the gear for it, and suddenly the grate began to open up. a smug grin briefly crossed his face.

it was exactly what he had thought. the whirring was ventilation for the bunker. the stillness of the space had once been a home to him many years ago. carefully he made his way down. lower and lower until reaching the cold floors. ridley's pot made soft clup… clup… clup... sounds as she dragged herself behind him. he followed the winding tunnels with his nose and ears, listening to the direction of winds coming from each direction. the walls were slightly warm, as if someone had recently been here. tanglewood's newest hero had spoken of being somewhere underground if he could recall... but he did not think something so hidden away.

he suddenly stopped. ridley bumped into his ankle and grunted in complaint but he did not entertain her. the smell of food, actual real food struck him by surprise. he peered around the corner and entered the first room he saw, disappointed to see it was not real food. only their hero friend, red, sleeping soundly sprawled across a too-small twin mattress on the floor.

he didn't seem so entirely bad, though... maybe he would be a decent person to live with. the bunkers were big enough to fit a whole colony of red's, after all. mikolaj would take up no space at all.

"SPEECH"

♡♡♡
tags

[RED]

[align=center][div style="text-align:justify;width:55%;font-family:verdana;"]Red’s safehouse was rather empty, at the moment, but he’d done well to make it a home. For the most part, he’d pushed a few crates around, and emptied the excess of their contents outside. The main room now had a makeshift table, a few old newspapers spread out across its surface to keep things tidy; a pile of old clothes, likely unused hazmat suits, were bunched together for a seat. A few scattered lanterns kept the room aglow, as he had yet to get any of the light fixtures working - until then, he made do with his poor night vision and a menagerie of bruises on his shins from bumping into one thing or another. Garbage was haphazardly cast aside under the metal staircase.

On the table, a small plant stretched its open maw towards the nearest source of light. It grew pale in the absence of sunlight, but its tendrils and tiny, budding flowers were coming in strong. Laurie, Beck had called it, Laurie Strode. Red thought Strode was a better nickname. Beck had sworn him in as the tiny fly trap’s parent, hissing that he’d do something along the lines of throw his belongings to the gators if he killed it. Now, Strode snapped at the cockroaches that Red was desperately trying to drive out of his new home.

It’s late now, and the narrow space he calls his bedroom is hardly a place to sleep. Bunk beds run down the length of the room, their frames rusted and bent; only a few were left with stiff, thin sleeping mats. If he stacked a few together, he was half as likely to wake up with a world-ending backache - but it still felt like a prison cell. He’d started collecting things: dogeared comic books from the library, plus older, leatherbound texts from the higher shelves, and a shoebox full of goods he’d been keeping on his tool belt. A box of half eaten Twinkies from Beck’s kitchen sat on the adjacent empty bed. It was a weak attempt to make things feel like home.

Red has folded himself neatly on a mattress, and in spite of his delicacy he can’t really stop the frame from sagging towards the ground. (He’s a big guy. These bunk beds weren’t meant for four hundred-something pounds of demon.) And from there, he sleeps, at least until the door creaks and he realizes he’s not alone.

A shiver runs down his back, and as he reaches blindly for the nearest object he recognizes that he left his knife on the table, just outside his room. For a second, he doesn’t move. He was prone to many a nightmare as a child - this could be another dream. If he didn’t move, didn’t speak, didn’t breathe, it would fade like all the rest. Red tenses and holds his careful silence.

There’s a whisper of breath coming from the open door. Careful, padding footsteps sound familiar, but unidentifiable. It’s not a dream. Red bolts upright in the dark.

Of course, he thumps his head against the upper bunk. He gives a frustrated groan, reaching up to rub the sore spot.

Slurring his gestures through his half-awake state, Red squints and makes out the outline of an all-too-familiar face in the pitch blackness. The creature that had attempted to murder Perseus stares back at him, beady eyes reflecting the slightest hints of light that filter into the room. Part of him screams to get up, to fight, because Mikolaj would kill him in an instant if only for the sake of bloodlust - but another part of him reads a plaintiveness in the wolf's relaxed posture. Something's up, and it has nothing to do with the vampire's hunger for blood. Nonetheless, he feels a pull towards his only weapon, and a portion of his brain that was trained for moments like these considers all the possible exits. He sighs. It's too early for this.

Red rubs at his eyes, waiting for them to adjust, and suppresses a yawn. “...Miko, s’that you? What th’hell are you doing here?”